it contained 36 plays, of which only 19 had been printed
during the playwright’s lifetime.
Further reading: Jonathan Bate, The Genius of Shake-
speare (Oxford, U.K. and New York: Oxford University
Press, 1998); Jonathan Bate and Russell Jackson (eds), The
Oxford Illustrated History of Shakespeare on Stage (Oxford,
U.K. and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001);
Katherine Duncan-Jones, Ungentle Shakespeare: Scenes
from His Life (London: Arden Shakespeare, 2001); Frank
Kermode, Shakespeare’s Language (New York: Farrar,
Straus & Giroux, 2000).
Sibyls Classical prophetesses, originally associated with
oracles of Apollo, but famous in post-classical times as the
reputed authors of the Sibylline Oracles. This collection of
prophecies had supposedly been obtained from the Sibyl
of Cumae and was kept in the Capitol in ancient Rome
and only consulted in national crises. The Capitoline col-
lection was destroyed in 405 CE, but meanwhile purported
texts of the prophecies had been put into circulation and
overlaid with Jewish and Christian accretions, making
them of great interest to the Middle Ages. The Sibyls
therefore passed into medieval and Renaissance lore as
true prophets, fit to associate in iconographical schemes
with the biblical seers.
Most commonly, the number of Sibyls was computed
at nine: Cumaean (alternatively known as the Ery-
thraean), Tiburtine (or Albunean), Hellespontine, Samian,
Eritrean, Delphic, Libyan, Persian, and Cimmerian. The
list, however, can vary. The Tiburtine Sibyl was particu-
larly famous, as among her supposed utterances was one
foretelling the coming of Christ, and she is sometimes
shown without her sisters, as in a fresco (1528) by PERUZZI
over the altar of the Fontegiusta church, Siena, in which
she announces the birth of Christ to the Roman emperor,
Augustus. The Sibyls were portrayed as either young or
very old women holding scrolls or books. They are de-
picted in inlaid marble slabs in the pavement of the aisles
of Siena cathedral (mainly 15th century), and in associa-
tion with prophets in the TEMPIO MALATESTIANO, in
Michelangelo’s ceiling in the SISTINE CHAPEL, and in scores
of humbler decorative schemes, even in domestic sur-
roundings, as at Chastleton House, Oxfordshire, England
(early 17th century).
Sidney, Sir Philip (1554–1586) English writer, courtier,
and soldier
Born on his father’s estate at Penshurst, Kent, Sidney was
brought up in court circles, went to Shrewsbury school
(1564) and Christ Church, Oxford (1568–71), and then
spent three years traveling on the Continent, where he
made a profound impression on many eminent scholars
and statesmen. On his return he was much favored by
Queen ELIZABETH I. He wrote the entertainment The Lady
of May (1578) for her, but in 1579 quarreled with the earl
of Oxford and, rejecting the queen’s wish that he should
apologize, he retired from court. He then incurred further
displeasure by sending her, at the instigation of his uncle,
the earl of LEICESTER, an outspoken memorandum (1580)
against her proposed marriage with Duke FRANCIS of
(Anjou-)Alençon.
While in retirement at Wilton, home of his sister
Mary HERBERT, Countess of Pembroke, Sidney probably
completed the first version of ARCADIAand with Mary
composed metrical versions of the Psalms. In 1581 his
prolonged courtship of Penelope Devereux (c. 1562–
1607) was terminated by her marriage to Lord Rich; Sid-
ney, who had been addressing sonnets to her under the
name “Stella,” expressed his continuing passion in some
of the finest sonnets in the sequence Astrophel and Stella
(1591). In the early 1580s he also wrote his famous De-
fence of Poesie (1595; also entitled Apologie for Poetrie),
justifying the social utility of verse as “delightfull teach-
ing.” In 1583 he was knighted and married Frances Wals-
ingham, daughter of the queen’s adviser, both events
taking place with the queen’s reluctant consent, but two
years later he made peace with the queen and was ap-
pointed governor of Flushing on Leicester’s expedition to
the Netherlands. The following autumn he was mortally
wounded while fighting the Spaniards at Zutphen and
died at Arnhem.
Sidney’s lifelong friend Fulke GREVILLE wrote (c.
1610–14) a biography of Sidney (1652) which idealizes
him as the embodiment of Elizabethan greatness and
Christian chivalry. His integrity, charm, courage, and
learning made him universally mourned. He was a con-
siderable patron of writers (Greville calls him “a generall
MAECENASof learning”); among his protégés was SPENSER,
who wrote the pastoral elegy “Astrophel” upon his death.
The Countess of Pembroke published the revised Arcadia
(1590), more moralistic in tone than the original “toyfull
booke,” and continued to encourage her brother’s literary
dependants.
Further reading: John Buxton, Sir Philip Sidney and
the English Renaissance (London: Macmillan and New
York: St. Martin’s Press; 3rd ed. 1987); Katherine Duncan-
Jones, Sir Philip Sidney: Courtier Poet (London: Hamish
Hamilton and New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press,
1991); Alan Stewart, Philip Sidney: A Double Life (New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001).Siena A city and city state in Tuscany, central Italy. Siena
was subject to, in turn, Etruscans, Romans, and Lombards
before attaining its independence in the 12th century. By
the early 14th century Siena was a great banking and
commercial center, but its economy and population then
declined on account of foreign warfare, raids by merce-
naries, the Black Death (1348–49), Florentine expansion-
ism, divisive constitutional arrangements, and Florence’s
commercial supremacy in Tuscany. Siena was briefly ruled44440 0 SSiibbyyllss