NOT OXFORD'S ITALY: Three Authorship Candidates Walk Into A Room, Lock the Door . . .

_______________________________________________________________________

Mark Anderson's five leading arguments for de Vere as

Shakespeare:
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976780
577

---------------------------------------------------------

1) ITALY. The Italian cities and locations that Shakespeare
refers to are in large part the Italian ports of call on Edward de
Vere's known Italian travels in 1575-1576. Moreover, there are
a number of references in the Shakespeare plays (in All's Well
That Ends Well and Two Gentlemen of Verona) that date
specifically to the mid 1570s, when de Vere was in Italy.

That works when there is 'one suspect,' but there are at least
three authorship candidates who visited Italy in the 1570s.

In terms of circumstantial evidence that's like three men who
walk into a room, lock the door, a gun is fired and all three walk
out. A witness sees all three enter and exit the room but doesn't
know which one fired the gun.

If Oxford was the only candidate who toured Italy it might
be circumstantial evidence but Sidney and Neville, then Sidney's
page, and four or five of Sidney's friends toured Italy in 1573-74. 1

Bacon spent at least four years on the Continent spying for
Walsingham. Anthony Bacon was Walsingham's spymaster in
Venice in the 1570s. This was at the time that the Spanish were
not only building the Armada (begun in 1570) but also ruled
Italian states. 2

An extant letter from Bacon dated 1580, addressed to his cousin
Sir Thomas Bodley, Sir Francis Walsingham and several other English
patriots includes a bill for £800 in expenses for Bacon's trips to
Italy,
France, Denmark and Spain. Bacon also was a courier for Leicester
in 1582. 3

I talk about these connections at greater length on the "Italy"
audios/podcasts episodes 3 & 4 on the audio page of my website
(www.shakespearebyanothername.com/audio). And the story of
de Vere's adventures in Italy is the subject of Chapters 4 and 5
in Shakespeare By Another Name.

Unless you have a direct witness or document to connect Oxford's
visit to Italy to the Shakespeare works, Oxford's just another tourist.

1 Jonathan Woolfson, Padua and the Tudors. Page 129

2 Julie Robin Solomon, Objectivity in the Making: Francis Bacon
and the Politics of Inquiry. Page 111

3 Francis Bacon, report. Instructions to Thomas Bodley.
P O. KristellerIter, Italicum: A Finding List of Uncatalogued
Or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Mss. Page 135
could be the original of Bacon's letter to Bodley.

4 <http://www.fbrt.org.uk/pages/essays/essay-fb-life.html>

lackpurity

2006-10-14 05:05:25 UTC

Post by Elizabeth
_______________________________________________________________________

Mark Anderson's five leading arguments for de Vere as

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976780
577

---------------------------------------------------------

That works when there is 'one suspect,' but there are at least
three authorship candidates who visited Italy in the 1570s.

MM:
Candidates? There is no election. William Shakespeare authored the
canon.

Post by Elizabeth
In terms of circumstantial evidence that's like three men who
walk into a room, lock the door, a gun is fired and all three walk
out. A witness sees all three enter and exit the room but doesn't
know which one fired the gun.

MM:
A Mystic might use his omniscience to know who fired the gun.

Post by Elizabeth
If Oxford was the only candidate who toured Italy it might
be circumstantial evidence but Sidney and Neville, then Sidney's
page, and four or five of Sidney's friends toured Italy in 1573-74. 1

MM:
There is no election for the authorship.

Post by Elizabeth
Bacon spent at least four years on the Continent spying for
Walsingham. Anthony Bacon was Walsingham's spymaster in
Venice in the 1570s. This was at the time that the Spanish were
not only building the Armada (begun in 1570) but also ruled
Italian states. 2
An extant letter from Bacon dated 1580, addressed to his cousin
Sir Thomas Bodley, Sir Francis Walsingham and several other English
patriots includes a bill for £800 in expenses for Bacon's trips to
Italy,
France, Denmark and Spain. Bacon also was a courier for Leicester
in 1582. 3

Unless you have a direct witness or document to connect Oxford's
visit to Italy to the Shakespeare works, Oxford's just another tourist.

MM:
At least, we agree on something.

Post by Elizabeth
1 Jonathan Woolfson, Padua and the Tudors. Page 129
2 Julie Robin Solomon, Objectivity in the Making: Francis Bacon
and the Politics of Inquiry. Page 111
3 Francis Bacon, report. Instructions to Thomas Bodley.
P O. KristellerIter, Italicum: A Finding List of Uncatalogued
Or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Mss. Page 135
could be the original of Bacon's letter to Bodley.
4 <http://www.fbrt.org.uk/pages/essays/essay-fb-life.html>

MM:
Michael Martin

Art Neuendorffer

2006-10-14 12:10:30 UTC

Mark Anderson's five leading arguments

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976780577

---------------------------------------------------------
1) ITALY. The Italian cities and locations that Shakespeare
refers to are in large part the Italian ports of call on Edward de
Vere's known Italian travels in 1575-1576. Moreover, there are
a number of references in the Shakespeare plays (in All's Well
That Ends Well and Two Gentlemen of Verona) that date
specifically to the mid 1570s, when de Vere was in Italy.

That works when there is 'one suspect,' but there are at least
three authorship candidates who visited Italy in the 1570s.

It is just one of Mark's five.
.
I personally find these five together as insufficient and
have had to add additional facts to make to case for Oxford.

In terms of circumstantial evidence that's like three men who
walk into a room, lock the door, a gun is fired and all three walk
out. A witness sees all three enter and exit the room but doesn't
know which one fired the gun.

I'm sure that it is a lot more than just three guys.

If Oxford was the only candidate who toured Italy it might
be circumstantial evidence but Sidney and Neville, then Sidney's
page, and four or five of Sidney's friends toured Italy in 1573-74. 1

And many more for that matter. If Italy was our only
determining piece of evidence one might choose Florio.

Bacon spent at least four years on the Continent spying for
Walsingham. Anthony Bacon was Walsingham's spymaster in
Venice in the 1570s. This was at the time that the Spanish were
not only building the Armada (begun in 1570) but also ruled
Italian states. 2

Why doesn't Shakespeare write more plays about spying?

An extant letter from Bacon dated 1580, addressed to his cousin
Sir Thomas Bodley, Sir Francis Walsingham and several other English
patriots includes a bill for £800 in expenses for Bacon's trips to
Italy,
France, Denmark and Spain. Bacon also was a courier for Leicester
in 1582. 3

Good for him.

Unless you have a direct witness or document to connect Oxford's
visit to Italy to the Shakespeare works, Oxford's just another tourist.

Hardly just another tourist:
-------------------------------------------------------------
. _THIS STAR OF ENGLAND_ Chap. 8
. http://www.sourcetext.com/sourcebook/Star/ch08.html
. by Dorothy & Charlton Ogburn
.
<<IN JANUARY 7, 1575, Lord Oxford set forth with his retinue,
consisting, as Burghley noted in his diary, of "two gentlemen,
two grooms, one payend, a harbinger, a housekeeper & a trenchman."
.
Before the end of May the traveller reached Venice, where he
declined a generous offer on the part of [titular Grand Prior]
Sir RICHARD SHELLEY of a furnished house, to continue his journey.>>
--------------------------------------------------------------------
<<By 1567 the only English knights remaining on Malta were the
titular Grand Prior RICHARD SHELLEY (who was an active participant
in several plots against Elizabeth) and Oliver Starkey (commander
of Quenington), later titular BAILIFF of Egle (from 1569).>>
.
. <<Starkey, who had been La Valette's Latin Secretary
. and was the only Englishman at the Great Siege,
. died in 1588 & SHELLEY in 1590, when a French knight
. was appointed to the titular Grand Priory.
.
This appointment was challenged by an Irish knight resident
in the convent, one *ANDREW WISE* from Waterford who, after
complaining, was appointed BAILIFF of Egle but, still unsatisfied,
appealed to the Pope. In 1593 Wise was appointed titular Grand Prior,
a dignity he held until his death in 1631. From thenceforth the
offices of Grand Prior of England, TURCOPILIER, BAILIFF of Egle
and Prior or Grand Prior of Ireland became honorifics given to
knights whom the Grand Master & Council wished to honor with
the grand cross & membership of the Chapter-General.>>
.
THE KNIGHTS OF SAINT JOHN IN ENGLAND, SCOTLAND & IRELAND
. http://www.saintjohn.org/priory.htm
-------------------------------------------------------------------
On August 23, 1600, Shakespeare 1st appears in Stationer's Register
. when *ANDREW WYSE* enters "II Henry IV"
. and "Much Ado About Nothing".
-------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer

Elizabeth

2006-10-14 17:40:59 UTC

Post by Art Neuendorffer
.

Mark Anderson's five leading arguments

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976780577

That works when there is 'one suspect,' but there are at least
three authorship candidates who visited Italy in the 1570s.

It is just one of Mark's five.

I'm working on the other four.

Post by Art Neuendorffer
I personally find these five together as insufficient and
have had to add additional facts to make to case for Oxford.

We have a different understanding of 'fact.'

I'm sure that it is a lot more than just three guys

Based on what.

If Oxford was the only candidate who toured Italy it might
be circumstantial evidence but Sidney and Neville, then Sidney's
page, and four or five of Sidney's friends toured Italy in 1573-74. 1

And many more for that matter. If Italy was our only
determining piece of evidence one might choose Florio.

No, one would not 'choose Florio' because Florio has
no witness, no manuscript, no direct or circumstantial
evidence to show that he wrote the Shakepeare works.
It's hard to say whether he really translated Montaigne.
Bacon was with Montaigne in the 1570s and Anthony
sent Bacon a copy of the manuscript for the Essais
in 1588. Why would Bacon wait so long to give it to Florio
for translation? There's also an odd anachronism or
error in the Essais which raises questions about it.
We know absolutely that Anthony had a relationship
with Montaigne (not sexual according to Anthony's letter
to his physician) because he left the Essex faction to
return to France when Montaigne was dying.

