Boccaccio's Decameron in Henry Neville's Library

Topic: Boccaccio's Decameron in Henry Neville's Library

1. Verified Sourced Facts

• Dunstan Roberts writes of a 1555 Boccaccio now at Audley End:

“the other is a copy of Giovanni Boccaccio’s Il Decamerone (Venice: Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1555).”

• Source-hardening check of the Roberts PDF confirms that this Audley End Decamerone is one of two Hoby-owned Italian books at Audley End, both with Hoby signatures. Roberts says the Boccaccio contains a section of the Vocabolario annotated in Hoby's hand.

• Roberts reports that one Hoby annotation glosses Scioperato as disutile, ignavo, inutile, and argues that the notes, though few, show Hoby using Italian reference material while reading Boccaccio.

• A 2026-04-21 web audit found independent public catalog controls confirming that a Valgrisi/Ruscelli Il Decamerone edition exists in this bibliographic neighborhood: the Metropolitan Museum of Art records a Vincenzo Valgrisi Venice printed-book copy dated 1554, and a Wannenes auction record describes a 1555 Valgrisi Il Decamerone copy with title-page date 1555 and second-title-page date 1554. These records support the edition's bibliographic reality but do not identify the Audley End/Billingbear copy.

• Roberts also states:

“A catalogue for Billingbear which was compiled in 1780 ... [and] a catalogue for Audley End, dated October 1834, records the presence of the Boccaccio but not the Renaldini.”

• Roberts adds that an 1877 Audley End catalogue records both Hoby books, while the 1834 catalogue records the Boccaccio but not the Renaldini. This supports a staggered Audley End transmission trail rather than a single simple movement.

• The working Billingbear transcription now gives direct local witness lines for two Decameron entries:
• IMG_8177.png: Il Decameron di Boccaccio di Rolli ... Salviati 1527.
• IMG_8181.png: Il Decamerone di M. Giovan Boccaccio ... Ven. app. Vinc. Valg. 1555.

• Direct PNG inspection by Codex on 2026-04-21 confirms that the two Boccaccio/Decameron lines are visibly present in IMG_8177.png and IMG_8181.png and match the working transcription in substance.

• This upgrades the "two Decamerons" point from Feinstein-blog-only to working-transcription plus direct-image evidence. The exact reading of the 1527 entry's qualifier after Boccaccio (di Rolli in the working transcription) should remain a paleographic/bibliographic check if the book needs to cite the edition with full precision.

2. Ken Feinstein Twitter and Blog Information

• A Ken Feinstein blog post on the Billingbear book list states:

“His collection included two copies of Boccaccio's Decameron (1527 and 1555 editions), source material for All's Well That Ends Well, Cymbeline, and Sonnet 144.”

• The same blog post presents the Billingbear list as evidence that Neville's library contained major Shakespeare source-books in Italian.

• A Ken Feinstein tweet dated 15 Jan. 2020 states:

“No documentary evidence like this has ever been produced for a Shakespeare authorship candidate. It connects Henry Neville very directly with a key Shakespeare source that hadn’t been translated into English.”

• A Ken Feinstein tweet dated 8 Jan. 2024 states:

“Thomas Savile forwarded Neville newsletters in Italian. Because Henry Neville could read Italian and was very interested in Italy. Here on the back of one of them he scribbles “Alibech and Rustico” a reference to the Decameron — a major Shakespeare source.”

3. Other Scholarly Interpretation and Provenance Inference

• Dunstan Roberts further states:

“It seems likely that the two books came to Audley End via a connection between two families, the Hobys and the Nevilles.”

4. Quoted Source Text

Henry Neville's Library of Shakespeare Sources

• “His collection included two copies of Boccaccio's Decameron (1527 and 1555 editions), source material for All's Well That Ends Well, Cymbeline, and Sonnet 144.”

Dunstan Roberts

• “the other is a copy of Giovanni Boccaccio’s Il Decamerone (Venice: Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1555).”
• “Both books have Hoby’s signature on their title pages”
• “contains two small additions in Hoby’s handwriting”
• “Scioperato”
• “It seems likely that the two books came to Audley End via a connection between two families, the Hobys and the Nevilles.”
• “A catalogue for Billingbear which was compiled in 1780 ... [and] a catalogue for Audley End, dated October 1834, records the presence of the Boccaccio but not the Renaldini.”

