Alessandra Petrina

Cultural Politics in Fifteenth-Century England

This book analyses the relation between politics and the production of culture in Lancastrian England, focussing on the intellectual activity of Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, reconstructing his library and analysing his commissions of translations, biographies and political poems.

Polyglottia and the Vindication of English Poetry: Abraham Fraunce's Arcadian Rhetorike

This article is an analysis of Abraham Fraunces Arcadian Rhetorike, published in 1588 and owing much to Ramuss rhetoric treatises. After an introductory section on the diffusion of Ramism in England and particularly in the Cambridge intellectual circle of which Sir Philip Sidney was one of the leaders, special consideration is given to the composition of the Arcadian Rhetorike as an act of homage on the part of Fraunce to Sidney, his powerful patron and friend. Then the use of quotations in Fraunces work is analyzed. Fraunce, as was the common practice at the time, intersperses his work with quotations from the great poets of classical Rome and Greece (Homer, Virgil), as well as citing the most celebrated poets of his time (Tasso, Du Bartas). The inclusion of lines from Sidneys works, and particularly from the Arcadia, answers a double purpose: the recognition of English as a literary language, on the same level as Italian, French and Spanish, and the diffusion among Sidneys friends of excerpts from the yet unpublished Arcadia – an extreme homage to the recently mourned friend.

“Perfit readiness”: Elizabeth Learning and Using Italian

Any proof that Queen Elizabeth I might speak and read Italian, and indeed, any proof of her linguistic proficiency have inevitably been considered somewhat suspect, since extravagant praise of a monarch might touch on intellectual abilities as a matter of course. Praise bestowed by writers such as Roger Ascham, who was very close to Elizabeth and to some extent depending on her patronage, should be carefully considered: It is your shame, (I speake to you all, you yong Ientlemen of England) that one mayd should go beyond you all, in excellencie of learning, and knowledge of diuers tonges. Pointe forth six of the best giuen Ientlemen of this Court, and all they together, shew not so much good will, spend not so much tyme, bestow not so many houres, dayly orderly, & constantly, for the increase of learning & knowledge, as doth the Queenes Maiestie her selfe. Yea I beleue, that beside her perfit readiness, in Latin, Italian, French, & Spanish, she readeth here now at Windsore more Greeke euery day, than some Prebendarie of this Chirch doth read Latin in a whole weeke.1

Approaching Petrarch’s Trionfi: Paratexts in the Early Modern Scottish Translations

In this essay, Alessandra Petrina explores two early modern Scottish translations of Petrarch’s Trionfi, one manuscript and the other printed. Concentrating on the prefaces and dedications penned by William Fowler and Anna Hume, respectively, she shows how these paratexts underline the connections between the work’s elevated matter, the respective dedicatees’ aristocratic status, and the circle of intended readers. However, they also frame the conceptual complexity of Petrarch’s thought and signal the translators’ appropriation of his poem in a process of ‘transrecreation’ that draws him into an emerging Scottish canon of international works.

Ethics from the Classroom: Elizabeth I’s Translation of Cicero’s “Pro Marcello”

Elizabeth I’s translation of Cicero’s Pro Marcello can be situated at the meeting point between her translation activity as part of her cursus studiorum and her meditation on Latin classics in the years of her maturity. Cicero was among the established models of Latin writing, and the recent trend of educational humanism that had played such a major role in English culture had given a new impulse to the study of his works: Roger Ascham listed him with Varro, Sallust and Caesar as the peak of Latin writing in prose. Here it is posited that this translation served as both a linguistic exercise and a meditation on politics, allowing the translator to reflect on a number of keywords that were central to her political practice.

Introduction: a Monarch in Writing

In the eleventh book of the Confessions, Augustine wonders about the search for past and future in human perception, realizing how both exist in the present, in the here and now. The past, the philosopher tells us, is in human narration and human memory, while the future is in prophecy, in premeditation, and in the images created by imagination (Augustinus, 2007, 11.18.23). The various faculties of the human mind exercise control on three modes of time which all exist in the present: in collective terms, if history and national consciousness belong to the ‘past of the present’, strategy and policy belong to the ‘future of the present’.

The Use of the word monastica in the division of moral philosophy in thirteenth‐century Paris and fifteenth‐century England

The Middle‐English translation of Palladiuss treatise De Agricultura has been published in two different modern editions: the Early English Text Society version, edited by Barton Lodge in 1873 and subsequently re‐printed, is based on what Lodge believed to be the unique Colchester manuscript, now London, British Library, MS Additional A. 369;1 the 1896 edition by Mark Liddell, on the other hand, is based on the superior Fitzwilliam manuscript, now Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Duke Humfrey d.2, which includes a tabula, a Proem and epilogues to some of the books, that is, elements that do not belong to the original Latin text.2 Proem and epilogues make frequent reference to the patron who commissioned the translation, Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, and a large section of the Proem is devoted to a description of the patrons accomplishments: he is not only a wise politician and a valiant soldier, but he is also endowed with all knowledge and virtue; a long list of his accomplishments is provided. Stanza 10 is part of this list: The Middle‐English Translation of Palladius De Re Rustica, ed. Mark Liddell. Berlin, 1896. Palladius on Husbondrie, ed. Barton Lodge, Early English Text Society. London, 1873, repr. 2000.