Why doesn't Shakespeare write more plays about spying?

Good for him.

Unless you have a direct witness or document to connect Oxford's
visit to Italy to the Shakespeare works, Oxford's just another tourist.

Until you come up with something concrete that ties
Oxford's tour of Italy specifically to the Shakespeare
works, Oxford's just another tourist. So is Bacon and
so is Neville.

Chess One

2006-10-15 00:48:08 UTC

"Elizabeth" <***@mail.com> wrote in message news:***@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

No, one would not 'choose Florio' because Florio has
no witness, no manuscript, no direct or circumstantial
evidence to show that he wrote the Shakepeare works.
It's hard to say whether he really translated Montaigne.

------------
**Who is it that says that the Florio edition of Montaigne which contained
'Shakespeares' signature is fake? Is it known what version of 'Shakespeare'
is signed? This is the only book 'known' to contain the signature
'Shakespeare'.

Bacon was with Montaigne in the 1570s and Anthony
sent Bacon a copy of the manuscript for the Essais
in 1588. Why would Bacon wait so long to give it to Florio
for translation?

------------
**A fair question which might have an [anti-] semitic answer, or rather a
crypto-Jewish aspect, and further, might depend on how what we think
influenced Montaigne, ie, his mother:-

"In France the Jewish refugees [f. Spain] were not molested but they
could not publicly profess their religion, though there were marrano
communities, particularly in the neighborhood of Bordeaux. The mother of
Michel de Montaigne, essayist and mayor of Bx. was a marrano refugee,
Antoinette Lopez." //France Yates.

She continues to directly mention that in England there were "officially no
Jews throughout the Elizabethan period" though she says there were
unnoffical Jews which had large effect;-

"What was the effect on marranos in England of the Venetian
Christian-Cabalist influence in connection with the divorse of Henry VIII is
a problem which has not yet been examined." [!]

"In Elizabethan England the situation was that an influence of Christian
Cabala was present at court //and in learned circles// in a country in which
Jews were, officially, not allowed to exist. Yet we hear, unofficially, that
two Jewish uncles of Michel de Montaigne, Martin and Francesco Lopez, were
at one time present in the marrano colony in London*."

I pause here to give a citation to that last note, though Yates continues to
mention Roderigo Lopez, doctor, employed as physician by Leicester and "by
the queen herself."

*Roth, Jews in England, page 138, note 1.

Of course, this is a most superficial means to answer your question, and a
fair though unspecific context is offered by Yates in her Chapter XII,
//Shakespeare and Chritian Cabala, Francesco Giorgo and the Merchant of
Venice,// and also her Chaps XVI and XVIII. - /-/ The Occult Philosophy in
the Eliz. Age, 1979.

Phil Innes

Peter Farey

2006-10-15 06:37:57 UTC

Post by Elizabeth
We know absolutely that Anthony had a relationship
with Montaigne (not sexual according to Anthony's letter
to his physician) because he left the Essex faction to
return to France when Montaigne was dying.

Anthony was certainly a friend of Montaigne's but, having
returned from France in early 1592, was far too sick with
gout ever to leave England again. Montaigne died on 13th
September of that year, and Pierre Debrach, a good friend
of both of them, wrote to break the news to Anthony soon
after that (LPL MS 648, f 321). There is no reason to
think that Anthony ever "left the Essex faction", and was
still living in Essex House until the Queen ordered him and
others to leave in 1600.

Peter F.
***@rey.prestel.co.uk
http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/index.htm

Elizabeth

2006-10-15 18:05:29 UTC

Post by Peter Farey
Anthony was certainly a friend of Montaigne's but, having
returned from France in early 1592, was far too sick with
gout ever to leave England again. Montaigne died on 13th
September of that year, and Pierre Debrach, a good friend
of both of them, wrote to break the news to Anthony soon
after that (LPL MS 648, f 321). There is no reason to
think that Anthony ever "left the Essex faction", and was
still living in Essex House until the Queen ordered him and
others to leave in 1600.

The source I saw said that Anthony went to France in 1592
and returned in 1593 but your source looks more authoritative.
Jardine and Stewart have a lot of errors and ommissions in their
books, this is probably one of them.

Peter Farey

2006-10-16 04:50:20 UTC

In the case of the Debrach letter, it was the letter itself at
Lambeth Palace Library. The rest was from my having read
Anthony's correspondence covering that whole period and
from the DNB, both the earlier and more recent versions.

Peter F.
***@rey.prestel.co.uk
http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/index.htm

Ignoto

2006-10-15 03:15:22 UTC

Post by Art Neuendorffer
.

Mark Anderson's five leading arguments

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976780577

That works when there is 'one suspect,' but there are at least
three authorship candidates who visited Italy in the 1570s.

It is just one of Mark's five.
.
I personally find these five together as insufficient and
have had to add additional facts to make to case for Oxford.

I'm sure that it is a lot more than just three guys.

If Oxford was the only candidate who toured Italy it might
be circumstantial evidence but Sidney and Neville, then Sidney's
page, and four or five of Sidney's friends toured Italy in 1573-74. 1

And many more for that matter. If Italy was our only
determining piece of evidence one might choose Florio.

Why doesn't Shakespeare write more plays about spying?

Well, for one thing he's dead, but more importantly one might ask:

"Why didn;t oxenforde write more plays about tin mining?"

Good for him.

Unless you have a direct witness or document to connect Oxford's
visit to Italy to the Shakespeare works, Oxford's just another tourist.

-------------------------------------------------------------
. _THIS STAR OF ENGLAND_ Chap. 8
. http://www.sourcetext.com/sourcebook/Star/ch08.html
. by Dorothy & Charlton Ogburn
.
<<IN JANUARY 7, 1575, Lord Oxford set forth with his retinue,
consisting, as Burghley noted in his diary, of "two gentlemen,
two grooms, one payend, a harbinger, a housekeeper & a trenchman."
.
Before the end of May the traveller reached Venice, where he
declined a generous offer on the part of [titular Grand Prior]
Sir RICHARD SHELLEY of a furnished house, to continue his journey.>>
--------------------------------------------------------------------
<<By 1567 the only English knights remaining on Malta were the
titular Grand Prior RICHARD SHELLEY (who was an active participant
in several plots against Elizabeth) and Oliver Starkey (commander
of Quenington), later titular BAILIFF of Egle (from 1569).>>
.
. <<Starkey, who had been La Valette's Latin Secretary
. and was the only Englishman at the Great Siege,
. died in 1588 & SHELLEY in 1590, when a French knight
. was appointed to the titular Grand Priory.
.
This appointment was challenged by an Irish knight resident
in the convent, one *ANDREW WISE* from Waterford who, after
complaining, was appointed BAILIFF of Egle but, still unsatisfied,
appealed to the Pope. In 1593 Wise was appointed titular Grand Prior,
a dignity he held until his death in 1631. From thenceforth the
offices of Grand Prior of England, TURCOPILIER, BAILIFF of Egle
and Prior or Grand Prior of Ireland became honorifics given to
knights whom the Grand Master & Council wished to honor with
the grand cross & membership of the Chapter-General.>>
.
THE KNIGHTS OF SAINT JOHN IN ENGLAND, SCOTLAND & IRELAND
. http://www.saintjohn.org/priory.htm
-------------------------------------------------------------------
On August 23, 1600, Shakespeare 1st appears in Stationer's Register
. when *ANDREW WYSE* enters "II Henry IV"
. and "Much Ado About Nothing".
-------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer

Art Neuendorffer

2006-10-15 11:48:34 UTC

Post by Ignoto
"Why didn;t oxenforde write more plays about tin mining?"

------------------------------------------------------------------
That was more an obsession of his father's really:
------------------------------------------------------------------
<<Hamlet says to the Ghost, "Art thou there, TRUEpenny?" Then
to his comrades, "You hear this fellow in the cellarage?" (i. 5).
.
. And again,
.
"Well said, old MOLE! canst work i' the earth so fast?"
.
TRUEpenny means earth-borer or MOLE (Greek, trupanon,
trupao, to bore or perforate), an excellent word
to apply to a ghost "boring through the cellarage"
to get to the place of purgatory before cock-crow.
.
Miners use the word for a run of metal or metallic earth,
which indicates the presence and direction of a lode.>>
. -- BREWER DICTIONARY OF PHRASE AND FABLE
---------------------------------------------------------------
<< *MOLE* : Heb. TIN-SHAMETH (Lev. 11:30), probably signifies some
species of lizard (rendered in R.V., "chameleon"). In Lev. 11:18,
Deut. 14:16, it is rendered, in Authorized Version, "SWAN".>>
. -- from Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
--------------------------------------------------------------
(1584) Foure Epytaphes, made by the Countes of Oxenford,
after the death of her young Sonne, the Lord Bulbecke, &c.
.
An Ancre's life to leade, with [NAILES] to scratche my grave,
Where earthly Wormes on me shall fede, is all the joyes I crave;
And hide my self from *SHAME* , sith that myne eyes doe see,
Ah, a alantida my deare dame, hath thus tormented me.

