Hoby’s translation is prefaced with a dedicatory letter which is addressed to Henry Hastings (1536?–1595), fifth Baron Hastings, a noted Protestant intellectual who had reportedly been educated alongside Edward VI. Hoby uses this letter to set out his aims as a translator of Castiglione’s work. He mentions that it has already ‘haunted all the Courtes of Christendome’ in three languages, by which he means the Italian original and the Spanish (1534) and French (1537) translations that preceded his own. Now, thanks to Hoby’s translation, ‘hee is beecome an Englishman (which many a longe tyme have wyshed, but fewe attempted and none atchieved).’ The book’s contents, Hoby tells his patron, will serve both men and women as ‘a storehouse of most necessary implements for the conversacion, use, and training up of man’s life with Courtly demeaners.’

Later in the letter, Hoby defends the practice of translating works into the vernacular, which he claims Englishmen tend to despise but other nations, particularly the Italians, practice to great acclaim. ‘Knowledge may be obtained in studying onely a mannes owne native tunge. So that to be skilfull and exercised in authours translated, is no lesse to be called learning, then in the very same in the Latin or Greeke tunge.’ Hoby insists in particular on the democratising power of translation, that provides ‘vertuous exercise of the unlatined to come by learning’, to the benefit of all society.

The close of his dedication is a masterclass in Castiglionian ‘sprezzatura’, as Hoby decries his ‘unskylfulnesse’ as a translator, but notes that he has been begged to produce the work by many young men and could not refuse their entreaties.

Thomas Hoby (trans.), The Courtyer of Count Baldessar Castilio (London: William Seres, 1561), sig. A3^r. Cambridge University Library, LE.6.88.