Giovanni Battista Pignatelli was an early sixteenth-century Italian riding master who had influence on horse training and dressage during his time. Taught by Federico Grisone in Naples, Pignatelli inherited his mentor's cruel methods. It was not until his most famous student, Antoine de Pluvinel, began to teach that the humane methods of Xenophon, first written 2,000 years beforehand, were reintroduced.