http://drk.sd23.bc.ca/DeVere/Oxford_Poems_and_Songs-18.pdf
http://www3.telus.net/oxford/oxfordspoems.html#3
------------------------------------------------------------
_A DECLAMATION BY ERASMUS OF ROTTERDAM_ Footnotes
.
112. The proverb 'blind as a *MOLE* ' is discussed in the Adages. Ovid
(Metajuorphoses, 6, 152 if.) recounts how NIOBE's seven sons were all
killed by Apollo's darts and her seven daughter's by Diana before she
herself was turned to stone as a punishment for scorning Leto, mother
of Apollo & Diana.
----------------------------------------------------------
. Book 6 BOOK THE SIXTH Metamorphoses By Ovid
.
Translated by Sir Samuel Garth, John Dryden, et al:
.
Swift thro' the PHRYGIAN towns the RUMOUR flies,
And the STRANGE NEWS each female tongue employs:
*NIOBE* , who before she married knew
The famous nymph, now found the story TRUE;
.
Golding: http://www.elizabethanauthors.com/ovid06.htm
.
All Lydia did repine hereat, and of this deede the fame
Through Phrygie ran, and through the world was talking of the same.
Before hir marriage Niobe had knowen hir verie well,
When yet a Maide in Meonie and Sipyle she did dwell.
--------------------------------------------------------------
(1584) Foure Epytaphes, made by the Countes of Oxenford,
after the death of her young Sonne, the Lord Bulbecke, &c.
.
. With my Sonne, my Gold, my Nightingale, and Rose,
. Is gone: for t'twas in him and no other where:
. And well though mine eies run downe like fountaines here
. The STONE WIL not speak yet, that doth it inclose.
..........................................................
Note: The allusion is to NIOBE turned to stone yet EVER WEEPING;
Ovid, particularly X, lines 303-331. The stone refers back
to the marble of the child and is also his monument.
.
. http://www.jimandellen.org/anne.cecil.poems.html
--------------------------------------------------------------
. Tristram Shandy - Laurence Sterne Chapter 3.III.
.
. David WEPT for his son Absalom
. --ADRIAN for his ANTINOUS
. --Niobe for her children, and
. that Apollodorus and Crito both shed tears for Socrates. .
.
. My father managed his affliction otherwise; for he
. neither WEPT it away, as the Hebrews and the Romans
. --or SLePT it off, as the Laplanders
. --or hanged it, as the English,
. or drowned it, as the Germans,
. --nor did he curse it, or damn it, or excommunicate it,
. or rhyme it, or lillabullero it.
------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer

Dennis

2006-10-15 23:15:44 UTC

Post by Ignoto
"Why didn;t oxenforde write more plays about tin mining?"

------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------
<<Hamlet says to the Ghost, "Art thou there, TRUEpenny?" Then
to his comrades, "You hear this fellow in the cellarage?" (i. 5).
.
. And again,
.
"Well said, old MOLE! canst work i' the earth so fast?"
.
TRUEpenny means earth-borer or MOLE (Greek, trupanon,
trupao, to bore or perforate), an excellent word
to apply to a ghost "boring through the cellarage"
to get to the place of purgatory before cock-crow.
.
Miners use the word for a run of metal or metallic earth,
which indicates the presence and direction of a lode.>>
. -- BREWER DICTIONARY OF PHRASE AND FABLE
---------------------------------------------------------------
<< *MOLE* : Heb. TIN-SHAMETH (Lev. 11:30), probably signifies some
species of lizard (rendered in R.V., "chameleon"). In Lev. 11:18,
Deut. 14:16, it is rendered, in Authorized Version, "SWAN".>>
. -- from Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
--------------------------------------------------------------

There is another possible source for this remark on 'old Mole' - that
appears to have quite a solid connection to Oxford (and his father) :

'Counter-Reformation Versions of Saxo: A New Source for Hamlet?' by
Julie Maxwell proposes the Historia Olai Magni (1567) as the source for
'local details (like the sledded Polacks) in Hamlet'. Taken from
Renaissance Quarterly 57 (2004): 518-60.

************************************

"Johannes Magnus (1488-1544) and Olaus Magnus (1490-1557) of Sweden
were brothers, prelates, and scholars who opposed the Lutheran
Reformation of Sweden that occurred in the 1520's and 1530's.
Consequently they lived as exiles in Poland and Italy. Johannes Magnus
had claims on the archbishopric of Uppsala. His Historia de omnibus
Gothorum Sveonumque regibus (History of All the Kings of the Goths and
Swedes) was first published in Rome in 1554. It includes a brief life
of Amleth's father, Horvendil, that is unknown in Shakespeare
studies. Although this work has never been translated into English,
Shakespeare himself could read Latin to some extent. He also read
extensively, and often combined widely scattered materials.

Olaus Magnus Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus
(Description of the Northern Peoples) was first published in Rome in
1555, and proved a dazzling success....When the heir to the Swedish
throne (Erik XIV r.1560-68) attempted in 1559 to court the new English
Queen Elizabeth I, *both Magnus histories were given to the Secretary
of State William Cecil*(1520-98) in a bid to prove the Swede's
respectability." (Maxwell, p.520)

Art, you posted:

<<In 1554 Edward de Vere was placed in Sir Thomas Smith's household in
the Essex manor of Theydon Mount. In October 15(5)9 (when Edward was
only
nine), Smith was appointed to assist Edward's father the Earl of Oxford

in reciving the Duke of Finland , who was brokering his brother Eric
of Sweden's designs to marry Elizabeth. Smith wrote daily to Cecil of
the fulsome reception accorded the delegation, saying of the Earl's
hospitality that he 'could not wish it to be better done'. Edward
shared his time between his father's hous and that of Sir Thomas Smith,

with the latter providing the essential scholastic element.>>
- Oxford's Early Years_ by Charles Bird

******************************************

Referring to the texts of the Magnus brothers, Julie Maxwell writes:

<<'Significantly, Hamlet gets out his tables just after the Ghost
returns to his purging fires, bidding him "Adieu, adieu, adieu.
Remember me"(1.5.91). Olaus Magnus ends one chapter (which comes two
chapters after Fengi's fratricide) saying, "as for other kingdoms, let
(a king) bid them adieu, as though they were everlasting torments." He
starts the next chapter with the claim: "Forgetful of these and similar
warnings, indeed even of the resolution of his ancestors, King
Christian II of Denmark at various times and by various giles" entered
kingdoms not belonging to him: Norway, Gotaland, and Sweden. What
follows is Olaus Magnus's moving eyewitness account of the Stockhom
Bloodbath, his personal experience of how the kings of Denmark live up
to the tags that circulate about them. (Maxwell, 533-534)

SHAKESPEARE'S SLEDDED POLACKS

"There are many (other) points at which (Shakespeare) could have
drawn on the wealth of naturalist, ethnographic, popular and
antiquarian information that the _Historia_ supplies. Olaus Magnus
describes how guards keep watch at night. He tells us memorably, like
Shakespeare's Francisco (1.1.8-9) just how cold Scandinavia is. He
describes a purgatorial rock in Iceland that seethes with perpetual
fires. The spirits of those who have met a violent death emerge from
their torments to fool the living, who do not yet realize that they are
dead. Sometimes the ghosts give, as Shakespeare's Horatio similarly
suggests (1.1.136-38), foreknowledge about events that will affect
their country. Olaus Magnus also recounts the same tradition as Horatio
(1.1.152-61) about wandering spirits disappearing when the morning cock
crows. He describes the *underground spirits who inhabit the mines*,
and whom Hamlet has in mind when he calls the Ghost "old mole' and
'worthy pioner" (1.5.170-71). Of course, these overlapping ideas about
northern life in the Historia and in the first act of Hamlet cannot be
traced exclusively to the Magnus brothers. >>

(snip)

********************************************

Maxwell, (con't)

"The Magnus histories deserve some attention, then, not least because
they make one fact absolutely certain: neither Hamlet nor the Ur-Hamlet
was responsible for introducing Protestant-Catholic issues to the
pre-Christian setting of the original saga. ....

(snip)

"Where Saxo had been conscious of a negotiation between pagan and
Christian worlds, his pre-Shakespearean successors capitalized on it.
Johannes and Olaus Magnus evaluated the pagan practices of Amleth's
father, and condemned the murderous behaviour of his uncle, to expose
the cruelty and sacrilege of their Lutheran religious adversaries. Not
content with the nationalistic and confessional gains to be made out of
Saxo's story as it stood, they devised between them a radically new
narrative of the life and death of Amleth's father. But to understand
properly its meaning, we need to know something about the specific
polemical value of Saxo's work in a politically volatile context

The religio-political significance of Saxo's reappearance in 1514 in
the first printed edition of the Historiae Danicae derives from the
unsettled state of sixteenth century Scandinavia." (Maxwell, p 523)

"The relevance of this historical sketch, first to the transmission
of the Amleth legend and then to Shakespeare's play, lies initially
in the conflicting receptions that Saxo's work as a whole found in
the sixteenth century. Kurt Johannesson points out that the 1514
edition of Saxo served the purposes of the aggressor, Christian II, by
exalting Danish bishops and endorsing both his and their claims to
religio-political dominion over the whole Union and beyond. Krantz's
Chronica Regnorum Aquilonarium would later do the same for Christian
III, King of Denmark and Norway (r.1534-59). Krantz supplied the
materials for another Protestant initiative when the Lutheran
poet-reformer Hans Sachs (1494-1576) versified Hamlet's tale in 1558.
While Christian II was invading Sweden between 1517 and 1520, then,
Saxo was one cultural monument being used to argue that he had all the
might and the right enshrined in Denmark's entire history on his
side. As Johannesson's fascinating study has shown, however, this
sixteenth-century Saxo did not go unanswered in Sweden. But when a
puissant reply to it was made in the works of the Swedish brothers,
historians and prelates Johannes and Olaus Magnus, it was not only
directed at Christian II's monstrosities.

By their accounts, Gustav Vasa had expelled one tyrant,
Christian II, only to become another himself. Both brothers believed
themselves and their country to be suffering under Gustav Vasa's
Lutheran reformation. Olaus Magnus participated energetically and
optimistically at the first two sessions of the Council of Trent,
championing his brother's mission to re-Catholicize Scandinavia. The
Scandinavian monarchies had been the first kingdoms to desert Catholic
forms of worship. The brothers Magnus, in their turn, devoted their
lives to the Catholic protest against the new Sweden. They used the
most potent cultural weapon that, once again, all Scandinavia had to
offer: Saxo. It had already been shown that the Historiae Danicae could
be the making or the breaking of a northern country's international
credit. So the Magnus brothers rewrote Saxo from a Counter-Reformation
perspective. They appropriated his history and then substituted it with
their version of events. They pounced on Saxo's supposedly
self-damning evidence about the Danes in order to contrast it with
their own definitions of what counted as truly Swedish.

