Book exchange and Anglo-Italian relations in the Padua circle of Reginald Pole and Niccolò Leonico Tomeo

Abstract

This article considers the correspondence network centring around a young Reginald Pole and his tutor Niccolò Leonico Tomeo in Padua during the first half of the 1520s, when, as a student at the beginning of his career, Pole first resided in the Veneto region. Here, this article discusses a specific aspect highlighted in the exchanges between Pole, Leonico, and their circle of mostly English and Italian friends, i.e., the circulation of books and knowledge. Within this framework, this article investigates the relationship between textual exchange, social bonds, and political and professional advancement within a prominent humanist circle.

Pole and Padua

While Reginald Pole's reputation has somewhat suffered from the harsh judgement of his contemporaries, his significance in the politics of Tudor England is generally accepted. A close relative of Henry VIII, at one point Pole had become ‘the public face of the Roman opposition’ to Henry's divorce. ¹ In the 1530s, he was considered a suitable match for Mary Tudor; he became instead the last Catholic Bishop of Canterbury and the mind behind Mary's attempt to return England to Catholicism. The failure of many of his political enterprises would brand him as an ‘ineffectual diplomat’, with modern historians describing him as ‘lethargic’, ‘indecisive’, and ‘lukewarm’. ² Pole's reduced impact on contemporary English politics, however, is more than counterbalanced by the cultural consequences of his activities. Pole spent most of his life in Italy, first in Padua and then in Rome, where he was close to the faction advocating for the reformation of the Catholic Church (the so-called ‘Spirituali’). In Viterbo, Pole ‘gathered around him one of the most important groups in the history of the Italian Reformation’, the ‘Ecclesia Viterbensis’. ³ His ecclesiastic career was closely tied to the papal seat in Rome: as a papal legate, Pole took part in the Council of Trent, and in 1549, he came close to the papacy himself, losing the election to Julius III by just a handful of votes.

Reginald Pole was probably born in 1500, the third son of Sir Richard Pole, chamberlain to Prince Arthur; his mother was Margaret Pole, one of the last members of the Plantagenet dynasty. In the troubled Tudor times, these close ties with the royal family proved a heavy burden for the Poles: around 1540, Reginald's older brother Henry was executed on charges of treason, along with his 70-year-old mother and two of his cousins. Pole was educated in Oxford, where he was probably taught by William Latimer and Thomas Linacre. ⁴ Latimer and Linacre were among the most important English intellectuals of their age; both are linked to a renewed interest for Greek studies and to the importing of modern humanistic ideas and works. Significantly, both had previously studied in Padua, Linacre as a physician and Latimer as a Greek scholar; their connections to Padua and to Leonico Tomeo's circle would prove highly influential in establishing Pole's first professional and personal relationships in Italy. In 1521, Henry VIII granted Pole a royal pension to pursue his studies abroad, possibly in preparation for the kind of political or diplomatic career that would have been deemed appropriate for a younger son of a great family. Pole directed himself to Padua, preceded by a letter by Latimer addressed to Latimer's old friend Leonico, recommending the young nobleman. ⁵ A letter from Pole to Cardinal Wolsey (6 October 1520), where Pole claims that Henry's idea to send him to study in Padua was ‘perhaps [Wolsey's] doing’, suggests that Wolsey might have acted as a patron towards Pole, who describes him as ‘providing [him] immortal benefices’. ⁶

Pole arrived in Veneto in April 1521 and stayed for about five years, until July 1526, when he made his way back to England. ⁷ In Padua and Venice, he was honoured by local authorities on account of his close relationship with King Henry, as he wrote in April and May 1521, informing the King that ‘the Venetian Consiglio were extremely courteous to [him] when they learnt that [Henry] had sent them’. He lodged in Palazzo Roccabonella, in the centre of the town and frequently stayed in Venice. ⁸ In Padua, Pole, described in contemporary documents as ‘a student in our university’, ⁹ was tutored privately by the Aristotelian philosopher Niccolò Leonico Tomeo; the ‘shadowy’ Giovanni Battista da Lion and the grammarian Lazzaro Bonamico are also mentioned as his teachers. ¹⁰ Leonico had been called to the university in 1497 as a reader of Aristotle in the original Greek, in an attempt on the part of the university to restore the use of the Aristotelian text. ¹¹ Leonico was a renowned philosopher, translator, and collector of antiquities, with close personal and professional relations to relevant contemporary humanist circles across Europe. In Padua, he also taught literature along with philosophy and collaborated closely to the publication of Greek texts for the printer Aldo Manuzio. ¹² Soon after he had established himself in Padua, Leonico had been tasked with the private education of English students in Padua and Venice, an occupation he was still pursuing in May 1521, when Pole was entrusted to his care. ¹³

