First page of the Fourth Book of The Fall of Princes with woodcut illustration showing the Roman poet astrologer, Marcus Manilus being thrown into the River Tiber.
De Casibus Virorum Illustrium (On the Fates of Famous Men) or The Fall of Princes was originally written in Latin by the Florentine author Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75). It was translated into English by the monk and writer, John Lydgate (c.1370-c.1450). Rather than using the Boccaccio text, Lydgate’s The Fall of Princes is a translation made in about 1438/9, of a French translation from the Latin by Laurent de Premierfait (c. 1370 – 1418), a poet, humanist and translator. Laurent expanded the text in historical and mythological detail in his second edition of 1409 which appears to be the edition Lydgate used. The book is a collection of 56 biographies of people who rise to great power, and their subsequent downfall and was intended to draw attention to the fickle nature of fate.
A treatise excellent and compe[n]dious, shewing and declaring, in maner of tragedye, the falles of sondry most notable princes and princesses vvith other nobles, through ye mutabilitie and change of vnstedfast fortune together with their most detestable [and] wicked vices. First compyled in Latin by the excellent clerke Bocatius, an Italian borne. And sence that tyme translated into our English and vulgare tong, by Dan Iohn Lidgate monke of Burye.
English Short Title Catalogue record
Lydgate’s Translation Harley MS 1766; Item number: f.31r
Lydgate’s work was popular in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and there are many surviving manuscript copies such as the Harley MS 1766 held by the British Library . It was first printed in 1494 by Richard Pynson who reprinted it in 1527. The manuscript Pynson probably used is held by the University of Manchester Library.
Tottel printed this book very early in his career in 1554. Another printer, John Wayland also printed an edition in the same year. Tottel more than likely worked from Pynson’s text, but there are notable differences between it and Tottel’s text and Tottel wrote in his preface to the book that the text came from various manuscript versions stating that it was ‘corrected and augmented out of diverse and sundry old written copies in parchment’.
Woodcut illustration from The Dance of Death which Tottel printed with The Fall of Princes
Tottel chose to print this work with another translation of Lydgate’s on a related theme, The Dance of Death. This text was accompanied by several woodcut illustrations. The Dance of Death or Danse Macabre was a popular allegory for the majority of the 15th century. The theme involves Death, represented visually by a dancing skeleton, shown leading the living to their own ends. The living people depicted were from all levels of society, emphasising how the rich and powerful die as well as the poor and weak. Lydgate’s text was painted on the side of St Paul’s Cathedral until 1549 when it was removed.
Several illustrated pages from Tottel’s edition can be viewed from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee’s Special Collections Library. Images of his edition can also be viewed in auction records from Christies and Bonhams.
Richard Tottel 