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Barnabe Googe's Zodiake Of Life: A Translation Reconsidered, Marc Beckwith

Quidditas

Marcellus Palingenius' Zodiacus Vitae in twelve books (Venice [1535?]) was exceedingly popular in Reformation Europe. In nearly 10,000 lines of Latin hexameters

are conteined twelue seuerall labours, painting out moste liuely, the whole compasse of the world, the reformation of manners, the miseries of mankinde, the pathway to vertue and vice, the eternitie of the Soule, the course of the Heavens, the mysteries of nature, and diuers other circumstances of great learning, and no lesse judgement,

as Barnabe Googe summarized it on the title page of his translation in 1576. The ZV saw over sixty editions as well as translations …