It is quite possible that the choice of Padua was influenced by Pole's political prospects in England, and that by sending him to study there, Henry VIII was preparing his younger relative for future service to the Crown. ¹⁴ With a universally renowned tradition in the study of civil law, a necessary prerequisite for diplomatic employment, the University in Padua represented the starting point in the careers of several English humanists who chose to serve the state; among them were people well-known to Pole, such as Thomas Linacre, Thomas Starkey, and Thomas Savage. ¹⁵ The university attracted students from the whole of Europe, providing newcomers with a varied international environment. The connection of Padua to Venice, one of the most important cultural centres of the European Renaissance, was a significant one, and the region could offer several opportunities to establish important social and professional contacts. ¹⁶ Early modern Padua was also a centre for conspicuous cultural consumption. The combined effect of the presence of a renowned international university and the vicinity of Venice, with its flourishing book trade, made it an especially significant centre for book circulation. Finally, Venice was known for its tolerance in matters of religion, and the university ended up hosting religious exiles of different kinds and providing fertile ground for the exchange of ideas. In this sense, Padua was the perfect place for Pole, giving him the opportunity to stay out of dynastic trouble at home, while at the same time directing him towards a successful career in international diplomacy. The choice of Leonico as Pole's tutor, with his extended international network and a successful track record in mentoring English diplomats, may have been similarly influenced by hopes of a political career. ¹⁷ Although modern sources tend to attribute the appointment of Leonico directly to the Venetian Council, according to Jonathan Woolfson, the choice of Pole's teacher may rather have come from England. ¹⁸

As is to be expected from an important nobleman and intellectual, Pole left a sizeable correspondence, amounting to about 2,300 letters. ¹⁹ His correspondents included intellectuals (Desiderius Erasmus, Pietro Bembo, Peter Martyr) as well as Popes (Clement VII, Paul III) and heads of state (Henry VIII, Charles V). The complete corpus of Pole's letters, scattered among several archives, has been listed by Thomas Mayer in his definitive four-volume calendar. ²⁰ The letters examined here span the short period between 27 April 1521 and March 1526 in Mayer's calendar; this period corresponds to the first part of Pole's public life, during which he was a student in Padua. This essay focuses on letters mentioning book circulation and textual exchanges in the Pole/Leonico circle. ²¹

Most of the correspondence between Pole, Leonico, and the English people belonging to their circle is contained in the Rossianus manuscript in the Vatican Library (Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Ross. 997), which covers the period 1521–31. The manuscript contains several letters by Leonico, mostly in Latin, and represents a key document for the understanding of Anglo-Italian relationships in the early sixteenth century. ²² The manuscript testifies to the fact that Leonico maintained close relationships with his English pupils, which continued well after they had entered a wider world of political and intellectual activity, and witnesses the strength of contemporary humanist intellectual and personal bonds. For Leonico, intellectual exchange was also a way to extend the reach of his network, further his career, and gain diplomatic and scholarly weight in an international setting. Several of his former pupils and friends (Richard Pace, Thomas Linacre, Cuthbert Tunstall) had acquired important positions in the Tudor government as diplomats and state officials. Moreover, the role of Leonico in forging and maintaining relationships with England seems to have been acknowledged by the Serenissima, since the Paduan scholar was regarded as a sort of informal diplomatic agent in dealing with the Tudor court. Besides being entrusted with the education of English gentlemen, the Republic sent him in August 1522 to meet the English ambassador Richard Pace on his way to Venice, although Leonico was directed to ‘let it appear that he performs this office spontaneously’. ²³

This epistolary environment includes mostly English and Italian participants, involved in the exchange of books and texts at various levels, from buying and borrowing to reviewing and printing, confirming the decentralised nature and international reach of humanist intellectual circles. Besides the people already mentioned, these exchanges involve several other contemporary humanists. First among them is Cardinal Pietro Bembo, the internationally renowned Italian aristocrat, who would prove instrumental in Pole's career. ²⁴ The Ciceronian scholar Christophe de Longueil, a friend of Erasmus, was introduced to Pole by Linacre, showing how the foundations of Pole's relationships in Padua had been laid in the early years of his education. Erasmus and Thomas More are also among the correspondents, indicating the reach of Pole's circle of acquaintances, even at such an early stage in his career. Pole had been introduced to Erasmus by Lupset, who accompanied Pole to Italy and was a fellow student of Leonico. Pace, the English ambassador who had also studied in Padua, is often mentioned in these exchanges, as a friend of Lupset, Leonico, and Pole. ²⁵ These letters show a close circle of friends connected by their shared interest in humanae litterae and philosophical matters.

