21 February, 1596 - Fortunatus

Here's what the Admiral's Men performed at the Rose playhouse on this day, 424 years ago...

Henslowe writes: y^e 20 of febreary 1595 ... R at ffortunatus ... xxij^s 

In modern English: [21^st] February, [1596] ... Received at Fortunatus ... 22 shillings

Fortunatus receives the magic purse from
Lady Fortune (from the 1509 novel)

Today, the Admiral's Men revived Fortunatus, which was probably the first of a two-part play, and was the precursor of Thomas Dekker's Old Fortunatus; it told the story of a man who miraculously acquires infinite wealth. You can read more about it in the entry for 3rd February.

The players have returned to Fortunatus after a week and a half, but its box office has halved, dropping from very good to not very good.

What's next?

There will be no blog entry tomorrow because 22nd February was a Sunday in 1596 and the players did not perform. Henslowe's Diary ... as a Blog! will thus return on the 23rd for some festivity during the last week of performances before Lent. See you then!

Henslowe links

• Transcript of this page of the Diary (from W.W. Greg's 1904 edition)
• Facsimile of this page of the Diary (from the Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation Project)

Comments?

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