From the Library of a King-in-Waiting
LIVY, Titus; Philemon HOLLAND (translator). The Romane Historie … Also, the Breviaries of L. Florus: with a Chronologie to the whole Historie: and the Topographie of Rome in old time. Translated out of Latine into English, by Philemon Holland, Doctor in Physicke. London: Adam Islip. 1600.
Folio. Contemporary English calf, covers gilt and blind ruled to a panel design, with gilt central lozenge at centres, and devices of fleur-de-lys with crowns at corners (see below), ties and endpapers renewed, corners skilfully restored, sometime sympathetically rebacked, spine with gilt raised bands, centre tools and black morocco gilt lettering piece; pp. [10], 804, 809-1351, 1354-1403, [43], large woodcut printer's device to title page, woodcut portraits of Elizabeth I to verso of title-page, and of Livy on verso of A4, woodcut initials, head-, and tailpieces throughout; contemporary ink marginalia and underlining to 8 pp.; extremities and boards slightly rubbed; bound without first blank, final blank partly torn away, a little browning mainly to margins, occasional stains, outer corners of first three leaves restored (not affecting text), outer corners and lower margin of final three leaves reinforced; overall a very good copy.
First edition of the first complete translation of Livy into English, possibly bound for the library of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, eldest son and heir apparent of James I, and brother of Charles I.
Philemon Holland (1552-1637) was one of the foremost translators of the time and showed a great facility in rendering the Latin into accessible English. His later edition of Pliny was one of Shakespeare's sources for Othello and Kenneth Muir, in The Sources of Shakespeare's Plays (1977), suggests that Book Two of Holland's Livy could have been partly behind Coriolanus. The Livy was his first published translation. 'Holland claimed to have written the whole manuscript with the same pen - "a monumental pen", says Fuller, which "he solemnly kept", and which ultimately was enclosed in silver by a lady of his acquaintance' (ODNB).
Holland's Livy later became an important text during the English Civil War for constitutional theorists such as Sir Francis Nethersole, Leveller polemicists and Royalist pamphleteers because of the book's multi-faceted descriptions of the transition of the Roman monarchy to a consular republic. That makes the association with the deposed king's elder brother even more piquant.
Provenance: Possibly from the library of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (1594-1612), the eldest son of James I who would have succeeded to the throne instead of Charles I, had he not died at the age of 18 of typhoid fever. He was considered to be a promising king-in-waiting and was known for his academic brilliance. He amassed a library of more than one thousand books, several of which were stamped with fleur-de-lys and crown devices, similar to the one found on this binding (see 'Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (1594-1612)', stamps 14, 15, 23 and 29 at British Armorial Bindings Online).
Pforzheimer 495; ESTC S114001.
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