author

Paul Hentzner

1558–1623

Best known for a vivid account of late Elizabethan England, this German lawyer turned a long educational tour across Europe into a book that still attracts historians and curious readers. His observations offer a rare outsider’s view of England at the end of the sixteenth century.

1 Audiobook

Travels in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth; with Fragmenta regalia or, Observations on Queen Elizabeth, her times and favourites

Travels in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth; with Fragmenta regalia or, Observations on Queen Elizabeth, her times and favourites

by Paul Hentzner, Sir Robert Naunton

About the author

Born in Crossen in Brandenburg on January 29, 1558, Paul Hentzner was a German lawyer and writer. In 1596 he became tutor to a young Silesian nobleman, and soon set out with him on a years-long journey through Switzerland, France, England, and Italy.

That journey became the basis of his best-known work, the Latin Itinerarium Germaniae, Galliae, Angliae, Italiae, published in 1612. The section on England proved especially lasting, because it preserves a detailed eyewitness picture of the country during the reign of Elizabeth I.

Hentzner died on January 1, 1623. Though not widely known outside specialist circles, he remains an important travel writer for readers interested in Renaissance Europe, court life, and the way one country can look through the eyes of an attentive visitor from another.