Thomas Twyne


Thomas Twyne was an Elizabethan translator and a physician of Lewes in Sussex, best known for completing Thomas Phaer's translation of Virgil's Aeneid into English verse after Phaer's death in 1560, and for his 1579 English translation of De remediis utriusque fortunae, a collection of 253 Latin dialogues written by the humanist Francesco Petrarca, commonly known as Petrarch.
Thomas was the son of John Twyne of Bullington, Hampshire, himself a translator, schoolmaster, noted collector of antiquarian manuscripts and author of the Commentary De Rebus Albionicis. Tywne's son, Brian Twyne, became the first Keeper of the Archives of the University of Oxford.
Thomas was a native of Canterbury and was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He acted in the Richard Edwardes version of Palamon and Arcite, put on before Elizabeth I at Oxford in 1566, on which occasion the stage collapsed, killing and injuring a number of people. He enjoyed the patronage of Lord Buckhurst and greatly admired John Dee and his mystic philosophy.

Epitaph

In St. Anne's Church on the hill at Lewes. The historian Thomas Walker Horsfield, F.S.A. translated the rather florid Latin inscription:
A modern edition of forty-six of Petrarch's dialogues, Phisicke Against Fortune, was published in 1993.

Books