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THOMAS HOBY'S ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF CASTIGLIONE'S BOOK OF THE COURTIER*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2007

MARY PARTRIDGE
MARY PARTRIDGE*
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
*
12 Holyoake Court, Whitehill Road, Cambridge, cb2 1TPmxp375@bham.ac.uk
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Abstract

The first English translation of Castiglione's Il cortegiano was produced by Thomas Hoby, and published in 1561. Hoby began work on the text during Edward VI's reign, when Italian culture was admired for its progressiveness by the Protestant elite. He translated Book iii as a self-contained commission for Elizabeth Parr, marchioness of Northampton. The book in question had particular relevance for the marchioness at that stage of her career. Having ‘Englished’ it, Hoby did not initially intend to translate the rest of Il cortegiano. He knew that someone else was already engaged upon the project. The identity of this alternative translator has hitherto remained unknown. However, a strong case can be made in support of the candidature of William Thomas. Hoby only embarked upon a full translation after Thomas's execution for treason in 1554. By 1556, he had completed his task, and produced a dedication addressed to Henry Hastings. His choice of dedicatee is generally attributed to a sense of political and spiritual affinity; Hastings moved in the same intellectual circles, and shared the same Protestant background, as Hoby. However, the young man who would later be known as the ‘Puritan earl’ conformed to the prescribed religion of the Marian regime. More significantly, he was the nephew of Cardinal Pole. Hoby and several of his evangelical friends were seeking rapprochement with the Catholic government in 1556. Hoby hoped his translation would commend him to Pole, thus effecting his political rehabilitation. However, the authorities were suspicious of Hoby – and of the stationer to whom he entrusted his book. Doubts were also raised about the Catholic orthodoxy of Castiglione's dialogues. Consequently, Hoby's translation was not published until after the Elizabethan accession.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , December 2007 , pp. 769 - 786
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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References

1 Balthesar Castiglione, The covrtyer of Count Baldessar Castilio, trans. Thomas Hoby (London, 1561), sig. aiiir.

2 Peter Burke, The fortunes of the Courtier: the European reception of Castiglione's Cortegiano (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 62–4.

3 See, for example, Starkey, David, ‘The court: Castiglione's ideal and Tudor reality; being a discussion of Sir Thomas Wyatt's satire addressed to Sir Francis Bryan’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 45 (1982), pp. 232–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Hoby's dedication was dated 1556. Castiglione, Covrtyer, trans. Hoby, sig. biir.

5 Castiglione, Covrtyer, trans. Hoby, sig. aiir.

6 Martin Bucer, The gratulation of the mooste famous clerke M. Martin Bucer … vnto the Churche of Englande (London, 1549).

7 L. G. Kelly, ‘Hoby, Sir Thomas (1530–1566)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) (60 vols., Oxford, 2004), xxvii, pp. 442–3.

8 Thomas Hoby, The travels and life of Sir Thomas Hoby, K tof Bisham Abbey, written by himself: 1547–1564, ed. Edgar Powell (Camden, 3rd ser., 4, 1902), pp. 66–7. See also Conyers Read, Mr Secretary Cecil and Queen Elizabeth (London, 1955), pp. 34, 70–1.

9 Winthrop S. Hudson, The Cambridge connection and the Elizabethan settlement of 1559 (Durham, NC, 1980), pp. 46–60.

10 Stephen Alford, The early Elizabethan polity: William Cecil and the British succession crisis, 1558–1569 (Cambridge, 1998), p. 16.

11 See Cathy Shrank, Writing the nation in Reformation England, 1530–1580 (Oxford, 2004) pp. 143–54.

12 Read, Cecil, p. 114.

13 Lewis Einstein, The Italian Renaissance in England (New York, NY, 1902), pp. 97–8.

14 M. A. Overell, ‘Edwardian humanism and Il Beneficio di Cristo, 1547–1553’, in Jonathan Woolfson, ed., Reassessing Tudor humanism (Basingstoke, 2002), pp. 151–73, at pp. 151–60.

15 R. C. Simonini, Italian scholarship in Renaissance England (Chapel Hill, NC, 1952), p. 7; John L. Lievsay, The Elizabethan image of Italy (Washington, DC, 1964), pp. 7–8.

16 John Strype, Annals of the Reformation and establishment of religion, and other various occurrences in the Church of England, during Queen Elizabeth's happy reign (4 vols., Oxford, 1814–24), ii part i, p. 41.

