After the Northumberland Manuscript (discovered in the 19th century) and the Billingbear Book List debuted on this blog in August 2019), this is one of the most exciting documents in relation to the Shakespeare Authorship Question. I discovered it from the National Archives:
In 1591, Thomas Savile, the younger brother of Henry Savile, forwarded to Henry Neville a series of letters in Italian. These letters gave news updates on military campaigns and other political events taking place in Europe. On the back of one of them, Henry Neville made the above scribbles.
This document directly connects Henry Neville, in 1591, with Boccaccio's Decameron, a major source for the works of Shakespeare. All's Well that Ends Well and Cymbeline both use it as a source, as does Two Gentlemen of Verona -- a play written at that time.
These scribbles connect Neville with a specific story in the Decameron that is referenced often in the works of Shakespeare. It may also relate to the character name Petruchio/Petruccio in Taming of the Shrew, written about that time.
It demonstrates unequivocally Neville's knowledge of the Italian language and interest in Italian history, culture, and politics; this aligns perfectly with the Shakespeare plays written in that period.
In addition, this document proves conclusively that Henry Neville consciously and purposely varied handwriting styles. He also had the habit of writing and rewriting other people's names as scribbles. The exact same behaviors are displayed on the covers of the Northumberland Manuscript which has the names "William Shakespeare" and "Francis Bacon" written many times with varying letter forms. The fine handwriting and willingness to play with letter forms adds evidence to support his writing the inscription on the Rylands copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets.
This document is also important because it provides an early example of Neville's italic handwriting, confirming that the annotations in the books at Audley End are, indeed, his.
Above all else, it shows us what Henry Neville was actually interested in. Almost all of the letters we have from him are diplomatic or official correspondence from 1598-1613; this gives us an essential glimpse into the unguarded person in 1591.
Who are Alibech and Rustico
The story of Alibech and Rustico is from Boccaccio's Decameron. In the story, a young woman, Alibech, is unwittingly seduced by Rustico. This is an extremely lewd story, you can read it here.
Key takeaway: in the story, the act of seduction is called putting the devil (the man) into hell (the woman).
There are two copies of the Decameron listed on the Billingbear Book List. One was initially owned by Thomas Hoby and is currently at Audley End; read about this copy at Cambridge University. The whereabouts of the other is unknown. So, not only did Neville own two copies of this very important Shakespeare source, he referenced the work specifically in his scribbles.
(See this extensive discussion in Shakespeare's Courtly Mirror: Reflexivity and Prudence in All's Well that Ends Well by David Haley (1993) of how the Decameron is incorporated into All's Well that Ends Well including the story of Alibech and Rustico.)
Who is Rusticuccio
After writing "Rustico" three times, Neville writes "Rusticuccio" four times. He is using the -uccio diminutive suffix in Italian to modify the name. In the same way, the name "Petruccio/Petruchio", the character name in Taming of the Shrew, is formed from the name "Pietro". There was a Cardinal Rusticci(o) at the time, so this might relate to him. There was also a Cardinal Petruccio referenced in Guicciardini's The History of Italy, a book at Audley End which Neville seems to have owned and annotated.
Note how dramatically Neville varies the capital R of Rusticuccio. Seen in isolation, one would think this is the handwriting of four different people. This habit of varying letter forms matches the variation in the handwriting on the Northumberland Manuscript -- as well as the variation we see in the handwriting in Neville's letters:
Taming of the Shrew is believed to have been written around 1591, precisely when Henry Neville was writing "Rusticuccio" on the back of this letter. It is worth noting that in Taming of a Shrew, the play published anonymously in Quarto in 1594, the main character's name is "Ferando" rather than "Petruchio". The exact relationship between this 1594 play and the First Folio version of the play is a matter of controversy. Romeo and Juliet, written around 1595, has an off-stage character also with the name "Petruchio".
Sonnet 144 and other references to devil/hell
Many scholars (KAMBASKOVIĆ-SAWERS 2007, Shore 1999, Berry 1999, Shindler 1892) have suggested that Shakespeare's Sonnet 144 seems to allude to the story of Alibech and Rustico:
Two loves I have of comfort and despair,Since Sonnet 144 was published in Passionate Pilgrim in 1599, and was likely written well before then, the timing aligns nicely with the 1591 dating of the Henry Neville's Alibech/Rustico scribbles.
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman colour’d ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turn’d fiend
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another’s hell:
Yet this shall I ne’er know, but live in doubt,
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
Shakespeare often uses the term "hell" to refer to a woman, probably in reference to Alibech/Rustico. Here are some examples of devil paired with hell:
I say a devil. Think'st thou, Hortensio, though her father
be very rich, any man is so very a fool to be married to hell? - Taming of the Shrew (1.1)
I am sorry thou wilt leave my father so:
Our house is hell, and thou, a merry devil,
Didst rob it of some taste of tediousness. - Merchant of Venice (2.3)
Why Sir John, do you think, though we would have theWho was Henry Killigrew?
virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders
and have given ourselves without scruple to hell,
that ever the devil could have made you our delight? - Merry Wives of Windsor (5.5)
Henry Killigrew was the father of Henry Neville's wife Anne. Anne's mother, Catherine Cooke, died in 1583. Above, Neville writes the last name "Killigrew" four times then writes "Sr Harry Killigrew". There isn't a lot of variation in how he writes it, unlike "Alibech", "Rustico", and "Rusticuccio" where he seems to vary the handwriting a good bit.
This habit of writing the names of people he knew, over and over, is strikingly similar to the Northumberland Manuscript, where the names of Francis Bacon and William Shakespeare are written over and over again.
Other Notes on Handwriting
See how Henry Neville varies "and" four different ways in a single document:
This type of intentional variation is characteristic of his scribbling on other documents and is similar to what we observe on the Northumberland Manuscript and in Neville's other handwriting:
How do we know this is Henry Neville's handwriting?
The scribbles are written on the back of a letter written to Thomas Savile, who along with his brother Henry Savile, was one of Neville's closest friends at the time and his travelling companion in Berkeley. The document was kept by the Neville/Braybrooke family with Neville's other documents at deposited at the archive around 1950. The handwriting is an exact match for Henry Neville's signatures and other italic handwriting. You can see samples of Neville's italic handwriting here.
Conclusions
The search for documents related to Henry Neville has really just begun, and the careful analysis of the discovered documents hasn't really even started yet. That said, this discovery helps us to understand the annotations at Audley End, the Northumberland Manuscript, the Sonnets inscription, and so much more.
As you can see on this blog, Henry Neville research is quickly producing a steady flow of very important *real* discoveries of documentary evidence. This evidence links him directly and unequivocally to the sources used to write the works of Shakespeare. We are just getting started here, there is much, much, much more to come.