The purposes for which the national legend had been
deployed by both Christian II and Gustav Vasa were converted by the
Magnus brothers to an alternative, Catholic reading of world history.
Their Sweden had been led astray by the Danish invasion that had
precipitated Protestantism. It could be steered back on course if
people (Swedish nobles, the papacy) could only be made to recognize
that it was a historically great country that deserved to have a
strenuous Counter-Reformation effort made on its behalf. The literary
vanguard was led by Johannes Magnus's Historia de omnibus Gothorum
Sveonumque regibus, with its pro-Swedish but anti-Protestant retelling
of Saxo.

Pertinently, at the turn of the century from which Hamlet dates,
political events in Sweden gave a new lease of life to the histories of
the Magnus brothers and, in particular, to the dream they had
consistently cherished of re-Catholicizing their country. The Latin
reprint of Olaus Magnus's work that appeared in Hamburg in 1599,
(minus the illustrations) may have been connected to this excitement.
The Magnus brothers had advocated a Swedish-Polish religio-political
alliance. Protestants in both countries feared that this might at last
be realized, since Gustav Vasa's Catholic grandson Sigismund III was
now king both of Poland (1587-1632) and of Sweden (1592-99). These
events precipitated the Swedish Civil War (1598-1604) which ---as
Shakespeare could not possibly know when he was writing Hamlet - the
Protestants would win. There were implications for England's
situation in Europe. If a combined Swedo-Polish Catholic power were to
conquer Protestant Denmark, it might then join with Spain to attack
England" (Maxwell, p.544)

"*Religiously motivated civil war* was also the context for the
next significant literary project in which the Hamlet legend was
involved: the Histoires tragiques of Francois de Belleforest, which
appeared in seven volumes and in a great many editions between 1560 and
1616. Belleforest's career in letters, first as a minor follower of
the Pleiade and then as a historian, spanned the most troublesome
decades of sixteenth-century France. The Wars of Religion raged
(1562-63, 1567-68, and 1568-70), to reach a bloody crescendo at the
infamous St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572. In the light of these
events and Belleforest's polemical participation in them (detailed
below), his selection and handling of Amleth's story needs some
reappraisal. Typically, Shakespeareans bemoan Belleforest's tedious
expansions of Saxo and his failure to understand the heroic code.
We're told of Belleforest the Christian, struggling 'reluctantly'
with ethically unprepossessing materials. Nothing is said of why
Belleforest the Catholic, chose to translate this story, how it related
to others in the volume, or what the specific religious and political
interests of his writings were. These connections are all the more
important to establish because, as most critics agree, Shakespeare is
very likely to have read the Belleforest translation.

As a young man, Belleforest had been taken under the wing
of Marguerite de Navarre (1492-1549), the sister of the French King
Francis I and the wife of Henri d'Albert, the King of Navarre.
Marguerite offered patronage to many humanists, and she primed
Belleforest for a literary career. Her intense personal piety, her
belief that the Catholic church should be reformed from within, and her
writing of novella in the manner of Baccaccio's Decameron (ca. 1351),
were all important formative influences on Belleforest. But there was
one project that he did not adopt. Marguerite advocated tolerance of
Protestants in France and attempted to protect writers accused of the
Lutheran heresy. The mature Belleforest was instead harshly
uncompromising in his views on Lutherans and Calvinists, as may be seen
from the nature of the works he chose to translate during the Wars and
the persons to whom he addressed them.

One clear example is the Reprimand to French Princes not to
Make any Peace with Mutineers and Rebels, to Monsieur the Duke of
Aumale, 1567) Claude, Duke of Aumale (1526-73) was a younger son of the
first Duke of Guise, and thus an immediate family member of the
ultra-Catholic Guise faction. Belleforest's Remonstrance translated
for Aumale a poem by the neo-Latin poet Leger Du Chesne (1503-88).
Published on the eve of the Second War of Religion (1567-68). It
repudiated utterly the idea of any peaceful settlement between
Protestants and Catholics, and insisted that all Calvinists must be
exterminated or banished." (Maxwell, 544-545)

(snip)

"The politicization of Belleforest's version also shows in the
way that he uses scripture. The books of Samuel are recurrent points of
reference. He mentions children hastening the deaths of their parents
"as Absalom would have done to the holy King David his father," ,
how compares Amleth in his antic disposition to "King David, who
counterfeited the mad man among the minor kings of Palestine," and
then, when Amleth's uncle attempts to have him killed, to another
Uriah, placed in the front of the battle by King David so that he would
certainly be slain. We are also referred to David's deathbed charge
to Solomon to revenge him on his enemies. The ostensible reason for
this choice of narrative analogies is that we are leaving profane
fables behind in favor of spiritually superior ones. Thus
Shakespeareans find Belleforest a dreary moralist who stuffs Saxo with
biblical allusions and ethical harangues at every possible instant.

But pertinently, the books of Samuel are those in which
kingship in Israel is first tentatively established, by transferral
from the divine to the human realm, and is then repeatedly challenged.
The first king, Saul, flies into passions - fully as murderous as any
of Charles IX's- against his divinely chosen and popularly preferred
successor, David. It is during his protracted flight from Saul that
David, like Amleth, pretends to be mad. Later, after David has
displeased God by taking Uriah's wife Bathsheba out of her and into
his own divan, it is his rulership that is under constant attack. His
own son Absalom, as Belleforest mentions, is the first, but not the
last attempt to wrest the crown from his aging hands. It would be
difficult to think of any biblical book that could have described more
aptly the dynastic struggles of sixteenth-century France." (Maxwell)

**************************************

. (From David Kathman, Annotations in Edward de Vere's Geneva Bible)

<<One could argue about whether the handwriting of the written
annotations is Oxford's, but this is largely a moot point, because the
pattern of marked verses in this Bible shows very little similarity to
Shakespeare's pattern of Bible use. The annotator was very busy from 1
Samuel to 1 Kings, marking 135 verses in 1 Samuel (far more than any
other book), 71 in 2 Samuel, and 61 in 1 Kings, plus many marginal
notes in all three books. Over a quarter of the total marked verses in
the entire Bible, by my rough count, are in these three consecutive
books.>>

***************************************

"It seems extraordinary, however, that the legend's place in
Counter-Reformation polemic has one unremarked, especially in view of
recently renewed claims for Shakespeare's Catholicism or
alternatively, Greenblatt's brief that "we do not need to believe
that Shakespeare himself was a secret Catholic sympathizer; we need
only to recognize how alert he was to the materials that were being
made available to him". Reading Hamlet in the light of the
Counter-Reformation histories discussed here may have a bearing on
critical investigation of Shakespeare's religion and his use of
sources, and which remain topics of perennial interest. That the Saxo,
Krantz, Magnus and Belleforest versions all either commented, or were
used to comment, in some way on Europe's Reformations increases
considerably the likelihood that Shakespeare selected the story
precisely for its pertinence in this respect, as well as for its
narrative fascinations." (Maxwell, 554-555)

(note- according to Maxwell, no English translations of these texts
appear until 1658, although 'editions appeared all over Europe in many
languages' before that.)

********************************************

Dennis

Chess One

2006-10-18 16:22:27 UTC

Post by Ignoto
"Why didn;t oxenforde write more plays about tin mining?"

"Generally /Old-Truepenny/, as it occurs in Sh. Hamlet, where the
application
of it to the ghost is unseemly and incogruous, yet it has attracted no
notice
from any commentator.* Its present meaning is, hearty old fellow;
stanuch and
trusty; true to his purpose and pledge /Forby. This appears more to the
purpose
than the information given by Mrs Collier, "it is a mining term, and
signifies a
particular indication in the soil in which ore is to be found."
*This written circa 1840.

Post by Art Neuendorffer
. And again,
.
"Well said, old MOLE! canst work i' the earth so fast?"

MOLE: (1) form /Topsell's Beasts, p. 194. (2) A stain in linen cloth, spelt
/muyle/ in Urry's MS additions to Ray in Bodleian Lib. /Moled/ spotted,
stained. (3) to speak; "Moles to hir mildly," /Morte Arthure 94) to destroy
moles [North]. See also Mollify [South].

The word MOLD has a meaning (1) earth, ground and as also applied to works
of art, and (3) a model used as a guide by masons when doing ornament work.

The word for the animal seems be either MOLDEN, or MOLDWARP which occurs in
Phaer /Notes to Henry IV, and also a similar spelling in Hall's Union, 1548.

MOLEDAY: day of burial, [West].
MOIL: dirty, earth covered, and also to toil hard, spelled /moyle/ in
Mariage of Wit and Wisdome, 1579
There is also an obscure meaning, a mule, also spelled moyle, and which
appears in Wyll of the Devill
and a final meaning is that of a high shoe.

Phil

Post by Art Neuendorffer
TRUEpenny means earth-borer or MOLE (Greek, trupanon,
trupao, to bore or perforate), an excellent word
to apply to a ghost "boring through the cellarage"
to get to the place of purgatory before cock-crow.
.
Miners use the word for a run of metal or metallic earth,
which indicates the presence and direction of a lode.>>
. -- BREWER DICTIONARY OF PHRASE AND FABLE
---------------------------------------------------------------
<< *MOLE* : Heb. TIN-SHAMETH (Lev. 11:30), probably signifies some
species of lizard (rendered in R.V., "chameleon"). In Lev. 11:18,
Deut. 14:16, it is rendered, in Authorized Version, "SWAN".>>
. -- from Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
--------------------------------------------------------------

Ms. Mouse

2006-10-15 13:56:01 UTC

Post by Art Neuendorffer
.

Mark Anderson's five leading arguments

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976780577

That works when there is 'one suspect,' but there are at least
three authorship candidates who visited Italy in the 1570s.

It is just one of Mark's five.
.
I personally find these five together as insufficient and
have had to add additional facts to make to case for Oxford.

I'm sure that it is a lot more than just three guys.

If Oxford was the only candidate who toured Italy it might
be circumstantial evidence but Sidney and Neville, then Sidney's
page, and four or five of Sidney's friends toured Italy in 1573-74. 1

And many more for that matter. If Italy was our only
determining piece of evidence one might choose Florio.