17 David Starkey, Elizabeth: apprenticeship (London, 2000), p. 87.

18 Paolo Giovio, The worthy tract of Paulus Iouius, contayning a discourse of rare inuentions, both militarie and amorous called impress: whereunto is added a preface contayning the arte of composing them, trans. Samuel Daniel (London, 1585), sig. *iiiir–v.

19 Hoby, Life, ed. Powell, p. 78.

20 Castiglione, Covrtyer, trans. Hoby, sig. aaiiiiv.

21 Susan E. James, ‘Parr, William, marquess of Northampton’, ODNB, xlii, pp. 856–8.

22 Calendar of state papers domestic series of the reign of Edward VI: 1547–1553, ed. C. S. Knighton (London, 1992), p. 22.

23 James, ‘Parr, William’, ODNB.

24 Susan E. James, Kateryn Parr: the making of a queen (Aldershot, 1999), pp. 360–1.

25 Ibid., p. 99.

26 Castiglione, Covrtyer, trans. Hoby, sig. bbiiir.

27 James, Kateryn Parr, p. 2.

28 John N. King, ‘Patronage and piety: the influence of Catherine Parr’, in Margaret Patterson Hannay, ed., Silent but for the word: Tudor women as patrons, translators, and writers of religious works (Kent, OH, 1985), pp. 43–60.

29 Margaret P. Hannay, ‘Introduction’, in Hannay, ed., Silent but for the word, pp. 1–14, at p. 4.

30 Castiglione, Covrtyer, trans. Hoby, sig. bbiiiv.

31 Jennifer Loach, Edward VI (New Haven, CT, 1999), pp. 107–8.

32 Hoby, Life, ed. Powell, pp. 66–70.

33 Calendar of letters, despatches, and state papers, relating to the negotiations between England and Spain, preserved in the archives at Vienna, Simancas, Besançon and Brussels, ed. G. A. Bergenroth, Martin Andrew Sharp Hume, Garrett Mattingly, and Pascual de Gayangos (13 vols., London, 1862–1954), xi, p. 186.

34 Calendar of state papers domestic series of the reign of Mary I 1553–1558, ed. C. S. Knighton (London, 1998), pp. 280, 319–20.

35 Castiglione, Covrtyer, trans. Hoby, sig. bir–v.

36 Simonini, Italian scholarship, p. 43.

37 William Thomas, The history of Italy, ed. George B. Parks (Ithaca, NY, 1963), p. xii.

38 Demosthenes, The three orations of Demosthenes chiefe orator among the Grecians, in fauour of the Olynthians, a people in Thracia, now called Romania: with those his fower orations titled expressely & by name against King Philip of Macedonie, trans. Thomas Wilson (London, 1570), sig. [*i]v.

39 To the best of my knowledge, the only other person to identify Thomas as a candidate was P. J. Laven. Laven made the suggestion in his MA thesis of 1954, but asserted that ‘There is only a thin thread to hang this conjecture upon.’ P. J. Laven, ‘Life and writings of William Thomas (d. 1554)’ (MA thesis, London, 1954), pp. 366–8.

40 E. R. Adair, ‘William Thomas’, in R. Seton-Watson, ed., Tudor studies: presented by the board of studies in history in the University of London to Albert Frederick Pollard (London, 1924), pp. 133–60, at pp. 133–7.

41 The chronicle and political papers of King Edward VI, ed. W. K. Jordan (London, 1966), p. 25.

42 Ecclesiastical memorials, relating chiefly to religion, and the reformation of it, and the emergencies of the Church of England, under King Henry VIII King Edward VI and Queen Mary the First, ed. John Strype (3 vols., London, 1721), ii, 100–2. The Common Places were derived from Machiavelli.

43 Ibid., appendix, pp. 75–7, 67–70.

44 Thomas Hancock, ‘Autobiographical narrative of Thomas Hancock, minister of Poole’, in John Gough Nichols, ed., Narratives of the days of reformation, chiefly from the manuscripts of John Foxe the martyrologist; with two contemporary biographies of Archbishop Cranmer (Camden 1st ser., 77, 1859), pp. 71–84, at p. 84.

