Полидор Вергилий: Итальяндық ғалым және Англия тарихының авторы

Italian English scholar (c. 1470–1555)

Polydore Vergil or Virgil (Italian: Polidoro Virgili, commonly Latinised as Polydorus Vergilius; c. 1470 – 18 April 1555), widely known as Polydore Vergil of Urbino, was an Italian humanist scholar, historian, priest and diplomat, who spent much of his life in England. He is particularly remembered for his works the Proverbiorum libellus (1498), a collection of Latin proverbs; De inventoribus rerum (1499), a history of discoveries and origins; and the Anglica Historia (drafted by 1513; printed in 1534), an influential history of England. He has been dubbed the "Father of English History". Vergil is sometimes referred to in contemporary documents as Polydore Vergil Castellensis or Castellen, leading some to assume that he was a kinsman of his patron, Cardinal Adriano Castellesi. However, it is more likely that the alias simply indicates that he was in Castellesi's service.

Vergil was born in about 1470 either at Urbino, or more probably at Fermignano, within the Duchy of Urbino. His father, Giorgio di Antonio, owned a dispensary. His grandfather, Antonio Virgili, "a man well skilled in medicine and astrology", had taught philosophy at the University of Paris; as did Polydore's own brother, Giovanni Matteo Virgili, The niece of Polydore Vergil, Faustina, married Lorenzo Borgogelli, count of Fano, from whom descend the family of Borgogelli Virgili. Polydore was educated at the University of Padua, and possibly at Bologna. He was ordained by 1496. He was probably in the service of Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, before 1498, as in the dedication of his Proverbiorum Libellus (April 1498) he styles himself Guido's client. He also donated a set of hangings for the quire of Wells Cathedral. He held other ecclesiastical sinecures, including, from 1503, the living of Church Langton, Leicestershire; from 1508 prebends in Lincoln and Hereford Cathedrals; and from 1513 the prebend of Oxgate in St Paul's Cathedral. He recognized the advantages humanism would offer to legitimise his claim to the throne, which was still vulnerable to challenge after his victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field, and the role that diffusion of humanist education would take in establishing a more educated, bureaucratic government than the feudal aristocracy. It was at the King's behest that Vergil began work on his Anglica Historia, a new history of England, probably as early as 1505, retelling the history of the Wars of the Roses to emphasise that the war ended with the new monarch's reign.

Although Vergil lived predominantly in England from 1502 onwards, he paid several return visits to Urbino, in 1513–14, 1516–17 and 1533–34. In 1534, Francesco Maria, Duke of Urbino, in recognition of his literary achievements, admitted Vergil and his family to the ranks of the nobility. In 1546 Vergil resigned the Archdeaconry of Wells to the Crown, perhaps in anticipation of his retirement to Italy. He was licensed to return to Urbino in 1550, and probably left England for the last time in the summer of 1553. He died in Urbino on 18 April 1555. The English edition of 1546 was an abridgement made by Thomas Langley, which also proved highly successful and was reprinted several times. The work is notable for the immense industry that went into its compilation, and the range of ancient and modern writers on which Vergil was able to draw.

In 1525 Vergil published an edition of Gildas' 6th century history, De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, probably at Antwerp. He dedicated it to Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of London. This was the first critical edition of a British historical text. In publishing it, Vergil reflected a growing interest in post classical texts among German and Italian scholars. This interest sprang mainly from self conscious nationalism which makes it curious at least that a foreigner chose a text about Britain. Vergil did, however, have a motive; this project provided a background for his anti Arthurian position. Tunstall supplied one of the source manuscripts (hence the dedication), and the work of editing was undertaken by Vergil and Robert Ridley. Their editing was for the most part conscientious, although they rearranged certain words in the interests of clarity, and also suppressed a few anti clerical passages.

Vergil published a Commentariolum in Dominicam Precem ("Commentary on the Lord's Prayer") at Basel in 1525, accompanying an edition of the De Inventoribus Rerum. His comments owed much to Erasmus' Precatio Dominica in septem portiones distributa (1523). At Erasmus' request, Vergil worked on a translation from the Greek of Dio Chrysostom's De Perfecto Monacho, which he published in 1533. It was reprinted in 1541 and 1550. In 1545, he published his last work, the Dialogorum libri, a collection of Latin dialogues, divided into three parts as De patientia, De vita perfecta, and De veritate et mendacio.

