Educazione linguistica di un giovane cortegiano, Camillo Castiglione

Camillo Castiglione, ­Baldassarre’s firstborn son who lost his mother when he was only three years old, grew up in Mantua under the care of his grandmother Aloisia Gonzaga. His father, engaged almost full-time in relentless diplomatic activity in Rome on behalf of the Gonzaga family, undertook to educate the ­child from a distance, and through his correspondence he suggested tutors, teachers, riding instructors and clothes for the young Camillo. These letters reveal real traces, both domestic and pedagogical, of his desire as pursued in the Cortegiano to form a perfect courtier from the very earliest years of his life, as they offer advice on the elegance of ­one’s dress, the posture to be used on horseback, and the behavior to be adopted on official occasions, as well as advice on linguistic education, the importance of Greek and good pronunciation of the vernacular. This study includes the publication of ­Camillo’s first letter that has ­come down to us (1524, April 15), as an example of a ­­child’s letter-writing style that can be seen to be already influenced by the phonetics and morphology of Tuscany.