Why doesn't Shakespeare write more plays about spying?

"Why didn;t oxenforde write more plays about tin mining?"

Prospero:
Thou dost, and think'st it much to tread the ooze
Of the salt deep,
To run upon the sharp wind of the north,
To do me business in the veins o' the earth
When it is baked with frost.

:) Mouse

Good for him.

Unless you have a direct witness or document to connect Oxford's
visit to Italy to the Shakespeare works, Oxford's just another tourist.

Art Neuendorffer

2006-10-15 14:29:53 UTC

Post by Ignoto
"Why didn;t oxenforde write more plays about tin mining?"

.
Ms. Mouse wrote:
.

Post by Ms. Mouse
Thou dost, and think'st it much to tread the ooze
Of the salt deep,
To run upon the sharp wind of the north,
To do me business in the veins o' the earth
When it is baked with frost.

-----------------------------------------------------------
<<Thus earnestly desiring you in this one request of mine (as I would
yield to you in a great many) not to repugn the setting forth of your
own proper studies, I bid you farewell. From my new country Muses
of WIVENHOE, wishing you as you have begun, to proceed
in these virtuous actions. For when all things shall else forsake us,
virtue WILL EVER abide with us, and when
*OUR BODIES FALL INTO THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH*
yet that shall mount with our minds into the highest heavens.
.

Post by Ms. Mouse
From your loving and assured friend, E. Oxenford.>>

------------------------------------------------------------
. *OUT OF THE BOWELS OF THE harmless EARTH*
-------------------------------------------------------------
. King Henry IV, Part i Act 1, Scene 3
.
HOTSPUR: God save the mark!--
. And telling me the soVEREign'st thing on EARTH
. Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;
. And that it was great pity, so it was,
. This villanous salt-petre should be digg'd
. OUT OF THE BOWELS OF THE harmless EARTH,
. Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd
. So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,
. He would himself have been a soldier.
--------------------------------------------------------
. Sonnet 146
.
Poor soul, *the CENTRE of my sinful EARTH*
---------------------------------------------------------
. Romeo and Juliet Act 2, Scene 1
.
ROMEO: Turn back, dull EARTH, and find thy CENTRE out.
---------------------------------------------------------
. Titus Andronicus Act 4, Scene 3
.
TITUS ANDRONICUS Publius and Sempronius, you must do it;
. 'Tis you must dig with mattock and with spade,
. And pierce the inmost *CENTRE OF THE EARTH*
. Then, when you come to Pluto's region,
. I pray you, deliver him this petition;
. Tell him, it is for justice and for aid,
. And that it comes from old Andronicus,
. SHAKEN with sorrows in ungrateful Rome.
---------------------------------------------------------
. Troilus and Cressida Act 3, Scene 2
.
TROILUS: *TRUE SWAINS* in love shall in the world to come
. Approve their *TRUTHS* by Troilus: when their rhymes,
. Full of protest, of oath and big compare,
. Want similes, truth tired with iteration,
. As *TRUE* as steel, as plantage to the moon,
. As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,
. As iron to adamant, as EARTH to the CENTRE,
. Yet, after all comparisons of truth,
. *As TRUTH's authentic author to be cited*
. 'As *TRUE* as Troilus' shall crown up the verse,
. And sanctify the numbers.
.
. Act 4, Scene 2
.
CRESSIDA: O you gods divine!
. Make Cressid's name the very crown of falsehood,
. If ever she leave Troilus! Time, force, and death,
. Do to this body what extremes you can;
. But the strong base and building of my love
. Is as the *VERy CENTRE OF THE EARTH* ,
. Drawing all things to it. I'll go in and weep,--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jules VERnE: *Journey to the CENTRE OF THE EARTH*
.
<<Presently, after lying quietly for some minutes,
I opened my eyes and looked upwards.
As I did so I made out a brilliant little dot, at the extremity
of this long, gigantic telescope. It was a star without
scintillating rays. According to my calculation,
it must be Beta in the constellation of the Little Bear.>>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
. _Ulysses_ p.599:
.
<<Meditations of evolution increasingly vaster: of the moon invisible
in incipent lunation, approaching perigee: of the infinite lattiginous
scintillating uncondensed milky way, discernible by daylight by an
observer placed at the lower end of a cylindrical vertical shaft 5000
ft deep sunk from the surface towards the centre of the earth:>>
-----------------------------------------------------------
<<KOCHAB, an obscure Arabic name that might simply mean "star," is just
barely the second brightest, and appropriately the Beta, star in Ursa
Minor, and represents the top front bowl star of the Little Dipper.
Only 15 degrees from the north celestial pole, middle northerners can
see it every night as it plies its small circular path. Together with
the other bowl star (Pherkad, the Gamma star), it makes a small
asterism called the "Guardians of the Pole," the two seeming in myth to
"protect" the pole star. Though we are quite familiar with the major
two motions of the Earth, daily rotation and annual revolution, the
third motion, precession, is more obscure. The Moon and Sun act on the
Earth's rotational bulge, and cause the axis to wobble over a 26,000
year period. The result is that the axis continually moves in a small
circle against the background stars. Polaris is thus only a temporary
pole star that will get better into the next century and then will
begin to shift away. About the year 1100 BC, the pole made a reasonably
close pass to Kochab, and there are old references to THIS star being
called "Polaris.">>
http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/kochab.html
-----------------------------------------------------------
Art Neueneodrffer

lackpurity

2006-10-18 15:40:23 UTC

Post by Ignoto
"Why didn;t oxenforde write more plays about tin mining?"

.
.

Post by Ms. Mouse
From your loving and assured friend, E. Oxenford.>>

------------------------------------------------------------
. *OUT OF THE BOWELS OF THE harmless EARTH*
-------------------------------------------------------------
. King Henry IV, Part i Act 1, Scene 3
.
HOTSPUR: God save the mark!--
. And telling me the soVEREign'st thing on EARTH
. Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;
. And that it was great pity, so it was,
. This villanous salt-petre should be digg'd
. OUT OF THE BOWELS OF THE harmless EARTH,
. Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd
. So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,
. He would himself have been a soldier.
--------------------------------------------------------
. Sonnet 146
.
Poor soul, *the CENTRE of my sinful EARTH*
---------------------------------------------------------
. Romeo and Juliet Act 2, Scene 1
.
ROMEO: Turn back, dull EARTH, and find thy CENTRE out.
---------------------------------------------------------
. Titus Andronicus Act 4, Scene 3
.
TITUS ANDRONICUS Publius and Sempronius, you must do it;
. 'Tis you must dig with mattock and with spade,
. And pierce the inmost *CENTRE OF THE EARTH*
. Then, when you come to Pluto's region,
. I pray you, deliver him this petition;
. Tell him, it is for justice and for aid,
. And that it comes from old Andronicus,
. SHAKEN with sorrows in ungrateful Rome.
---------------------------------------------------------
. Troilus and Cressida Act 3, Scene 2
.
TROILUS: *TRUE SWAINS* in love shall in the world to come
. Approve their *TRUTHS* by Troilus: when their rhymes,
. Full of protest, of oath and big compare,
. Want similes, truth tired with iteration,
. As *TRUE* as steel, as plantage to the moon,
. As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,
. As iron to adamant, as EARTH to the CENTRE,
. Yet, after all comparisons of truth,
. *As TRUTH's authentic author to be cited*
. 'As *TRUE* as Troilus' shall crown up the verse,
. And sanctify the numbers.
.
. Act 4, Scene 2
.
CRESSIDA: O you gods divine!
. Make Cressid's name the very crown of falsehood,
. If ever she leave Troilus! Time, force, and death,
. Do to this body what extremes you can;
. But the strong base and building of my love
. Is as the *VERy CENTRE OF THE EARTH* ,
. Drawing all things to it. I'll go in and weep,--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jules VERnE: *Journey to the CENTRE OF THE EARTH*
.
<<Presently, after lying quietly for some minutes,
I opened my eyes and looked upwards.
As I did so I made out a brilliant little dot, at the extremity
of this long, gigantic telescope. It was a star without
scintillating rays. According to my calculation,
it must be Beta in the constellation of the Little Bear.>>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
.
<<Meditations of evolution increasingly vaster: of the moon invisible
in incipent lunation, approaching perigee: of the infinite lattiginous
scintillating uncondensed milky way, discernible by daylight by an
observer placed at the lower end of a cylindrical vertical shaft 5000
ft deep sunk from the surface towards the centre of the earth:>>
-----------------------------------------------------------
<<KOCHAB, an obscure Arabic name that might simply mean "star," is just
barely the second brightest, and appropriately the Beta, star in Ursa
Minor, and represents the top front bowl star of the Little Dipper.
Only 15 degrees from the north celestial pole, middle northerners can
see it every night as it plies its small circular path. Together with
the other bowl star (Pherkad, the Gamma star), it makes a small
asterism called the "Guardians of the Pole," the two seeming in myth to
"protect" the pole star. Though we are quite familiar with the major
two motions of the Earth, daily rotation and annual revolution, the
third motion, precession, is more obscure. The Moon and Sun act on the
Earth's rotational bulge, and cause the axis to wobble over a 26,000
year period. The result is that the axis continually moves in a small
circle against the background stars. Polaris is thus only a temporary
pole star that will get better into the next century and then will
begin to shift away. About the year 1100 BC, the pole made a reasonably
close pass to Kochab, and there are old references to THIS star being
called "Polaris.">>
http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/kochab.html
-----------------------------------------------------------
Art Neueneodrffer

MM:
Art, all your quotes on the center of the earth, or the bowels of the
earth, are just analogies. Shakespeare used them, and quite possibly
Edward de Vere used them. It has nothing to do with the authorship
controversy, which has been invented by Anti-Strats.

Everything in the creation has a center. The earth has a center, the
solar system has a center, the galaxy has a center, which scientists
call a "black hole." Even atoms have centers. The Supreme Being is at
the center of everything, in all those aspects of himself.

