The Genius of Castiglione ca. 1645-47 (published 1648) Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Il Grechetto) Italian Castiglione made some sixty etchings, all characterized by lively handling and highly personal content. He was influenced by Anthony van Dyck, in whose studio he worked in Genoa, and later by the etchings of Rembrandt, just a few years his senior, working in Amsterdam. Castiglione made this print in Genoa and took the plate with him to Rome in 1647 where it was published a year later and dedicated to Matthys van de Merwede, lord of Clootwyck, a Dutch nobleman and patron of the arts who lived in Italy from 1647 to 1650. The inscription in Latin on the book held by the young man reads in translation 'The genius of Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione of Genoa who invented and made this'. The figure in the print is not a self portrait and the word 'genius' should, in this context, be understood in the ancient sense of a 'guiding spirit'. The seated young man in the print is not a sel