SOURCE: Bergvall, Åke. “Melanchthon and Tudor England.” In Cultural Exchange between European Nations during the Renaissance, edited by Gunnar Sorelius and Michael Srigley, pp. 85-93. Stockholm: Uppsala University, 1994.

In this excerpt, Bergvall highlights Melanchthon's status as a literary presence in England during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries.

Edward Denny in 1580 asked his younger friend Philip Sidney to suggest a recommended program of studies. In his written reply Sidney placed great emphasis on the study of history and proposed that Denny read a broad range of works, from the Greek and Roman classics to European chronicles. Denny's first choice, however, Sidney intimated, should not be Herodotos or Livy but a near contemporary: “You shoold begin with Phillip Melanthons Chronology.”¹ Melanchthon's Chronicon was an appropriate beginning, since in one broad sweep it covered the whole of history, from creation to recent times. Yet Sidney's choice of Melanchthon is also...