Shakespeare was really hinting that we should find our center (eye
center, i.e.agna chakra) by meditation, or Muses. He had to write
cryptically, however.

Michael Martin

b***@gmail.com

2006-10-18 08:14:38 UTC

Post by Elizabeth
An extant letter from Bacon dated 1580, addressed to his cousin
Sir Thomas Bodley, Sir Francis Walsingham and several other English
patriots includes a bill for £800 in expenses for Bacon's trips to
Italy, > France, Denmark and Spain. Bacon also was a courier for Leicester
in 1582. 3

Post by Elizabeth
3 Francis Bacon, report. Instructions to Thomas Bodley.

P O. KristellerIter, Italicum: A Finding List of Uncatalogued
Or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Mss. Page 135
could be the original of Bacon's letter to Bodley.

Elizabeth, I have just checked KristellerIter's book you referred to
and it says nothing about any "extant letter from Bacon dated 1580,
addressed to his cousin Sir Thomas Bodley, Sir Francis Walsingham and
several other English patriots [that] includes a bill for £800 in
expenses for Bacon's trips to Italy, France, Denmark and Spain." It
only says that there are two different documents: "Francis Bacon,
report" and "Instructions to Thomas Bodley." Nothing else. It doesn't
say the "instructions" were written by Bacon, they are anonymous, and
from another source I also know that neither of these documents say
nothing about Bacon's travels.

My question is: what's the real source of your information?. Thank you.

S***@yahoo.com

2006-10-18 08:59:41 UTC

Post by Elizabeth
3 Francis Bacon, report. Instructions to Thomas Bodley.

P O. KristellerIter, Italicum: A Finding List of Uncatalogued
Or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Mss. Page 135
could be the original of Bacon's letter to Bodley.

Elizabeth, I have just checked KristellerIter's book you referred to
and it says nothing about any "extant letter from Bacon dated 1580,
addressed to his cousin Sir Thomas Bodley, Sir Francis Walsingham and
several other English patriots [that] includes a bill for £800 in
expenses for Bacon's trips to Italy, France, Denmark and Spain." It
only says that there are two different documents: "Francis Bacon,
report" and "Instructions to Thomas Bodley." Nothing else. It doesn't
say the "instructions" were written by Bacon, they are anonymous, and
from another source I also know that neither of these documents say
nothing about Bacon's travels.
My question is: what's the real source of your information?. Thank you.

Most probably she made it up, as usual.

Elizabeth

2006-10-18 19:49:26 UTC

Post by Elizabeth
3 Francis Bacon, report. Instructions to Thomas Bodley.

P O. KristellerIter, Italicum: A Finding List of Uncatalogued
Or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Mss. Page 135
could be the original of Bacon's letter to Bodley.

I offered that as a note, not a citation. I wrote:

3 Francis Bacon, report. Instructions to Thomas Bodley.
P O. KristellerIter, Italicum: A Finding List of Uncatalogued
Or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Mss. Page 135

Post by Elizabeth
COULD BE << the original of Bacon's letter to Bodley.

only says that there are two different documents: "Francis Bacon,
report" and "Instructions to Thomas Bodley." Nothing else. It doesn't
say the "instructions" were written by Bacon, they are anonymous, and
from another source I also know that neither of these documents say
nothing about Bacon's travels.

I know that. That's why I wrote 'could be' in the post above.

Post by b***@gmail.com
My question is: what's the real source of your information?. Thank you.

The best piece of evidence on this point appears in Bacon's
first biography. It was written a few years after Bacon's death
by a French lawyer, Pierre Amboise.

The French source is important because Amboise corroborates
documents in the Reliquae Bodleianae that he could not have
known.

After summerizing Bacon's early education Amboise writes:

I wish to state that he employed some years of his youth in
travel, in order to polish his mind and to mould his opinion
by intercourse with all kinds of foreigners. France, Italy,
and Spain as the most civilised nations of the world, were
those whither his desire for knowledge carried him.

Pierre Amboise, 'Discourse on the Life of M. Francis Bacon,
Chancellor of England,' Historie Naturelle de Mre. Francis
Bacon (Paris, 1630).

This is further corroborated by a political treatise on Bacon's
travels which the Queen permitted him to read aloud to her.
The event is not dated other than the fact that Bacon was
was twenty-three years old at the time. This would fit
with the reported dates of his travels to Italy, Spain, etc.
The manuscript of this report, which is apparently the same one
paid for by Bodley, Walsingham, et al, was kept in Bacon's
Northumberland Manuscript, a folder found in a tin box in
the ruins of the Northumberland House on the Strand.

Two Shakespeare plays, Richard II and Richard III were
in manuscript in the folder. The question is how Bacon came
to have manuscripts of two Shakespeare plays before those
manuscripts were sent to the printer (and in fact on the opposite
side of the page there is a note that one play was sent to the
printer from Bacon's own 'office' at Northumberland House).

lackpurity

2006-10-18 20:02:06 UTC

Post by Elizabeth
3 Francis Bacon, report. Instructions to Thomas Bodley.

P O. KristellerIter, Italicum: A Finding List of Uncatalogued
Or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Mss. Page 135
could be the original of Bacon's letter to Bodley.

3 Francis Bacon, report. Instructions to Thomas Bodley.
P O. KristellerIter, Italicum: A Finding List of Uncatalogued
Or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Mss. Page 135

Post by Elizabeth
COULD BE << the original of Bacon's letter to Bodley.

I know that. That's why I wrote 'could be' in the post above.

Post by b***@gmail.com
My question is: what's the real source of your information?. Thank you.

The best piece of evidence on this point appears in Bacon's
first biography. It was written a few years after Bacon's death
by a French lawyer, Pierre Amboise.
The French source is important because Amboise corroborates
documents in the Reliquae Bodleianae that he could not have
known.
I wish to state that he employed some years of his youth in
travel, in order to polish his mind and to mould his opinion
by intercourse with all kinds of foreigners. France, Italy,
and Spain as the most civilised nations of the world, were
those whither his desire for knowledge carried him.
Pierre Amboise, 'Discourse on the Life of M. Francis Bacon,
Chancellor of England,' Historie Naturelle de Mre. Francis
Bacon (Paris, 1630).
This is further corroborated by a political treatise on Bacon's
travels which the Queen permitted him to read aloud to her.
The event is not dated other than the fact that Bacon was
was twenty-three years old at the time. This would fit
with the reported dates of his travels to Italy, Spain, etc.
The manuscript of this report, which is apparently the same one
paid for by Bodley, Walsingham, et al, was kept in Bacon's
Northumberland Manuscript, a folder found in a tin box in
the ruins of the Northumberland House on the Strand.
Two Shakespeare plays, Richard II and Richard III were
in manuscript in the folder. The question is how Bacon came
to have manuscripts of two Shakespeare plays before those
manuscripts were sent to the printer (and in fact on the opposite
side of the page there is a note that one play was sent to the
printer from Bacon's own 'office' at Northumberland House).

MM:
Shakespeare and Bacon were very close. The former was the Predecessor,
and the latter was the Successor.

Michael Martin

Ignoto

2006-10-18 21:48:02 UTC

Post by Elizabeth
3 Francis Bacon, report. Instructions to Thomas Bodley.

P O. KristellerIter, Italicum: A Finding List of Uncatalogued
Or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Mss. Page 135
could be the original of Bacon's letter to Bodley.

3 Francis Bacon, report. Instructions to Thomas Bodley.
P O. KristellerIter, Italicum: A Finding List of Uncatalogued
Or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Mss. Page 135

Post by Elizabeth
COULD BE << the original of Bacon's letter to Bodley.

I know that. That's why I wrote 'could be' in the post above.

Post by b***@gmail.com
My question is: what's the real source of your information?. Thank you.

The best piece of evidence on this point appears in Bacon's
first biography. It was written a few years after Bacon's death
by a French lawyer, Pierre Amboise.
The French source is important because Amboise corroborates
documents in the Reliquae Bodleianae that he could not have
known.
I wish to state that he employed some years of his youth in
travel, in order to polish his mind and to mould his opinion
by intercourse with all kinds of foreigners. France, Italy,
and Spain as the most civilised nations of the world, were
those whither his desire for knowledge carried him.
Pierre Amboise, 'Discourse on the Life of M. Francis Bacon,
Chancellor of England,' Historie Naturelle de Mre. Francis
Bacon (Paris, 1630).
This is further corroborated by a political treatise on Bacon's
travels which the Queen permitted him to read aloud to her.
The event is not dated other than the fact that Bacon was
was twenty-three years old at the time. This would fit
with the reported dates of his travels to Italy, Spain, etc.
The manuscript of this report, which is apparently the same one
paid for by Bodley, Walsingham, et al, was kept in Bacon's
Northumberland Manuscript, a folder found in a tin box in
the ruins of the Northumberland House on the Strand.
Two Shakespeare plays, Richard II and Richard III were
in manuscript in the folder.

*Apparently* in the folder- along with works by Bacon and plays by
persons other than Shakespeare.

[NB. By failing to mention that plays by writers *other than*
Shakespeare were in the folder you have misrepresented the FACTS.]

Post by Elizabeth
The question is how Bacon came
to have manuscripts of two Shakespeare plays before those
manuscripts were sent to the printer

*yawn* circulated in MS, as was much material.

Post by Elizabeth
(and in fact on the opposite
side of the page there is a note that one play was sent to the
printer from Bacon's own 'office' at Northumberland House).

Elizabeth

2006-10-20 04:27:00 UTC

Post by Elizabeth
Two Shakespeare plays, Richard II and Richard III were
in manuscript in the folder.

*Apparently* in the folder- along with works by Bacon and plays by
persons other than Shakespeare.

Not *apparently* because the manuscripts were originally sewn
together with thread or twine. Some of the manuscripts, the plays,
and other treatises were cut out with a knife, possibly by the
workmen who discovered the metal box in the debris. Somebody
stated that quartos were sewn into the cover but what would be
the point? Quartos are already bound.

