Beschreibung:

Lydgate (John, poet and prior of Hatfield Regis, c. 1370-1449/50).- [Boccaccio (Giovanni)] [A Treatise excellent and compe[n]dious, shewing... the falles of sondry most notable Princes and Princesses with other Nobles], double column, black letter, 4 woodcut illustrations only, lacks all before P1, lacks S1, Y5, 2C1-2, 2H6, 2L5, lacks all after [par]3, corners worn with some loss of text, some other tears mostly at beginning and end, slight worming in inner margins, margins trimmed, some stains, browned, a few 17th century and later ink inscriptions, disbound, [Pforzheimer 74; STC 3177], folio, [Richard Totte]l, [1554]; sold not subject to return. ⁂ "The Fall of Princes was begun c.1431 at the request of Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, and completed in 1438 or 1439. It is based on Laurent de Premierfait's French version of Boccaccio's De casibus virorum illustrium, and runs to 36,365 lines in nine books. The long task weighed heavily even on Lydgate, who makes a number of semi-comic references to it, and at some point wrote a begging poem, the Letter to Gloucester (Minor Poems, 665-7), a witty request for funds." (Oxford DNB). An interesting choice of patronage by the youngest brother of Henry V, as he was to fall spectacularly from grace himself in the wake of his wife's arrest, for practising witchcraft against Henry VI. He was arrested in 1447 and died shortly thereafter.