The Ruins of Rome

Bellay, Joachim du (c.1522–1560), translated by Kline, A. S. (contact-email)

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Thirty-two sonnets from the 1588 edition of The Ruins of Rome by Joachim du Bellay. Born around 1525, Joachim du Bellay was a poet, critic, and a member of the poetic circle led by Ronsard, named the Pléiade. In 1553 he went to Rome as one of the secretaries of Cardinal Jean du Bellay, his first cousin. The poems of The Ruins of Rome belong to the beginning of his four-and-a-half-year residence in Italy. He departed for Paris at the end of August 1557. He was plagued by increasing deafness, and weak health, and died on New Year’s Day 1560. The sonnets of Les Antiquités provide a fascinating comment on the Classical Roman world as seen from the viewpoint of the French Renaissance.

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Kline, A. S.

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