The first English
translation of Castiglione's The
Courtier was published in 1561. Thomas Hoby's English translation (from its original Italian) is often used to this day and can be found in its entirety on Google Books. Then eleven years later, England saw its first translation of this courtly etiquette book into the lingua franca of the court, Latin. It is this 1572 Latin edition of The Courtier that Edward de Vere became involved with.
Think of The Courtier as a sort of answer to Machiavelli's The Prince
– an austere, dark treatise on how to succeed in politics. The book offers Castiglione's
comments on a similar subject matter presenting an alternate, more altruistic
approach to court behavior. There can be little doubt that Edward de Vere was
responsible for the publication, as he himself composed the introduction to the
translation by a man named Bartholomew Clerke. While most Elizabethan
writers/patrons crafted brief introductions of a few sentences, Edward de Vere
wrote lengthy, gorgeously written piece which honors not only Castiglione but
Clerke, too.
