Engravings
From Philip Sidney Funeral Project
HÆC POMPA FUNEBRIS
The Sidney Funeral Engravings
by Thomas Lant
Images Courtesy of
THE ANNE S. K. BROWN MILITARY COLLECTION at THE JOHN HAY LIBRARY
And are Used with Permission
The following links will provide you with access to digital images taken of the Hæc Pompa Funebris. The JPG images are made available here, for academic purposes only, courtesy of the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection at the John Hay Library of Brown University.
About Hæc Pompa Funebris
Hæc Pompa Funebris, as it is called on the title card above, often also called Sequitur celebritas & pompa funeris, Lant's Roll, or The Funeral Procession of Sir Philip Sidney is a series of engravings drawn by Thomas Lant and engraved by Theodoor De Brij (c. 1587-88). According to Peter Harrington, Curator of the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection, "Typical engravings measure between 19.5 x 38 cm. and 20 x 34 cm." The series, by accounts in Bos et al. and Colaianne and Godshalk (see BIBLIOGRAPHY_ENGRAVINGS), runs 30 plates, numbered 1-29 and with a final unnumbered plate. Often seen as the most accurate account of Sidney's funeral, the etchings depict the whole procession, with formations and certain key figures annotated in both Latin and the vernacular. The series begins on Plate 1 with a lengthy essay (again, in both languages) of the virtues of Sir Philip Sidney, set alongside a portrait of Thomas Lant and the ship The Black Pynnes. On Plate 2 the actual procession begins: another dual-language text piece describes the funeral itself and "begins" at St. Peter's, as the procession reaches Sidney's burial site. The rest of the funeral follows behind, with Sidney's coffin, surrounded by his closest friends and male family members on Plate 16.
About These Images
The set of engravings reproduced here represents a somewhat different experience than many have had with the well-known Lant engravings of Philip Sidney's funeral, inasmuch as they are not from the often-reproduced images held by the British Library. Instead, this set, originally owned by the Marquess of Bute, represents an earlier state of the plates. Bos et al. explain that this particular set of plates was the one mentioned by Walpole (see BIBLIOGRAPHY_ENGRAVINGS).
The volume collecting these plates, which now resides in the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection at the John Hay Library of Brown University and is one of very few sets extant, is described at greater length by Harrington: "The album measures approx 33 (h) x 49 (w) cm and is full calf tooled gold. It contains the armorial book-plate of the Marquess of Bute. It was purchased in New York from Baker & Brooks, Inc. Old and Rare Books, 3 West 46th Street, New York 19, NY on July 7, 1950 for $1350. The engravings are mounted in the album, certainly before they came to [Brown]. Each is surrounded by an ink enframent." In order to restore the integrity of the initial state of the images, they are presented here cropped free of their re-mountings; the measurements above and the evident change in paper color and texture were used as guides.
Comparing these images (especially the later ones that feature the military portion of the procession) to the British Library version (available through the subscription service Early English Books Online (EEBO) or in the 1980 reproduction edited by Colaianne and Godshalk (see BIBLIOGRAPHY_ENGRAVINGS), the later state includes textual annotation on almost every plate, while this version does not, allowing the earlier lengthy passages of description to stand in for plate-by-plate commentary. Harrington reports that the 1950s catalog card mentions that the images in this set are proofs.
Another critical difference here is the addition of 4 1/2 numbered images not present in the British Library set of plates. These, numbered 30-32/34 below, continue the military procession beyond that of the British Library's familiar dimensions. Bos et al. suggest that the extra plates constitute duplications of prior plates. Nonetheless, the plates here are sequentially numbered, and seem to form a viable sequence.
Also included in the Brown volume with the Lant engravings are a pair of portraits of Sidney, which, while not native to the initial document, we have also included below for their relevance to our larger project.
Used both here and in the Multimedia Presentation, this version of Lant's procession presents an opportunity to Sidney scholars to see high-resolution versions of all of these images in their entirety, an opportunity rarely available without archival clearances.
Sidney Portrait 2 -- c. 1745 (Not original to the "HÆC POMPA FUNEBRIS" plates but included in the Brown copy)
Plate 16 -- Sidney's Coffin
The Text of the Alternate Plate 30
Project Links
Multimedia Presentation Engravings Elegies Music
