His father, Christopher Munday (a stationer trained as a draper), and mother, Jane, died early, and in 1576 the orphaned Anthony was apprenticed to the stationer John Allde, working for him until the autumn of 1578 when his indentures were canceled on his own request to allow him to travel abroad.
His destination was Rome, but his motive is unlikely to have been religious. While there he stayed from February to May 1579 at the English College, which had recently been converted to a seminary. It was an interesting time to visit the city. He was able to see the carnival, the catacombs had just been rediscovered, and the English College was about to suffer dramatic changes, with Munday a participator. He published an account of all these events in 1582 in his English Roman Life, the most readable of his books.
After his return to England he busied himself with the moralistic The Mirror of Mutability (1579), which contains much undistinguished rhyme and blank verse, wrote prose fiction in the shape of the not particularly outstanding Zelauto (1580), produced a ballad and perhaps a pamphlet against the stage, and in 1581 turned to anti-Catholic propaganda, putting his knowledge of Catholic circles in Europe to maximum use.
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