Tacitus, Cornelius (c. 55–c. 117) Roman historian and
provincial governor
His Histories cover the reigns of the Roman emperors from
Galba to Domitian, partly overlapping his own lifetime,
and his Annals cover the earlier period from the accession
of Tiberius; both are only partially preserved and were vir-
tually unknown in the Middle Ages. BOCCACCIOappar-
ently possessed a manuscript of the Annals and Histories
containing sections of the works unknown before the 14th
century, possibly from the monastery of Monte Cassino.
Niccolò NICCOLIobtained a codex with minor works of
Tacitus from the German library of Fulda. Tacitus’s Ger-
mania was edited by CELTIS(1500) and RHENANUS(1519)
as being of particular interest to northern European anti-
quarians. The history of imperial Rome did not greatly ap-
peal to the 15th-century Italians with their republican
ideals, and Tacitus’s importance was only fully recognized
through the work of LIPSIUSin the late 16th century.
Further reading: Kenneth C. Schellhase, Tacitus in
Renaissance Political Thought (Chicago, Ill. and London:
University of Chicago Press, 1976).
Taddeo di Bartolo (c. 1363–c. 1422) Italian painter
The last major representative of the Trecento tradition in
his native Siena, Taddeo frescoed the chapel of the Palazzo
Pubblico there (1407–14) and also executed commissions
in the Palazzo Piccolomini and several churches. He also
worked in Pisa and is represented by several pictures in
the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria in Perugia. SASSETTA
was one of his closest followers.
Tafur, Pero (c. 1410–c. 1484)Spanish traveler
Born to a noble family in Cordoba, Tafur traveled exten-
sively in the Mediterranean, the Near East, and Central
Europe in the later 1430s. During this period he visited
Jerusalem, Egypt, Mount Sinai (where he met Niccolò
dei CONTI), Rhodes, Constantinople, Trebizond, and
Vienna before returning to Italy in time to see the start of
the Council of Ferrara (see FLORENCE, COUNCIL OF) in
- Moving in exalted social circles, Tafur recorded
meetings with contemporary rulers in many places he
visited. His travel manuscript (surviving only in an early-
18th-century copy at Salamanca) was not published
until 1874.
Taille, Jean de la See LA TAILLE, JEAN DE
Tallis, Thomas (c. 1505–1585) English composer
Tallis is first mentioned as organist at Dover priory in
- He served at the church of St. Mary-at-Hill, London,
in 1537, probably as organist, and in about 1538 moved to
Waltham abbey, where he was organist until its dissolu-
tion (1540). In 1541–42 he was a lay clerk at Canterbury
cathedral, and he probably served as a full-time gentleman
of the Chapel Royal from the following year until his
death at Greenwich. In 1575 he was granted an exclusive
patent to print and publish music with William BYRD. Of
his 42 motets, 17 appear in their joint publication of that
year, Cantiones sacrae.
Tallis was one of the most important English com-
posers whose work spanned the period of the English Re-
formation. His early, Latin compositions are florid in style,
but there is a tendency away from this in the last years of
Henry VIII’s reign, under the influence of the Protestant
Thomas CRANMER. The trend was reversed in the reign of
the Catholic Mary I, when Tallis wrote one of his richest
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