The work of the Italian diplomat, writer and poet Baldassare Castiglione (1478–1529) “The Courtier,” combining memories of the court life of the Duchy of Urbino at the beginning of the 16th century with reflections on the morality, purpose, and style of behavior of a nobleman close to the sovereign, is one of those books of the Renaissance that did not lose popularity over subsequent centuries and delighted the brilliant minds of their own and future centuries. For the history of culture, Castiglione's work was a true treasury, and it is difficult to imagine how much more meager the knowledge of posterity about the Renaissance would have been if it had not been created. Compiled in the form of a collection of entertaining and witty conversations, this brightly and naturally written work goes beyond the scope of the source of information about court entertainments of his time and a list of the merits of a perfect courtier as a comprehensively educated and refined person, ideal from the point of view of humanistic ideas. Creating “The Courtier” almost simultaneously with Machiavelli’s famous treatise “The Prince,” Castiglione demonstrates a fundamentally different approach to the question of what real politics is and the person who makes it. Surprisingly, during the almost five hundred year history of this famous book, not a single complete translation into Russian, only separate fragments were published. And now, finally, we have the opportunity to get acquainted with the famous monument of literature in full translation.