Annette Carson
The following review by Arthur Kincaid, D.Phil., was submitted to 'The Ricardian' but Dr Kincaid died before it could be published. Annette Carson’s new edition of Domenico Mancini’s work is very welcome – indeed essential in view of the study which has been done since the previous editions by the late C.A.J. Armstrong (1936 and 1969). One of the most important contributions Carson’s new edition makes to historiography is her demonstrating that Mancini was a source for Sir Thomas More’s narrative. Armstrong too often speaks as if More had preceded Mancini (for example, p. 116, n. 46: “Mancini agrees with More’s account”). Carson’s careful study makes it completely clear that More had read Mancini. She rams home the point that “Mancini’s influence lies in how many of the themes and events he chose to highlight were the very items that came to be perpetuated”. (Thus through More he was an influence on Shakespeare). A significant technical reason why a new edition of Mancini is welcome is that, as Carson points out, in the Armstrong’s translation, “the same Latin word . . . is rendered differently and judgmentally when applied to Richard III.” Carson shows that it was Mancini who invented the friendship between Richard and Hastings, which More and others adopted - a point on which Armstrong does not comment, following his usual method of quietly accepting negative information about Richard. A technical aspect of Carson’s edition which helps the reader is her choice to use paragraphs (though the original and Armstrong’s translation do not), and her fluidity of language, which makes the work easier to read. Equally important is that while Armstrong’s traditional bias against Richard III often affects his translation, this is not true of Carson’s. Carson’s book is in every way superior to Armstrong’s. I say this as a personal friend of them both and with huge gratitude to them both for their help with my own work. Arthur Noel Kincaid
