Shakespeare and the Emblem Writers / an exposition of their similarities of throught and expression, preceded by a view of emblem-literature down to A.D. 1616

by Henry Green

Dutch or Flemish.
Van Ghelen	Flemish translation, Navis stultorum.	...	Anvers	1584 v.
Coörnhert	Recht Ghebruyck ende Misbruyck van tydlycke Have.	4to	Leyden	1585 v.
Spanish.
Manuel	El conde Lucanor (apologues & fables).	4to	Sevilla	1575 v.
Boria	Emprese Morales	4to	Praga	1581 k.
Guzman	Triumphas morales (nueuamente corregidos).	8vo	Medina	1587 t.
Horozco	Emblemas Morales	8vo	Segovia	1589 t.

Don Juan Manuel was a descendant of the famous Alphonso V. His work consists of forty-nine little tales, with a moral in verse to each. It is regarded, says the Biog. Univ. vol. xxvi. p. 541, “as the finest monument of Spanish literature in the sixteenth century.” There are earlier editions of Francisco de Guzman’s Moral Triumphs, as at Antwerp in 1557, but the edition above named claims to be more perfect than the others. Horozco y Covaruvias was a native of Toledo, and died in 1608; one of his offices was that of Bishop of Girgenti in Sicily. In 1601 he translated his Emblems into Latin, and printed it under the title of Symbolæ Sacræ.

English.
Bynneman’s	Translation of Vander Noot’s Theatre.	8vo	London	1569 v.
North	The Morall Philosophie of Doni	4to	London	1570 v.
Daniell	The worthy tract of Paulus Jovius, &c.	8vo	London	1585 k.
Whitney	A Choice of Emblemes, &c.	4to	Leyden	1586 k.

Henry Bynneman, whose name is placed before the version of Vander Noot’s Theatre, is not known with any certainty to have been the translator. He was a celebrated printer in London from about 1566 to 1583. Sir Thomas North, to whose translation of Plutarch, Shakespeare was largely indebted, was probably an ancestor of the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal under Charles II. Samuel Daniell enjoyed considerable reputation as a poet, and on Spenser’s death in 1598, was appointed poet-laureate to the Queen. Of Whitney it is known that he was a scholar of Oxford and of Cambridge, and that his name appears on the roll of the university of Leyden. He was a native of Cheshire, and died there in 1601. It may be added that an edition of Barclay’s Ship of Fooles was in 1570 “Imprinted at London in Paules Churchyarde by John Cawood Printer to the Queenes Maiestie.”

Thus, in the period between Shakespeare’s birth and his full entry on his dramatic career, we have named above sixty persons, many of great eminence, who amused their leisure, or indulged their taste, by composing books of Emblems; had we named also the editions of the same authors, within these twenty-five years, they would have amounted to 156, exclusive of many reprints from other authors who wrote Emblems between A.D. 1500 and A.D. 1564.

II.—Shakespeare’s Dramatic Career comprises another period of twenty-five years,—from 1590 to 1615. From the necessity of the case, indeed, few, if any of the Emblem writers and compilers towards the end of the time could be known to him, and any correspondence between them in thoughts or expressions must have been purely accidental. For the completion of our Sketch, however, we proceed to the end of the period we had marked out. And to save space, and, we hope, to avoid tediousness, we will continue the tabulated form adopted in the last Section.

Italian.
Bernardetti	Giornata prima dell’ Imprese	...	...	about 1592 v.
Capaccio	Delle Imprese trattato, in tre libri diviso.	4to	Napoli	1594 k.
Tasso	Discorsi del Poeme	4to	Napoli	1594 k.
Porri	Vaso di verita ... dell’ antichristo	4to	Venetia	1597 v.
Dalla Torre	Dialogo	4to	Trivegi	1598 k.
Caputi	La Pompa	4to	Napoli	1599 k.
Zoppio	La Montagna	4to	Bologna	1600 k.
Belloni	Discorso	4to	Padova	1601 k.
Chiocci	Delle imprese, e del vero modo di formarle.	...	...	1601 v.
Pittoni	Imprese di diversi principi, &c. (reprint).	fol.	Venezia	1602 v.
Ripa	Iconologia, &c., Concetti, Emblemi, ed Imprese.	4to	Roma	1603 k.
”	” ” ”	4to	Siena	1613 t.
Vænius	Amorum Emblemata, in Latin, English, and Italian.	obl. 4to	Antverp	1608 k.t.
Glissenti	Discorsi morali ... contra il dispiacer del morire, &c.	4to	Venetia	1609 v.

Giulio Cesare Capaccio, besides his Neapolitan History, and one or two other works, is also the author of Il Principe, Venetia, 1620, a treatise on the Emblems of Alciatus, with more than 200 political and moral notices. Torquato Tasso is a name that needs no praise here. Of Alessio Porri I have found no other mention; and I may say the same of Gio. Dalla Torre, of Ottavio Caputi, and of Gio. Belloni. Melchior Zoppio, born in 1544 at Bologna (Biog. Univ. vol. lii. p. 430), was one of the founders of the Academia di Gelati, in his native town. Battisti Pittoni was a painter and engraver, who flourished between 1561 and 1585. The extensive work of Cesare Ripa of Perugia, which has passed through about twenty editions in Italian, Latin, Dutch, Spanish, German, and English, is alphabetically arranged, and treats of nearly 800 different subjects, with about 200 devices. Otho van Veen, or Vænius, belongs to Holland, not to Italy,—and his name appears here simply because his Emblems of Love were translated into Italian. Fabio Glissenti in 1609 introduced into his work (Brunet, iii. c. 256, 7) twenty-four of the plates out of the forty-one which adorned an Italian edition of the Images of Death in 1545.

French.
Desprez	Théatre des animaux ... actions de la vie humaine.	4to	Paris	1595 v.
Boissart	Mascarades recueillies, Geyn (J. de) Opera.	4to	...	1597 v.
Emblesmes	Emblesmes sus les Actions—du Segnor Espagnol.	12mo	Mildelbourg	1605 k.
Hymnes	Hymnes des vertus ... par belles et délicates figures.	8vo	Lyon	1605 v.
Vænius	Amorum Emblemata (Latin,Italian, and French).	4to	Antverpiæ	1608 v.
Vasseur	Les Devises des Empereurs Romains, &c.	8vo	Paris	1608 t.
”	Les Devises des Rois de France.	...	Paris	1609 v.
Valence	Emblesmes sur les Actions—du Segnor Espagnol.	8vo	...	1608 k.
Rollenhagen	Les Emblemes ... mis en vers françois.	4to	Coloniæ	1611 v.
Dinet	Les cinq Livres des Hiéroglyphiques.	4to	Paris	1614 v.
De Bry	Pourtraict de la Cosmographie morale.	4to	Francfort	1614 v.

Robert Boissart, a French engraver (Bryan, p. 90) flourished about 1590, and is said to have resided some time in England. Of Vænius, so well known, there is no occasion to speak here. Jacques de Vasseur was archdeacon of Noyon, celebrated as the birth-place of Calvin, and in 1608 also published another work in French verse, Antithises, ov Contrepointes du Ciel & de la Terre. Desprez and Valence are unknown save by their books of Emblems. Pierre Dinet is very briefly named in Biog. Univ. vol. ii. p. 371; and Rollenhagen and De Bry will be mentioned presently.