Vergil was buried in Urbino Cathedral, in the chapel of St Andrew which he himself had endowed. In 1613, it was agreed that a memorial stone should be set over his tomb. This was eventually put in place in 1631, with an inscription stating that his fame would "live for ever in the world". However, it is believed to have been lost when the cathedral was severely damaged by an earthquake in 1789. Vergil's family home and alleged birthplace in Urbino (now a property of the University of Urbino) is marked by a plaque; and there is also a bust of him in the city, unveiled in 2000. Vergil is among the worthies whose portraits were painted in c.1618–19 on the frieze in what is now the Upper Reading Room of the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

In continental Europe, Vergil is principally remembered for the De Inventoribus Rerum and the Adagia: these are the works which secured his reputation before he ever came to England, and which he himself regarded as his masterpieces, writing "I, Polydore, was the first of the Romans to treat of these two matters". The De Inventoribus receives a mention, for example, in Cervantes' Don Quixote (1605–15). In England, however, Vergil is more often remembered as author of the Anglica Historia. The work is an important primary source in its own right for the period 1460–1537, and as a secondary source continued to exert an influence on English historiography into the 19th century. It provided the chronicler Edward Hall with much of his sense of 15th century English history, and so fed into the history plays of William Shakespeare. A particularly controversial element of Vergil's work in England was the scepticism he expressed – first in his edition of Gildas, and then in the Anglica Historia – towards the traditional account of the early history of Britain derived from Geoffrey of Monmouth, and in particular towards the question of the historicity of King Arthur. This criticism touched a patriotic nerve with the antiquary John Leland, who responded forcefully, first in an unpublished tract, written perhaps in 1536, the Codrus sive Laus et Defensio Gallofridi Arturii contra Polydorum Vergilium ("Codrus", a reference to Vergil, was a type name drawn from Juvenal for an offensive hack poet); and afterwards in a longer published treatment, the Assertio inclytissimi Arturii regis Britannia (1544). Although Leland was critical of Vergil's views in the Assertio, he treated his opponent with respect, acknowledging his intelligence and his mastery of Latin style. On another contentious issue, Vergil came down in favour of the claims of the University of Cambridge to be a more ancient foundation than the University of Oxford. When this was mentioned in a debate in the House of Commons in 1628, the Oxonian Edward Littleton sneered, "What have we to do with Polydore Vergil? One Vergil was a poet, the other a liar." Other English readers also reacted vehemently to what seemed to be criticisms of their national history. John Bale in 1544 accused Vergil of "polutynge our Englyshe chronycles most shamefullye with his Romishe lyes and other Italyshe beggerye". An anonymous contemporary described him as "that most rascall dogge knave in the worlde", claiming that "he had the randsackings of all the Englishe lybraryes, and when he had extracted what he pleased he burnt those famous velome manuscripts, and made himself father to other mens workes". This charge of burning manuscripts was widely reported. John Caius in 1574, for example, asserted that Vergil had "committed as many of our ancient and manuscript historians to the flames as would have filled a waggon, that the faults of his own work might pass undiscovered". William Lambarde in 1576 commented that "as [Vergil] was by office Collector of the Peter pence to the Popes gain and lucre, so sheweth he himselfe throughout by profession, a covetous gatherer of lying Fables, fained to advaunce the Popish Religion, Kingdome, and Myter". Henry Peacham in 1622 again accused Vergil of having "burned and embezeled the best and most ancient Records and Monuments of our Abbeies, Priories, and Cathedrall Churches, under colour of making search for all such monuments, manusc. records, Legier bookes, &c. as might make for his purpose". However, one of Peacham's contemporaries, the Leicestershire antiquary William Burton, cast Vergil in a more positive light, describing him as "a man of singular invention, good judgement, and good reading, and a true lover of antiquities". In the 19th century, Vergil's importance to English historiography finally began to be acknowledged, as "historians of Tudor England realized the scope of his achievement in the Anglica Historia".

An English translation of Books 1–9 (with some abridgements), originally published in London in 1663. An English translation of Books 1–8, based on the 1546 Lyon edition. Parallel Latin and English texts of Books 1–3, collating early editions to 1553–55.