Book circulation

A single letter by Leonico illustrates the preliminary stages of Pietro Bembo's Prose della Volgar Lingua (Venice, 1525), the treatise containing what is probably the first attempt at Italian literary history. Leonico's letter to Pole (dated June 1521) describes how Bembo, Pole's ‘great admirer’, had just returned from Rome and settled at Nonianus. ²⁶ There, Giovanni Antonio Marostico and Christophe de Longueil had a conversation about the respective merits of Latin and Italian, ‘Marostico defending the Italian and Longueil Latin’. ²⁷ The conversation at Noniano mirrors the debate related to the treatise, and the fact that Bembo was selected as a judge ‘for his competence in the subject’ probably refers to the fact that the Cardinal had been working on the treatise for a while before this debate took place. ²⁸ Bembo's own correspondence reveals that the first two books of the treatise had been at least partially composed about a decade earlier, when he sent them to Gabriel Trifone. ²⁹ The fact that Leonico decided to share this episode with Pole at the beginning of their acquaintance testifies to the personal stake that Leonico had in Pole's career, whom he was eager to introduce to some of the most renowned humanists in his circle, such as Bembo and Longueil. Leonico's efforts in introducing Pole to the right people would bring tangible results: Longueil became a close friend, while Bembo remained a lifelong and powerful ally in Pole's ecclesiastical career. For these introductions, Leonico chose a set of circumstances tied to the contemporary humanistic debate on the questione della lingua, no doubt to foreshadow the interest in intellectual debate on the part of his English student, praised by Bembo for his ‘nobility and knowledge of letters’. ³⁰

A series of letters offers information on international book exchange in the circle. Leonico wrote to Pole on 28 June 1524 reporting a visit by ‘our friend’ John Clement, who was in Italy to study medicine. ³¹ Clement left a copy of More's Utopia with Leonico, who apparently relished the book so much that he spent most of the night reading it. ³² In his letter to Pole, Leonico also claims to be ‘uncertain whether [the book] is a present’ or just a loan. Leonico's doubts acquire more meaning in the context of his correspondence and of his efforts to circulate his own works in England in this period. Leonico had sent to England several copies of his commentary on Aristotle's Parva Naturalia (Venice, 1523) around January 1524, shortly after its publication and only a few months prior to receiving the copy of Utopia from Clement. One of these copies was sent directly by Leonico to More, along with a letter dated 19 January 1524, asking ‘most earnestly’ for a copy of More's ‘great work on the Government of the Republic’. ³³ A few days earlier, Leonico had also sent the Parva to Latimer (16 January 1524), requesting his ‘critical and considered judgement about it’ and similarly asking for Latimer's own commentaries on medical matters. ³⁴ Another letter from the same period (5 January 1524) accompanies the copy of the Parva sent to Cuthbert Tunstall, who was also an alumnus of Padua. ³⁵

Pole and Lupset were also involved in the effort to disseminate copies of the newly printed Parva Naturalia to Leonico's friends abroad: writing to Latimer in January 1524, Leonico informs him that the commentaries are ‘in print and published’ and that ‘Pole and Lupset will see that copies go to our friends over there’. This suggests that Pole and Lupset were the ones materially responsible for the dissemination of the text. ³⁶ The same letter acknowledging the receipt of Utopia in June of the same year also wonders about the fate of his own letters to England and of the books he sent through, since he (Leonico) had not heard anything yet. While Leonico does not specify which books he means, and while Mayer seems to think this refers to Leonico's Dialogi of 1524, the context of Leonico's correspondence suggests that he was referring specifically to the several copies of the Parva Naturalia that he had sent to England around the beginning of the year, aided by Pole and Lupset. ³⁷ By disseminating copies through his circles of humanist friends, Leonico hoped to increase the international audience of his works and possibly to acquire scholarly credentials in England. After all, his role at the University of Padua was a relatively minor one, as he was tasked with the teaching of Aristotle only to prospective students of medicine and was not employed as a full professor in the most important branch of the university, which was concerned with the study of law. ³⁸ Padua-educated physicians, several of whom were Leonico's friends, had been gaining prominence in English cultural and political life, and it is possible that Leonico had hopes of obtaining a more lucrative and prestigious employment. These letters also bear witness to the importance of book exchange in maintaining social ties between humanists: in his letter to Latimer, Leonico thus explains his desire to have one of his own works in Linacre's library, ‘so that the presence [of the book] might testify to the kindly feeling of Leonico for him’. ³⁹ Moreover, Leonico seemingly used his own books as a means of trading knowledge and expanding his library, exchanging them to acquire other people's writings (in this case, More's Utopia and Linacre's medical commentaries).