Post by Ignoto
[NB. By failing to mention that plays by writers *other than*
Shakespeare were in the folder you have misrepresented the FACTS.]

We're not discussing Jonson and Nashe. We're discussing
whether Bacon traveled in Italy.

I have proven, in Amboise biography, that he did. I've also found
Bodley's letter to Bacon which reached Bacon, interestingly,
in Orleans. The Baconians claim that Bacon was shown a letter
written by la Pucelle when he was in Orleans and that material
turns up in Henry VI. I'm not sure that is true -- I don't even trust
Spedding -- but I will look into it now that I know that Bacon was
in Orleans.

Post by Elizabeth
The question is how Bacon came
to have manuscripts of two Shakespeare plays before those
manuscripts were sent to the printer

*yawn* circulated in MS, as was much material.

So show us the evidence that the broker was in possession
of manuscripts of Richard II and Richard III. We can say
with all certainty that the manuscripts were in Bacon's possession
because they were INDEXED on the cover of the Northumberland.

b***@gmail.com

2006-10-18 22:52:06 UTC

Post by Elizabeth
3 Francis Bacon, report. Instructions to Thomas Bodley.

P O. KristellerIter, Italicum: A Finding List of Uncatalogued
Or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Mss. Page 135
could be the original of Bacon's letter to Bodley.

My question is: what's the real source of your information?. Thank you.

Thanks. But where is the "letter from Bacon dated 1580, addressed to
his cousin Sir Thomas Bodley, Sir Francis Walsingham and several other
English patriots includes a bill for £800 in expenses for Bacon's
trips to Italy, France, Denmark and Spain"? Do you mean it is to be
found in the Reliquae Bodleianae?

Post by Elizabeth
The manuscript of this report, which is apparently the same one
paid for by Bodley, Walsingham, et al, was kept in Bacon's
Northumberland Manuscript

Are you sure? Burgoyne doesn't seem to list it.

Post by Elizabeth
Two Shakespeare plays, Richard II and Richard III were
in manuscript in the folder. The question is how Bacon came
to have manuscripts of two Shakespeare plays before those
manuscripts were sent to the printer

It was not too difficult then. Many works were circulated in manuscript
form. Shakespeare's friends read his sonnets long before they were sent
to the printer. But why do you think it was Bacon who owned the
manuscript?

Post by Elizabeth
(and in fact on the opposite
side of the page there is a note that one play was sent to the
printer from Bacon's own 'office' at Northumberland House).

I have been unable to find this note. There are 88 pages. What page do
you mean?

a***@hotmail.com

2006-10-19 01:01:14 UTC

I MIGHT (stress MIGHT) accept this as remotely evidence of Oxford's
authorship if a SINGLE ONE of Shakespeare's Italian references were to
a place in the least bit obscure (actually there is: Belmont, but
that's because he made it up and didn't give it an Italian name) that
only someone who had been there would know about.

Since Shakespeare only names cities that everyone knew about who had
read any books about Italy (and the Author had plainly read a good
many), there is nothing in the least bit strange about his knowing of
Venice, Florence, Naples, Rome, Messina, Padua, or Verona -- major
towns all.

It is, however, a bit odd that he thinks you can be set adrift from
Milan and float to Majorca or wherever The Tempest is taking place --
clearly he is unaware just how very far Milan is from the seacoast. (He
also seems to think Aleppo is a port instead of a town high in the
hills of inland Syria, cf. Othello and Macbeth.) And his getting the
name of Messina wrong as "Messaline" in Twelfth Night is a little odd,
to say nothing of the seacoast of Bohemia.

It's easy to account for all this: the Author knew Italy only from
books, having never in his life set foot out of England.

Jean Coeur de Lapin

P.S. What are Mark's OTHER arguments for Oxfordization? (Or shall we
call it "Vereing from the Norm" ?)

b***@gmail.com

2006-10-19 05:15:37 UTC

Post by a***@hotmail.com
I MIGHT (stress MIGHT) accept this as remotely evidence of Oxford's
authorship if a SINGLE ONE of Shakespeare's Italian references were to
a place in the least bit obscure (actually there is: Belmont, but
that's because he made it up and didn't give it an Italian name) that
only someone who had been there would know about.

This is exactly what they mean, and they give examples. If you want to
argue with them you should read their books first.

Post by a***@hotmail.com
It is, however, a bit odd that he thinks you can be set adrift from
Milan
clearly he is unaware just how very far Milan is from the seacoast.

Don't think your opponents are stupid and totally ignorant. If I was an
Oxfordian or Baconian I'd recommend you to read Sullivan's article
published back in 1908. Do your homework.

Ms. Mouse

2006-10-19 13:04:03 UTC

This is exactly what they mean, and they give examples. If you want to
argue with them you should read their books first.

Post by a***@hotmail.com
It is, however, a bit odd that he thinks you can be set adrift from
Milan
clearly he is unaware just how very far Milan is from the seacoast.

Don't think your opponents are stupid and totally ignorant. If I was an
Oxfordian or Baconian I'd recommend you to read Sullivan's article
published back in 1908. Do your homework.

Thanks for saying that. I had this same discussion with Jack
Rabbit-heart years ago. As recently as July, I wrote in reply to
someone else:

"The question anyway is not whether there *could be* waterways between
Milan and the sea, but whether there *were.* I know I've seen that
there were, several times from several scholars. The Martesana Canal
ran to the Adda River, for example, which emptied/empties into the
Adriatic. The Martesana was actually built by the Sforza Duke of Milan

(very interested in magic and witchcraft) in the fifteenth century..."

The fact that there was a water route from Milan to the sea isn't
esoteric knowledge. It can be found in several places on the web. But
people persist in repeating the same old same old.

Regards,
L.

Paul Crowley

2006-10-19 17:26:20 UTC

Post by a***@hotmail.com
It is, however, a bit odd that he thinks you can be set adrift from
Milan
clearly he is unaware just how very far Milan is from the seacoast.

Don't think your opponents are stupid and totally ignorant. If I was an
Oxfordian or Baconian I'd recommend you to read Sullivan's article
published back in 1908. Do your homework.

Thanks for saying that. I had this same discussion with Jack
Rabbit-heart years ago. As recently as July, I wrote in reply to
"The question anyway is not whether there *could be* waterways between
Milan and the sea, but whether there *were.* I know I've seen that
there were, several times from several scholars. The Martesana Canal
ran to the Adda River, for example, which emptied/empties into the
Adriatic. The Martesana was actually built by the Sforza Duke of Milan
(very interested in magic and witchcraft) in the fifteenth century..."
The fact that there was a water route from Milan to the sea isn't
esoteric knowledge. It can be found in several places on the web. But
people persist in repeating the same old same old.

Water does flow from Milan to the sea --
no doubt about that. If you were a flea,
and you could cope with the journey, you
could probably use the drainage system to
get there. But, flea or human, there is no
way in which you could reliably move any
distance upstream, by water.

The geographical facts should not be in
dispute. Softer-minded people (of whom
Mouse is a prime example), whether Strat
or Oxfordian, will believe whatever they
want to believe.

And, yes, Shakespeare really did think
that Cleopatra played billiards; that there
were tides in the Mediterranean, that King
John had artillery, that turkeys could be
bought in England in the 14th century,
that Romans wore doublets, and so on
and on. . . .

Paul.

Ms. Mouse

2006-10-19 18:52:58 UTC

Post by a***@hotmail.com
It is, however, a bit odd that he thinks you can be set adrift from
Milan
clearly he is unaware just how very far Milan is from the seacoast.

Don't think your opponents are stupid and totally ignorant. If I was an
Oxfordian or Baconian I'd recommend you to read Sullivan's article
published back in 1908. Do your homework.

So you are disputing, then, that the The Martesana Canal ran from Milan
to the Adda River and via the river to the sea in the sixteenth
century?

Post by Paul Crowley
Softer-minded people (of whom
Mouse is a prime example), whether Strat
or Oxfordian, will believe whatever they
want to believe.

Thank you. I've been very ill. What's your excuse?

L.

Post by Paul Crowley
And, yes, Shakespeare really did think
that Cleopatra played billiards; that there
were tides in the Mediterranean, that King
John had artillery, that turkeys could be
bought in England in the 14th century,
that Romans wore doublets, and so on
and on. . . .
Paul.

Paul Crowley

2006-10-20 07:15:39 UTC

Post by Paul Crowley
The geographical facts should not be in
dispute.

So you are disputing, then, that the The Martesana Canal ran from Milan
to the Adda River

I dispute it only in the sense that it ran (and
runs) FROM the Adda river TO Milan. Its
purpose was to bring fresh drinking water into
the city. It was / is short and local. Such water-
works were common in cities throughout Europe.
The Romans had built quite a few, and more
were constructed from Early Modern times.
They were not designed for the transport of
goods nor people. Such "transport canals"
came a few hundred years later in the industrial
age, when large quantities of heavy goods and
raw materials (e.g. coal) needed to be moved
around. But, soon after they were built, the
invention of railways made them obsolete.
There would have been very few (if any) such
canals in Italy.

Post by Ms. Mouse
and via the river to the sea in the sixteenth
century?

Ridiculous. You _might_ be able to get a
boat down the river, especially in the summer.
But how would you ever get it back up again?
Neither the steam, nor the internal combustion
engine, had been invented.

Post by Paul Crowley
Softer-minded people (of whom
Mouse is a prime example), whether Strat
or Oxfordian, will believe whatever they
want to believe.

Thank you. I've been very ill. What's your excuse?

I have pointed this out to you before --
many times. It's Transport and Industrial
History 101.

Paul.

chris

2006-10-21 22:22:44 UTC

Post by Paul Crowley
I dispute it only in the sense that it ran (and
runs) FROM the Adda river TO Milan. Its
purpose was to bring fresh drinking water into
the city. It was / is short and local. Such water-
works were common in cities throughout Europe.
The Romans had built quite a few, and more
were constructed from Early Modern times.
They were not designed for the transport of
goods nor people. Such "transport canals"
came a few hundred years later in the industrial
age, when large quantities of heavy goods and
raw materials (e.g. coal) needed to be moved
around. But, soon after they were built, the
invention of railways made them obsolete.
There would have been very few (if any) such
canals in Italy.