45 Anon., The chronicle of Queen Jane, and of two years of Queen Mary, and especially of the rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyat, ed. John Gough Nichols (Camden, o.s., 48, 1850), pp. 63–76. It is significant that Thomas died in 1554, whereas Morison, Ponet, and Courtenay all died in 1556, the year in which Hoby composed his dedication, having finished his work upon Books I, II, and IV. If he had not even considered making these translations until March, August, or September 1556, he must have finished them within a remarkably short space of time. It seems more plausible, instead, that he heard of Thomas's death in the summer of 1554, and subsequently began work on the project that Thomas had been unable to complete. The first modern editor of the ‘Englished’ Covrtyer, Walter Raleigh, highlighted an entry in Hoby's journal for 1554–5: ‘The writing begun the xviiith of November I ended the ixth of Februarie.’ According to Raleigh, ‘That this writing was the translation of the Book of the Courtier seems hardly open to question.’ Walter Raleigh, ‘Introduction’, in Balthesar Castiglione, The book of the courtier, trans. Thomas Hoby (London, 1900), xxxvi.

46 Virginia Cox, The Renaissance dialogue: literary dialogue in its social and political contexts, Castiglione to Galileo (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 9–10. One of the reviewers of this article pointed out that English dialogues often featured only two protagonists. See, for example, Roger Ascham's Toxophilus (London, 1545) – a self-consciously English work that celebrated the traditional English skill of archery.

47 Adair stated that the Italian version was the original; Laven disputed this assumption, but suggested that Thomas probably translated the English text into Italian himself. Adair, ‘Thomas’, p. 149; Laven, ‘Life and writings of Thomas’, pp. 75–87.

48 Laven, ‘Life and writings of Thomas’, pp. 30–6.

49 Literary remains of King Edward the sixth, ed. John Gough Nichols (2 vols., London, 1857), I, p. 335.

50 Thomas, History of Italy, ed. Parks, p. 127.

51 William Thomas, Principal rvles of the Italian grammer, with a dictionarie for the better vnderstandyng of Boccace, Petracha, and Dante: gathered into this tongue by William Thomas (London, 1550; facsimile reproduction Menston, 1968), [i–iii].

52 Hoby, Life, ed. Powell, p. 4.

53 Laven, ‘Life and writings of Thomas’, p. 66.

54 Hoby, Life, ed. Powell, p. 66.

55 Laven, ‘Life and writings of Thomas’, p. 367.

56 Calendar of state papers domestic series Mary, p. 299.

57 Thomas, Principal Rvles, [i].

58 William Thomas, The vanitee of this world (London, 1549), sig. aiir.

59 Hoby, Life, ed. Powell, p. 126.

60 Calendar of state papers domestic series Mary, pp. 140–1.

61 Calendar of letters … relating to the negotiations between England and Spain, xii, pp. 259, 214, 239, 270.

62 Ibid., p. 267.

63 Hoby, Life, ed. Powell, p. 5.

64 Bucer, Gratulation … vnto the Churche of Englande, sig. aiiir.

65 ‘The letters of Richard Scudamore to Sir Philip Hoby, September 1549–March 1555’, ed. Susan Brigden (Camden, 4th ser., 30, 1990), pp. 67–148, at p. 147.

66 Calendar of letters … relating to the negotiations between England and Spain, xi, p. 366.

67 Ibid., p. 55. David Loades suggests that Huntingdon may also have wished to eliminate a local rival. See D. M. Loades, Two Tudor conspiracies (Cambridge, 1965), pp. 31–3.

68 Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London, ed. John Gough Nichols (Camden, o.s., 53, 1852), p. 87.

69 The correspondence of Reginald Pole, ed. Thomas F. Mayer (3 vols., Aldershot, 2002–4), iii, p. 72.

70 Claire Cross, The Puritan earl: the life of Henry Hastings third earl of Huntingdon, 1536–1595 (London, 1966), pp. 3–21.

71 Ibid., p. 19.

72 Castiglione, Covrtyer, trans. Hoby, sig. Bir.

73 Hoby, Life, ed. Powell, p. 126.

74 Hoby's dedication also referred to ‘The honour and entertainment that your noble Auncestors shewed Castilio the maker whan he was in this realme.’ Castiglione, Covrtyer, trans. Hoby, sig. aiiiv.

75 Thomas F. Mayer, Reginald Pole: prince and prophet (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 235, 252–301.

76 Ibid., pp. 48–9, 105, 50–2.

77 John Foxe, Actes and monuments … newly reuised and recognised, partly also augmented, and now the fourth time agayne published (2 vols., London, 1584), ii, p. 1973.

78 Walter Haddon and Iohn Foxe, Against Ierome Osorius byshopp of Siluane in Portingall and against his slaunderous inuectiues an aunswere apologeticall: for the necessary defence of the euangelicall doctrine and veritie (London, 1581), sig. 77v.