Leonico's missives also testify to the cohesiveness of the circle of English friends that he had established in Padua in earlier years; this circle was constantly expanding thanks to new introductions and shared relationships. Both Latimer and Tunstall were old friends of Leonico, who in his letter to Tunstall accompanying the copy of the Parva referred to his lectures on the same Aristotelian text, attended by Tunstall and Latimer in Padua. ⁴⁰ On the contrary, Thomas More was a new acquaintance made through Pole, as is made clear in Leonico's letter. Here, Leonico introduces himself as a friend of Pole, who, Leonico writes, ‘proclaims the greatness of [More's] virtues’ and ‘declares that [he] can truly be counted one of the most learned men alive’. ⁴¹ The presence of Pole in Padua, and Leonico's close relationship with him, gave Leonico the necessary social credentials to approach the English humanist. Finally, the publication of the volume in Venice had been facilitated by the powerful Richard Pace, to whom the volume is dedicated. ⁴² Pace was a close friend of both Leonico and Pole in the early 1520s, often mentioned in Pole's correspondence (as ‘our Pace’ and ‘illustrious Pace’). ⁴³ The English ambassador was also a former student of Leonico, who regretted that Pace's duties as a diplomat kept him from pursuing the study of letters. ⁴⁴ Pace acted as a sort of political patron to the younger generation of English students in Padua, including Pole and his companion Thomas Lupset. ⁴⁵

A letter from Leonico to the ambassador dated 1 November 1523 testifies to Pace's involvement in intellectual matters. In this letter, Leonico writes of receiving ‘Plutarch's book on Avarice, which [Pace] has translated into Latin’ and compliments Pace for his competence and flair for translation. ⁴⁶ Pace's De Avaritia was published in 1522 in Rome and Venice; the translation was then published again in Venice in the same year in a larger collection of Pace's translations, along with a dedication to Cuthbert Tunstall that also mentions Leonico. ⁴⁷ The printer of both Venetian editions of Pace's Plutarch was the same Bernardino Vitali who would publish Leonico's Parva Naturalia a short time later. Besides the dedication of the entire volume to Pace, the 1523 edition of the Parva Naturalia also contains prefaces and letters to others in Leonico and Pole's circle, a fact that further connects the book closely with this social environment. A letter to Pole functions as a preface to Aristotle's De divinatione per somnum, while a letter to Bembo prefaces the short treatise De iuventute et denectute. ⁴⁸

Lastly, an exchange of letters between Pole and Leonico dated to the summer of 1524 concerns what is probably Leonico's major original work, the Dialogi, printed in Venice in that same year. ⁴⁹ The dedication of the Dialogi to Pole occasioned a total of three letters, which feature, besides Pole and Leonico, several other people involved in the revision and printing of the book. The letters cover a mere few days, between the end of July and the beginning of August 1524, and testify to the climate of collaborative urgency surrounding the printing and publication of humanist works. The first letter from Leonico (31 May 1524) contains the dedication to Pole, who according to Leonico ‘has urged him to proceed’ with publication, putting the book under Pole's ‘patronage and authority’. The text of the dedication is attached to a letter written on the same day, with the direction that Pole and Lupset ‘look it over carefully’ and ‘rewrite as necessary’, evidence of the direct involvement of the dedicatee in the writing of a preface. ⁵⁰ The third letter of the series, again from Leonico to Pole, pressures Pole to ‘let him have’ the preface as soon as he can, because ‘my Mula’ and the printer have requested it, or to send it directly to the printer. ⁵¹ The ‘Mula’ mentioned by Leonico can probably be identified with Marcantonio da Mula, also called ‘Amulio’, who was also close to Pole and who probably handled Leonico's contacts with his Venetian printer, Gregorio de Gregori. ⁵² ‘Amulio’ is also the recipient of another preface/letter found in Leonico's Parva Naturalia; here, the letter to ‘Amulio’ introduces Aristotle's De longitudine et brevitate vitae (titled De extensione et brevitate vitae). ⁵³ These letters are an example of the direct involvement of Leonico's humanist circle in Padua in the process of printing the Dialogi and represent the earliest known example of Pole's involvement in literary activities.

