The Romane Historie Written by T. Livius of Padua. Translated out of Latine into English, by Philemon Holland

Livy, The Romane Historie Written by T. Livius of Padua. Translated out of Latine into English, by Philemon Holland. London : Printed by Adam Islip, 1600.

Philemon Holland was famously described by Thomas Fuller as "the Translator General in his age." His translation of Livy's Roman History was a primary source for Shakespeare's Coriolanus and there are specific echoes of Holland in the play's famous fable of the belly. See Kenneth Muir, Shakespeare's Sources (London, 1957), p. 224.

Shakespeare also had "first-hand knowledge of Livy, certainly of the Lucrece story" when writing his best-selling narrative poem, The Rape of Lucrece. See Stuart Gillespie, Shakespeare's Books: A Dictionary of Shakespeare's Sources (London, 2001), p. 282.

FIRST EDITION. Folio. 305 x 205 mm. Modern half calf. Woodcut allegorical device on title, woodcut portrait of Elizabeth I on title verso, woodcut headpieces, decorative and historiated initials; copy washed, antique and modern annotations in margins, wormholes, large but light dampstaining, some small ink spots, lacking initial and final blank leaves, repair on Bbbbbbb4, Hhhhh3 bound with upper left corner folded.

Provenance: Howard and Linda Knohl.

References: STC 16613; ESTC S114001; Pforzheimer 495