When Pictro Aretino moved into the Palazzo Bollani facing onto the Grand Canal, and within sight of the Rialto Bridge in 1529, he was sure he had found in Venice a haven from the political uncertainty of the rest of Italy, and in the house, a spiritual inspiration for his literary activities. His letter to his landlord, Domenico Bollani, of October 27, 1537, is an eloquent panegyric of the scenic beauties offered by the position of the house on that ‘più bella strada del mondo.’

When dealing with artists active during periods of crises and turmoil, it is not only desirable, but advantageous for art historians to examine their works within the given historical context. There arc few artists to whom this approach can be applied more beneficially than to Peter Bruegel, the Elder.

Living his last years (d. 1569) in Brussels during a period of intense conflict between Netherlandish Protestants and the forces of Catholic Spain, during a period when religious motives and nationalist interests were barely discernible from each other, it would be surprising indeed if so acute an observer of his surroundings as Bruegel did not give specific visual expression to the events of his time.

Since 1963, when I published in Renaissance News (XVI,4, 298-307) a supplement to my Catalogue of Italian Plays, 1500-1700 in the University of Toronto Library (University of Toronto Press, 1961), the collection has been enriched by some fifty plays. Particularly interesting are the first Italian translation of Aristophanes; a group of the musical plays whose vogue grew steadily during the seventeenth century; and a couple of examples, Italian and Latin, of the other new musico-dramatic form of the period, the oratorio. Noteworthy also is Benetti's Scherno di Giove, a curious blending of mythology and commedia dell'arte which survived in the ‘classical’ burlesques of the Victorian theatre.

Among the numerous men of letters patronized by James I, few held a place so close to the king during the early years of his reign as the Scottish-French Neo-Latinist John Barclay. Yet none of the biographical studies of Barclay to date have attempted to collect with any thoroughness the pertinent information regarding the author's ten years (1605-15) at the British court. It seems worthwhile then to present here such information about Barclay's period of service to the king as can be gleaned from the few records available.

After the translators of the Authorized Version of the Bible had finished their work, six men, according to Anthony Walker, or twelve, according to the report of the Synod of Dort, assembled at Stationers’ Hall to survey and revise the whole work; for, as the translators apprised their readers in the preface to the AV, ‘neither did we disdain to revise that which we had done, and to bring back to the anvil that which we had hammered.’ Anthony Walker, in his sketch of the life of John Bois, reports: ‘Whilst they were imployed in this last businesse, he, & he only, took notes of their proceedings: which notes he kept till his dying day.’ The notes, it has been thought, were lost.

Of the many fifteenth-century printers, none is better known than Aldus Manutius, and rightfully so, because few of his contemporaries could match him in the excellence of his craft and none in his humanistic endeavors. Therefore, it is not at all surprising that his activities at Venice have been carefully investigated and reported by scores of competent scholars. Yet his early years, and especially his ancestry, have remained obscure.

The majority of present-day scholars, when confronted with the problem of Aldus' ancestry, either admit defeat, or tacitly avoid the subject. Some venture to make exaggerated claims on insufficient evidence, no doubt spurred by local patriotism, in order to bring glory to their native place. But to my knowledge nobody has provided documented proof for Aldus' ancestry, even though the direction of inquiry had already been set forth by Enrico Lambiasi in 1911.