British School at Rome: Papers of the British School at Rome (9.1920)

PAPERS OF THE BRITISH SCHOOL AT ROME.
Vol. IX. No. 9.

NOTE ON A COPY OF THE RESPONSIONES
OF ROBERT PARSONS.
By Mrs. ARTHUR STRONG.
Another memorial of Cardinal Allen and of his friends in Rome
has lately been brought to my notice by Lord Gerald Wellesley, to whom
it belongs, and may fitly be placed in record here in connection with the
plaquette of Aristotle. This is a copy of the second edition (Rome,
Zannetti, 1593) of the celebrated replies (Responsiones) issued seriatim
to each clause of Queen Elizabeth’s edict against Catholics in the year
1591 : Elizabethae Angliae Reginae Haeresim Calvinianam propugnantis
saevissimum in Catholicos sui . . . Regni edictum . . . cum responsione
ad singula capita . . . per D. Andream Philopatrum Presbyterum, etc.
It is common knowledge that the pseudonym of Philopater conceals the
name of the famous English Jesuit, Fr. Robert Parsons, so that the
authorship of the book alone takes us back into the circle of the English
College at Rome, which Dr. William—afterwards Cardinal—Allen had
helped to found in 1575, and of which Parsons had been appointed
Rector in 1585.1 But this particular copy, as the various inscriptions
and stamps it bears testify, had sundry bibliographical adventures
which it is not without interest to retrace. A dedication inside the cover
reads :—
Hunc librum Cardinalis Alanus Anglus
Doctori Gerardo Vossio pro memoria Romae donavit
Anno Domini 1593. qui Vossius
eum postea dono dedit Praept0
collegii Rom. S. Pauli in Cola. 1606.
1 Card. Gasquet’s Hist, of the Ven. English Coll., chs. iii. and iv.

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