“We don’t know” – a report from the beginning of the EMo Book Trade Project (ERC)
My personal teaching collection of early modern books counts one book printed in England, more specifically an ordinary duodecimo from Westminster. It is a 18th-century, corrected edition of George Ruggle’s Ignoramus. Comoedia. “Ignoramus” in Latin litterally means “we don’t know”, and refers in the play to an ignorant lawyer, who is a real dummkopf. Ruggle (1575–1622) based the Neolatin college play on Giambattista della Porta’s La Trappolaria, which was in turn an adaptation of Plautus’ Pseudolus. The satire, which makes a vicious attack on judiciary, was for the first time staged in Clare College, Cambridge, on 8 March 1615. King...