Working Billingbear transcription

• IMG_8177.png: “Il Decameron di Boccaccio di Rolli _____ Salviati 1527.”
• IMG_8181.png: “Il Decamerone di M. Giovan Boccaccio ________________________ Ven. app. Vinc. Valg.} 1555.”

Direct PNG inspection, 2026-04-21

• IMG_8177.png: the Il Decameron di Boccaccio ... Salviati 1527 line is visible on the page image. The exact di Rolli reading needs paleographic confirmation before being used as a full bibliographic identification.
• IMG_8181.png: the Il Decamerone di M. Giovan Boccaccio ... Vinc. Valg. ... 1555 line is visible on the page image.

Ken Feinstein tweets

• “No documentary evidence like this has ever been produced for a Shakespeare authorship candidate. It connects Henry Neville very directly with a key Shakespeare source that hadn’t been translated into English.”
• “Thomas Savile forwarded Neville newsletters in Italian. Because Henry Neville could read Italian and was very interested in Italy. Here on the back of one of them he scribbles “Alibech and Rustico” a reference to the Decameron — a major Shakespeare source.”

5. Citations

• Feinstein, Ken. “Henry Neville's Library of Shakespeare Sources.” kenfeinstein.blogspot.com, 31 Aug. 2019, https://kenfeinstein.blogspot.com/2019/08/henry-nevilles-library-of-shakespeare.html. Local preservation: blog_neville_library_sources_2019-08-31.md.
• Roberts, Dunstan. “Books Owned by Sir Thomas Hoby (1530-1566).” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, vol. 17, no. 1, 2020, pp. 53-66. Local PDF: Roberts-BOOKSOWNEDSIR-2020.pdf.
• Billingbear Book List Transcription, IMG_8177.png and IMG_8181.png. Working local transcription: Billingbear_Book_List_Transcription.md. Page images: IMG_8177.png; IMG_8181.png.
• Boccaccio, Giovanni. Il Decamerone. Venice: Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1554. Metropolitan Museum of Art object record, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/346201.
• Boccaccio, Giovanni. Il Decamerone. Venice: Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1555. Wannenes Art Auctions record, https://wannenesgroup.com/lots/616-130-boccaccio-giovanni-1313-1375-il-decamerone-venezia-valgrisi-1555/.
• Feinstein, Ken. “Big Discovery: In 1591 Henry Neville wrote these scribbles on the back of an Italian news letter. It relates directly to Boccaccio's Decameron, a major source for the works of Shakespeare.” X, 15 Jan. 2020, https://twitter.com/user/status/1217456057154301956. Local archive: twitter_Books_Read.md.
• Feinstein, Ken. “Thomas Savile forwarded Neville newsletters in Italian. Because Henry Neville could read Italian and was very interested in Italy. Here on the back of one of them he scribbles “Alibech and Rustico” a reference to the Decameron — a major Shakespeare source.” X, 8 Jan. 2024, https://twitter.com/user/status/1744410550828941718. Local archive: twitter_Books_Read.md.
• alibech_rustico_and_boccaccios_decameron.md, related packet for the 1591 Alibech/Rustico newsletter back.
• sir_thomas_hoby_audley_end_and_the_nevilles.md, related packet for the Audley End / Hoby / Billingbear transmission line.

6. Evidence Images

7. Notes on Access

• This packet is broader than alibech_rustico_and_boccaccios_decameron.md: it is intended for the book's source-books chapter rather than just the 1591 scribble document.
• Roberts's article concerns the elder Neville / Hoby / Audley End transmission line, not direct proof that Henry Neville personally bought or annotated the Audley End Boccaccio.
• Source-hardening result, 2026-04-27: Roberts strengthens the book-history claim substantially because the article gives named Audley End inventory numbers, Hoby ownership marks, Hoby annotations, and the Billingbear/Audley End catalogue sequence. It still does not prove Henry Neville's personal use of the Audley End Boccaccio; pair it with the Billingbear catalogue and Alibech/Rustico evidence for the Neville-facing argument.
• The Billingbear-list statement about two Decamerons is now supported by the working transcription and direct PNG inspection, not only by Ken Feinstein's blog and tweet layer.
• The strongest direct point in this packet remains the documented presence of the 1555 Boccaccio in the Billingbear / Audley End catalog trail; the working transcription and PNG inspection add a direct local witness for both the 1527 and 1555 entries.
• The new web controls harden the bibliographic identity of the Valgrisi Decameron edition, not the ownership/provenance claim. The ownership/provenance still depends on Roberts and the Billingbear/Audley End catalog trail.