Sir Thomas Hoby, Audley End, and the Neville Connection

Topic: Sir Thomas Hoby, Audley End, and the Neville Connection

1. Verified Sourced Facts

• Dunstan Roberts writes:

“the library at Audley End, in Essex, contains two books which once belonged to the Tudor courtier, translator, and traveller Sir Thomas Hoby”

• The same article states:

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

• Roberts identifies the two Audley End Hoby books as Panfilo di Renaldini's Innamoramento di Ruggeretto and Giovanni Boccaccio's Il Decamerone (Venice: Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1555).
• Roberts states that both Audley End books have Hoby's signature on their title pages and bindings dating from the late sixteenth century.
• Roberts argues that Hoby bought at least one of the books in Venice in 1554, aligning the inscriptions with Hoby's documented continental travels.
• Roberts identifies that Neville as:

“Sir Henry Neville (c.1520-93)”

• The same article states:

“Neville had been granted various lands in Berkshire in 1551, including the manor of Billingbear”

• It also states:

“The Nevilles, meanwhile, kept Billingbear as their main country seat until Richard Aldworth Neville (1750-1825) inherited Audley End in 1797.”

• Roberts reconstructs the probable transmission route cautiously: the Hoby books likely reached Billingbear between 1558 and 1780, and then travelled separately to Audley End after Richard Aldworth Neville inherited Audley End in 1797.
• Roberts also notes that the Billingbear catalogue compiled in 1780 records both books; an Audley End catalogue of October 1834 records the Boccaccio but not the Renaldini; and an 1877 Audley End catalogue records both.

2. Ken Feinstein Twitter and Blog Information

• No Ken Feinstein Twitter/blog material is isolated in this packet at present.

3. Quoted Source Text

Roberts

• “the library at Audley End, in Essex, contains two books which once belonged to the Tudor courtier, translator, and traveller Sir Thomas Hoby”
• “Giovanni Boccaccio’s Il Decamerone (Venice: Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1555)”
• “Both books have Hoby’s signature on their title pages”
• “It seems likely that the two books came to Audley End via a connection between two families, the Hobys and the Nevilles.”
• “Sir Henry Neville (c.1520-93)”
• “Neville had been granted various lands in Berkshire in 1551, including the manor of Billingbear”
• “The Nevilles, meanwhile, kept Billingbear as their main country seat until Richard Aldworth Neville (1750-1825) inherited Audley End in 1797.”
• “A catalogue for Billingbear which was compiled in 1780”
• “dated October 1834, records the presence of the Boccaccio but not the Renaldini”

4. Citations

• Roberts, Dunstan. “Books Owned by Sir Thomas Hoby (1530-1566).” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, vol. 17, no. 1, 2020, pp. 53-66. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/27099594. Local PDF: Roberts-BOOKSOWNEDSIR-2020.pdf.

5. Notes on Access

• This packet concerns the elder Sir Henry Neville (c.1520-93), not Henry Neville (c.1563-1615).
• It is useful for the Audley End / Billingbear transmission line and for book-history context.
• Source-hardening result, 2026-04-27: Roberts supports a cautious provenance chain, not a claim that Henry Neville (c.1563-1615) personally acquired or annotated these specific Hoby books. Its best use is to document how Hoby-owned Italian books plausibly moved through Billingbear into Audley End.