Perhaps Mr. Crowley would care to research how the stones from which
the Cathedral in Milan were built were transported to the construction
site. I'm sure the list would benefit from that knowledge.

Tom Reedy

2006-10-21 23:34:49 UTC

Post by chris

Perhaps Mr. Crowley would care to research how the stones from which
the Cathedral in Milan were built were transported to the construction
site. I'm sure the list would benefit from that knowledge.

Research? Crowley don' need no stinkin' research! All he has to do is sit in
his armchair and make it up!

TR

Paul Crowley

2006-10-22 15:09:10 UTC

Post by chris

Perhaps Mr. Crowley would care to research how the stones from which
the Cathedral in Milan were built were transported to the construction
site. I'm sure the list would benefit from that knowledge.

I did see that the canals in the vicinity of
Milan were more elaborate and extensive
than I had believed. BUT my main point
stands. They NEVER extended outside that
immediate region and enabled transport to
the sea, or to Verona. Such a system was
conceivable -- but only purely theoretically
manner. It would have require a huge
investment, with enormous viaducts. The
political stability was never there -- after
Roman times. And, even if it had been,
the expense would have made such a
scheme virtually impossible.

However -- the poet would have seen the
port in Milan, and been aware of the idea.
His joking about a ship going from one city
to the other was not a wholly absurd idea.
The poet's joke was prompted by real
observations. It was not entirely invented.
It had some basis in truth.

Paul.

Art Neuendorffer

2006-10-22 17:23:32 UTC

Post by chris

Perhaps Mr. Crowley would care to research how the stones from which
the Cathedral in Milan were built were transported to the construction
site. I'm sure the list would benefit from that knowledge.

.
Why a duck?
.
http://fortuna.home.pipeline.com/cafe-compendium/duck.htm
Loading Image...

Loading Image...

http://static.zoovy.com/img/anglerdeals/H480-W640-BFFFFFF/duck016

Art Neuendorffer

Ignoto

2006-10-20 07:42:28 UTC

Post by a***@hotmail.com
It is, however, a bit odd that he thinks you can be set adrift from
Milan
clearly he is unaware just how very far Milan is from the seacoast.

Don't think your opponents are stupid and totally ignorant. If I was an
Oxfordian or Baconian I'd recommend you to read Sullivan's article
published back in 1908. Do your homework.

So you are disputing, then, that the The Martesana Canal ran from Milan
to the Adda River and via the river to the sea in the sixteenth
century?

It would appear so:

"I did a quick bit of internet research and this seems simply not to
be true. By the time of Shakespeare's supposed visit, around 1592-93
according to the Mr. Alexander's first Grillo post, there was indeed a
large and complex canal (naviglio in the singular and navigli in the
plural) system in place around Milan. This system did, in fact,
connect
the waters of the Ticino R. to the west of Milan with the waters of
Adda
R. to the east. It is also true that each of these rivers drain into
the Po R., which is south of Milan, and that the Po drains into the
Adriatic. So, on first blush, it looks as though one could leave Milan
by boat, travel the canal system to either the Ticino or Adda, travel
down to the Po, and then carry on to the Adriatic. But is this really
the case? Of course not. When the navigli system was finally
completed, around 1816, with a link south to the Po, it had a total
navigable length of 232 km: 50 km Naviglio Grande, 101 km `other
navigli,
and 81 km usable river stretches. That's it. Three rivers but only 81
navigable km."

http://groups.google.com.au/group/humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare/msg/fe7c1d245d2f22fa?dmode=source&hl=en

Post by Paul Crowley
Softer-minded people (of whom
Mouse is a prime example), whether Strat
or Oxfordian, will believe whatever they
want to believe.

Thank you. I've been very ill. What's your excuse?
L.

Ms. Mouse

2006-10-20 15:00:52 UTC

Post by a***@hotmail.com
It is, however, a bit odd that he thinks you can be set adrift from
Milan
clearly he is unaware just how very far Milan is from the seacoast.

Don't think your opponents are stupid and totally ignorant. If I was an
Oxfordian or Baconian I'd recommend you to read Sullivan's article
published back in 1908. Do your homework.

So you are disputing, then, that the The Martesana Canal ran from Milan
to the Adda River and via the river to the sea in the sixteenth
century?

"I did a quick bit of internet research and this seems simply not to
be true. By the time of Shakespeare's supposed visit, around 1592-93
according to the Mr. Alexander's first Grillo post, there was indeed a
large and complex canal (naviglio in the singular and navigli in the
plural) system in place around Milan. This system did, in fact,
connect
the waters of the Ticino R. to the west of Milan with the waters of
Adda
R. to the east. It is also true that each of these rivers drain into
the Po R., which is south of Milan, and that the Po drains into the
Adriatic. So, on first blush, it looks as though one could leave Milan
by boat, travel the canal system to either the Ticino or Adda, travel
down to the Po, and then carry on to the Adriatic. But is this really
the case? Of course not. When the navigli system was finally
completed, around 1816, with a link south to the Po, it had a total
navigable length of 232 km: 50 km Naviglio Grande, 101 km `other
navigli,
and 81 km usable river stretches. That's it. Three rivers but only 81
navigable km."

Um, I am no expert on this by any means, but who is Trent Annetts who
"did a quick bit of internet research"? Is he an authority? Could you
please explain what he means by this:

When the navigli system was finally completed, around 1816, with a link
south to the Po, it had a total navigable length of 232 km: 50 km
Naviglio Grande, 101 km `other navigli, and 81 km usable river
stretches. That's it. Three rivers but only 81navigable km."

Is he then inferring that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
before part of the system was completed, there were only 81 km of
usable river stretches? That there were no other navigable parts of the
river(s) that linked the canal to the sea? He is countering Grillo, who
I believe is a Stratfordian scholar. I'm willing to accept what Trent
Annetts says if he's right, but where are his sources? How does he
know?

Best wishes,
L.

Post by Ignoto
http://groups.google.com.au/group/humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare/msg/fe7c1d245d2f22fa?dmode=source&hl=en

Post by Paul Crowley
Softer-minded people (of whom
Mouse is a prime example), whether Strat
or Oxfordian, will believe whatever they
want to believe.

Thank you. I've been very ill. What's your excuse?
L.

a***@hotmail.com

2006-10-20 12:35:27 UTC

Post by a***@hotmail.com
It is, however, a bit odd that he thinks you can be set adrift from
Milan
clearly he is unaware just how very far Milan is from the seacoast.

"The question anyway is not whether there *could be* waterways between
Milan and the sea, but whether there *were.* I know I've seen that
there were, several times from several scholars. The Martesana Canal
ran to the Adda River, for example, which emptied/empties into the
Adriatic. The Martesana was actually built by the Sforza Duke of Milan
(very interested in magic and witchcraft) in the fifteenth century..."
The fact that there was a water route from Milan to the sea isn't
esoteric knowledge. It can be found in several places on the web. But
people persist in repeating the same old same old.

I am quite aware that there were canal works leading from Milan to the
sea.
I saw the Navigli and walked across one of its bridges the other day en
route to the Certosa di Pavia. (It was built by the father of the first
Duke, a Visconti not a Sforza, of MIlan.)
I still don't understand how a grown man (even encumbered by books and
a sleeping baby) could have been placed in a boat near his castle in
Milan and float (how long would it take? two days or so?) to the Med
without being able to paddle ashore or call for help. Even if he were
asleep and drugged (which is nowhere stated), the boat would have to
pass through innumerable locks, and the canal is not terribly wide, nor
is the current swift.

Jean Coeur de Lapin

Tom Reedy

2006-10-20 12:42:02 UTC

It's no use asking her questions like this. You are assuming Oxfordians are
grounded in the real world. They get their history from Alexander Dumas
novels and comic books, where everybody has a secret identity. They believe
everything in Shakespeare is true and really happened.

TR

Post by a***@hotmail.com

Post by a***@hotmail.com
It is, however, a bit odd that he thinks you can be set adrift from
Milan
clearly he is unaware just how very far Milan is from the seacoast.

Ms. Mouse

2006-10-20 15:30:41 UTC

Post by Tom Reedy
It's no use asking her questions like this.

It isn't? I usually answer questions I am asked to the best of my
ability, unless I've totally given up on the questioner.

Post by Tom Reedy
You are assuming Oxfordians are
grounded in the real world.

Aha. You have gone from me to Oxfordians in general. Are you suggesting
I'm not grounded in the real world? Or just that some vast faceless
army of Oxfordians isn't?

Post by Tom Reedy
They get their history from Alexander Dumas
novels and comic books, where everybody has a secret identity.

Can you honestly say that's true of me, Tom? I remember you once
accused me of not having read particular sources, but you apologised,
and I think you do understand now that I read as many applicable
sources I can find when seriously researching a question, as I'm sure
you do also.

Post by Tom Reedy
They believe
everything in Shakespeare is true and really happened.

Is that me again? I believe everything in Shakespeare is true and
really happened? In your dreams.

L.

Post by Tom Reedy
TR

Post by a***@hotmail.com

Post by a***@hotmail.com
It is, however, a bit odd that he thinks you can be set adrift from
Milan
clearly he is unaware just how very far Milan is from the seacoast.

Tom Reedy

2006-10-20 20:18:23 UTC

Post by Tom Reedy
It's no use asking her questions like this.

It isn't? I usually answer questions I am asked to the best of my
ability, unless I've totally given up on the questioner.

Post by Tom Reedy
You are assuming Oxfordians are
grounded in the real world.

Aha. You have gone from me to Oxfordians in general. Are you suggesting
I'm not grounded in the real world? Or just that some vast faceless
army of Oxfordians isn't?

OK, Lynne, here's your big chance.

List the reasons why you believe Oxford wrote the works of Shakespeare.
We don't need every little detail; a handfull of main reasons will
probably suffice.