Books as legacies

Books and libraries could also serve as mementoes of friendship, and passing on one's books to friends was a common occurrence in humanistic circles. A letter by Longueil addressed to Pole, dated around 23 August 1522, describes Longueil as ‘suffering greatly’ from a ‘savage fever’. ⁵⁴ The letter was written from Pole's house, where Longueil had been living as part of Pole's household. At the time, Pole was away, along with one Flaminio (probably Flaminio Tomarozzo, whom Longueil also knew). ⁵⁵ On receiving news of Longueil's illness, Pole hastened to Padua, only to find his friend was in his final hours. In his last letter, Longueil left specific directions for what concerned the fate of his books, asking Pole to ‘take care of his library’ along with his ‘memory and goodwill’. ⁵⁶ Longueil apparently formalised his wish, as is evident from his will, which has been recently discovered in the local state archives. The testament is dated 5 September 1522, and Longueil is said to have died about a week later, on 11 September, which allows us to bring forward the dating of the two letters by Longueil to Pole. Longueil's testament names Pole as legatee and sole executor, supervising bequests to Longueil's three named heirs, Flaminio Tomarozzo, Simon de Villeneuve, and a student of Longueil. ⁵⁷

To Pole himself, Longueil left ‘all his books in both languages, along with his precious stones and rings’. ⁵⁸ More significantly, a piece of paper that was once attached to Longueil's will includes what looks like a quantitative account of the books that were owned by Longueil and that Pole had inherited: while the titles are missing, the account gives us a better picture of the size of Longueil's library, which boasted about 200 volumes between bound and unbound books. Longueil's wish that his books should belong to Pole was apparently carried out, as about 25 books bearing ownership marks by Longueil can be found in Pole's collection in Oxford. ⁵⁹ Alessandro Pastore's survey of the books belonging to the Pole circle confirms this: a list of the books delivered to England in 1555 contains several works by Cicero ‘cum annotationes Longolii’ and a volume of ‘annotationes longolii manuscriptae’, along with a copy of the 1524 Orationes (mentioned below) and a book that may be identified with Leonico's translation of Ovid. ⁶⁰ Pole's library similarly incorporated the books of the poet and humanist Marcantonio Flaminio, when the latter died in Rome in 1550. Among the books that Flaminio's nephew Gabriele sold several years later was a copy of Leonico's Parva Naturalia (listed as ‘Il Leonico sopra i parvi naturali’), which might be the edition connected to the Padua circle. ⁶¹

Pole and the circle of Longueil's friends in Padua are probably behind the publication of his collected works, known as Longolii orationes (Florence: Giunta, 1524). ⁶² Along with the two ‘orationes’ mentioned in the title, the volume contains Longueil's epistolary and the anonymous biographical work titled Vita Longolii, in a bibliographical representation of the humanistic microcosm of Padua. Among Longueil's correspondents are Bembo, Jacopo Sadoleto (who Bembo also introduced to Pole), and the Roman Tomarozzo, who in 1525 procured a bust of Socrates for Leonico's collection of antiquities. ⁶³ The Orationes circulated among Longueil's friends, as proved by the copies listed among the books that used to belong to Pole and Tunstall. ⁶⁴ In 1526, news of the publication had reached Erasmus, who suggested that Pole also edit Longueil's annotations on Cicero, a work that can be identified with the bundle of manuscript annotations by Longueil that was also in Pole's possession. ⁶⁵ The authorship of the anonymous Vita Longolii is debated, but possible authors include both Pole himself, to whom the work is attributed by his first biographer, Ludovico Beccadelli, and Simon de Villeneuve, who was also a close friend of Longueil, residing in Pole's house. ⁶⁶ The printer's preface to Orationes mentions the author as ‘amicissimo eius, qui cum eo familiariter vixit’ (‘a great friend of his, who lived in the same house’), a description that could apply to both Pole and Villeneuve. ⁶⁷ Whoever the material author of the text of the Vita Longolii might be, it is generally accepted that both the Vita and the rest of Orationes were put together by Longueil's circle in Padua as a communal effort at memorialising their friend shortly after his death. That this was the case is evident from the several matching details between Longueil's letters to Pole and the description of Longueil's last hours that concludes the Vita Longolii.

