A Theatre for Worldlings, published in 1569 by Henry Bynneman, is a translation of a Flemish emblem book by Jan van der Noot,Het Theatre oft Toon-neel. Van der Noot (1539 or 1540-1595) was an outspoken Reformed Protestant, possibly a Calvinist, and was thus forced to flee from the Spanish authorities in Antwerp. He arrived in London in 1567, joining thousands of other Protestant refugees from the Netherlands. Considered a notable Flemish poet, indeed the first poet of the Renaissance in the Netherlands, Van der Noot’s other works includeHet Bosken(c. 1567),Poetische Werken(1572),Das Buch Extasis(1576),...

The main body of Samuel Daniel’sThe Worthy Tract of Paulus Jovius(1585) is an acknowledged translation of Giovio’sDialogo dell’Imprese Militari et Amorose. Until recently, Daniel’s additional material, his ‘To the Frendly Reader,’ discussing and definingimprese, and his appended chapter ‘certaine notable devises both militarie and amorous, Collected by Samuell Daniell’ were considered to be his own composition.¹

Within the space of four years, however, four independent studies were published which overturn this assumption. In 1968 Pierre Spriet established that Daniel’s ‘To the Frendly Reader’ was translated from Girolamo Ruscelli’sDiscorsoand the bulk of his ‘certaine notable...

See Introductory Note to Giovio...

Geffrey Whitney’sA Choice of Emblemeswas published in 1586 by the Plantin press in Leyden (opened in 1583 and operated from 1585 by Plantin’s son-in-law Francis Raphelengius). There was only one printed edition, but we are fortunate in also having the manuscript version (Harvard MS. Typ 14) which was presented to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester on, according to the printed ‘Epistle Dedicatorie,’ 28 November 1585.¹

The manuscript is bound in sixteenth-century vellum and contains 98 folios. It consists of 197 emblematic drawings in pen-and-ink, sepia, and blue watercolour, with the text of mottoes, poems, and some marginalia (a...