Polydore Vergil

As can be seen in Reference Works, at least one Overview and numerous biographical Lives and Times, the family of Polidoro Vergili had already produced a number of scholars when he was born near Urbino c. 1470. He studied at Padua (and possibly Bologna), and had been ordained by 1496, when he began to publish. His early works included Proverbiorum libellus (Venice, 1498; later retitled Adagiorum liber) and De inventoribus rerum (Venice, 1499; expanded 1521), the latter generating both edited texts (De inventoribus rerum: Texts) and scholarly analysis (De inventoribus rerum: Analysis). In 1502 Urbino was attacked by Cesare Borgia, Duke Guidobaldo da Montefeltro fled, and Virgili entered papal employment, being sent to England as sub-collector of Peter’s Pence, substituting for Cardinal Adriano Castellesi. Favored by Henry VII (r. 1485–1509), he was a natural associate of the humanists whose names are linked to that of Erasmus. During Henry’s reign Vergil—as he became known in England—was involved in Anglo-papal diplomacy, including the issue of a papal dispensation for the king’s heir, Prince Henry, to marry his brother’s widow. Among Vergil’s English benefices, the most significant was the archdeaconry of Wells, which he held from 1508. It was also before the death of Henry VII that he began work on his pioneering history of England, the Anglica historia, a work inspired by the tenets of humanist historiography and noted for its use of a wide range of sources, from the Roman world to those of the author’s own day. The history appeared in three editions during Vergil’s lifetime: Basel 1534, 1546, and 1555. For present purposes, published editions are cited under Anglica historia: Texts and the numerous commentaries are divided between Analysis, Twentieth Century and Analysis, Twenty-First Century. Meanwhile, the sub-collectorship was disputed between Vergil and Pope Julius II’s appointee Pietro Griffo, and a separate dispute over the collectorship resulted in Vergil’s imprisonment in the Tower of London in 1515, an episode in which he lost the sub-collectorship and which left him with an animus against Henry VIII’s minister Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. His later works were a Latin translation of John Chrysostom’s Comparatio regis et monachi (Basel, 1530), a Dialogus de prodigiis (Basel, 1531) and Latin Dialogi (Basel, 1545). Further observations on his published works can be found in Journals and a Collection of Papers. He paid visits to Italy in 1514, 1516–1517, and 1533–1534, and, after resigning his archdeaconry in 1546, made his final departure from England in 1553. He died in Urbino in 1555.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.