Conclusion

Besides exchanging books among themselves, people in the circle are shown to collaborate actively to the production and dissemination of each other's works. Overall, these missives paint the picture of a lively community of scholars, diplomats, and church officials united by a shared passion for studia humanitatis. That such an active circle should have formed in the city of Padua should not come as a surprise. The relationships established in Padua and grounded in a close network of textual and book exchange were apparently long-lasting. A list of books that has been identified as referring to Tunstall's library contains several volumes associated with the Padua environment. Among Tunstall's books are copies of works by Pace (both his Opuscula of 1522, dedicated to Tunstall, and his Praefatio of 1530), Longueil (Orationes, in two copies), and Leonico. Wyman Herendeen and Kenneth Bartlett suggest that the most probable editions of both Longueil's Opuscula and Leonico's De animalium incressu may be identified with Parisian editions published between 1530 and 1533. ⁶⁸ However, it is plausible, given the dynamics of book exchange described here, that Tunstall might have owned the previous editions of the Orationes and Parva Naturalia (the latter in the copy sent to him by Leonico), tied to the Padua environment. Leonico's Parva Naturalia contains commentaries on Aristotle's De animalium incessu and De sensu, two more texts that are also present separately in the list of Tunstall's books.

These personal relationships, established and maintained via textual exchange, overshadowed a network of professional and political contacts that spanned across different countries and could offer practical advantages to one's career: as Leonico introduced his English student to Bembo, who greatly facilitated Pole's ecclesiastical ascent and allowed Pole to expand his network into the highest echelons of the Italian clergy, Pole made it possible for Leonico to make the acquaintance of Thomas More, one of the most significant thinkers of his day, but also a man of great political influence at the Henrician court. Leonico seems to have been active in cultivating his English connections via his books, possibly with a view of gaining some sort of preferment. He also directly courted Henry's favour: his efforts in this sense were always closely intertwined with his intellectual pursuits and hinged on book and textual exchange. A letter from Leonico to Pole, dated 1529 or 1530, when the latter was residing between England and Paris, contains the dedication to Pole of Leonico's last work, the dialogue Bembus, sive De animorum essentia (Venice, 1530), which was published the year before his death. Sometime later, in 1531, Leonico writes that he has sent four copies of the printed version to Pole in England through Edmund Harvell, the English ambassador. ⁶⁹ According to de Bellis, Leonico was a leading figure in the debate about Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon taking place in Padua in 1530. ⁷⁰ Here as well, Leonico can be seen acting as a covert agent for the Serenissima, allowing Venice to offer their support of Henry's cause without the government being openly involved. The last letter from Leonico to Pole is dated 8 February 1531, just a few months before Leonico's death; the letter informed Pole that Richard Croke, Henry's agent who was raising support for the divorce cause in Padua and Venice and who would deliver the letter to Pole, had ‘joined [Leonico's] circle’ since he had ‘good Greek and Latin’. ⁷¹ A letter by Croke to the King dated 25 May 1530 presents Leonico as one to whom Henry ‘owes much’ and included letters by Leonico himself (now lost). ⁷² The same letter also highlights Leonico's English credentials, mentioning his many important friends there (among whom are Pole, Tunstall, Latimer, and Linacre, but not, significantly, More). In his letters to Henry, Croke describes how Leonico apparently pressured about 50 doctors of the university to pronounce themselves in favour of Henry and convinced them to subscribe writings backing Henry's divorce. From Croke's correspondence, it seems that Leonico was instrumental in procuring support for Henry's plans. ⁷³ Finally, an unidentified book allegedly composed by Simone Ardeo, a Franciscan friar and theologian in Padua who had also endorsed Henry's plans and written in collaboration with Leonico, was sent directly to Henry via Croke in July of the same year. ⁷⁴ Having his book delivered into the King's hands was undoubtedly a high point in Leonico's career, the result of many years spent cultivating strong intellectual and personal bonds with influential Englishmen in Venice and abroad. These bonds had far-reaching consequences, since Leonico had a significant influence on the libraries and on the intellectual pursuits of his students. ⁷⁵ Although Leonico never left Padua after 1497 and never visited England, he can be counted among those international agents who affected Tudor politics and who had a hand in shaping one of the most complex periods in English history.