"Scandalous Speech and Slanderous Libelles": Robert Peterson, Claudio Tolomei, and the translation of free speech in early modern England

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Philo, John-Mark (2022) "Scandalous Speech and Slanderous Libelles": Robert Peterson, Claudio Tolomei, and the translation of free speech in early modern England. Studies in Philology, 119 (4). pp. 621-653. ISSN 0039-3738

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Abstract

At the turn of the seventeenth century, Robert Peterson, an attorney working at the heart of Elizabethan government, translated one of the most detailed works on free speech to have emerged from the early modern era: Claudio Tolomei’s treatise on “la libertà del parlare.” Drawing on sources ancient and contemporary, Tolomei puts forward a rich and wide-ranging account of free speech and its implications for the prince and the smooth operation of government. This article offers the first analysis of Peterson’s manuscript translation of Tolomei, locating it among the most important legislative trends concerning free speech in late Elizabethan England.

Item Type:	Article
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Medieval and Early Modern Research Group
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?... https://www.jstor.org/stable/27187103
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	11 Jun 2025 10:30
Last Modified:	14 Jul 2025 11:32
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/99449
DOI:	10.1353/sip.2022.0013

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