79 Foxe, Acts and monuments, ii, p. 1973.

80 Hoby, Life, ed. Powell, p. 26.

81 Mayer, Pole, p. 116.

82 Ibid., p. 120.

83 See Overell, ‘Edwardian humanism and Il Beneficio di Cristo’.

84 Mayer, Pole, p. 332.

85 Pauline Croft, ‘The new English church in one family: William, Mildred and Robert Cecil’, in Stephen Platten, ed., Anglicanism and the western Christian tradition: continuity, change and the search for communion (Norwich, 2003), pp. 65–89, at pp. 68–9.

86 The text, along with Ascham's handwritten letter of dedication, is in St John's College Library in Cambridge. I would like to thank the College for allowing me to view it.

87 Correspondence of Pole, ed. Mayer, iii, p. 121.

88 Ibid., ii, p. 306.

89 Ibid., ii, p. 379.

90 Ibid., iii, p. 287.

91 Castiglione, Covrtyer, trans. Hoby, sigs. dd. iiv, dd. iiir, ff. iiv.

92 Ibid., sig. ff. iiv.

93 Burke, Fortunes of the Courtier, pp. 47–56.

94 Castiglione, Covrtyer, trans. Hoby, sig. aaair.

95 Ibid., sig. aaaiv.

96 Elizabeth Evenden, ‘Seres, William (d. 1578×80)’, ODNB, xlix, pp. 773–4.

97 Transcript of the registers of the Company of Stationers of London, 1554–1640, ed. Edward Arber (5 vols., London, 1875), i, xxxii–xxxiii.

98 Ibid., i, 3v.

99 Ibid., i, xxviii.

100 Peter Blayney, ‘William Cecil and the stationers’, in Robin Myers and Michael Harris, eds., The Stationers’ Company and the book of trade, 1550–1990 (Winchester, 1997), pp. 11–34, at p. 26.

101 Hoby, Life, ed. Powell, pp. 126–7.

102 Castiglione, Covrtyer, trans. Hoby, sig. aiir.

103 Burke, Fortunes of the courtier, p. 104. See pp. 99–116 for a discussion of the censorship to which Castiglione's work was subjected.

104 The Stationers' Charter did not represent a premeditated attempt by the government to boost its policing powers. The Stationers sought and procured incorporation to enhance their authority and protect their professional interests. See D. F. MacKenzie, ‘Printing and publishing, 1557–1700: constraints on the London book trade’, in Lotte Hellinga, J. B. Trapp, John Barnard, D. F. MacKenzie, and Maureen Bell, eds., The Cambridge history of the book in Britain (4 vols., Cambridge, 1999–), iv, pp. 553–67, at p. 554. However, David Loades has observed that ‘the government depended heavily on the cooperation of the company in controlling subversive publication’. David Loades, Politics, censorship and the Reformation (London, 1991), p. 104.

105 Alec Ryrie, ‘Cawood, John (1513/14–1572)’, ODNB, x, pp. 685–6.

106 Loades, Politics, censorship and the Reformation, p. 117.

107 Mary I, By the kynge and the quene whereas dyuers bokes filled bothe with heresye, sedityon and treason, haue of late, and be dayly, brought into this realme … and some also couertly printed within this realme (London, 1558).

108 Mary I, By the kyng and the quene where as by the statute made in the seconde yeare of Kynge Henry the fourth, concernyng the repression of heresies (London, 1555).

109 Registers of the Company of Stationers, ed. Arber, i, 62.

110 See Eleanor Rosenberg, Leicester: patron of letters (New York, NY, 1955), pp. 3–7.

111 Giovanni della Casa, Galateo, trans. Robert Peterson (London, 1576), sigs. aiir–aiiir.

112 Foxe, Acts and monuments, ii, p. 1397.

113 Ibid., i, sigs. *iijr, *iiijr.

114 See, for example, Jasper Ridley, The life and times of Mary Tudor (London, 1973), pp. 165–85.

115 As Patrick Collinson observed, ‘Elton found it hard to deal with religious ardour … unless he could subject it to a more human and less worthy reductionism’. Patrick Collinson, ‘Elton, Sir Geoffrey Rudolph [formerly Gottfried Rudolph Otto Ehrenberg] (1921–1994), historian’, ODNB, xviii, pp. 349–54, at p. 352.

116 Croft, ‘New English church’, p. 65.