Sir Thomas Hoby

Sir Thomas Hoby (born 1530, Leominster, Herefordshire, Eng.—died July 13, 1566, Paris, France) was an English diplomat and translator of Baldassare Castiglione’s Il libro del cortegiano (“The Book of the Courtier”).

Educated at Cambridge, Strasbourg, and Padua, Hoby traveled extensively on the European continent. Given court employments in England under King Edward VI, he went into exile during the reign of Mary I. While in exile he translated Castiglione’s work, which he published as The Courtyer of Count Baldesser Castilio in 1561. The influence of Hoby’s translation in England was enormous, not only on the social pattern of life at court but on such writers as Shakespeare and Sir Philip Sidney. Hoby also translated a Latin work on the Church of England. He was knighted by Elizabeth I in 1566 and sent to Paris as English ambassador. He died that same year. Hoby’s diary was first published in 1902 as The Travels and Life of Sir Thomas Hoby.