Thomas Plowden was an English Jesuit to whom has been traditionally attributed an important translation under the name of Thomas Salusbury.

Life

Thomas Plowden was the son of Francis Plowden of Shiplake and the younger brother of Edmund Plowden (colonial governor)

Edmund Plowden (colonial governor)

Sir Edmund Plowden also titled Lord Earl Palatinate, Governor and Captain-General of the Province of New Albion in North America was an explorer and colonial governor who attempted to colonize North America in the mid-seventeenth century under a grant for a colony to be named New Albion...

. His grandfather, Edmund Plowden

Edmund Plowden

Sir Edmund Plowden was a distinguished English lawyer, legal scholar and theorist during the late Tudor period.-Life:...

 was a famous lawyer during the reign of Queen Elizabeth

Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...

. He entered the Society of Jesus, 1617 and was sent on the English Mission about 1622. He was seized, with other fathers, by the pursuivant

Pursuivant

A pursuivant or, more correctly, pursuivant of arms, is a junior officer of arms. Most pursuivants are attached to official heraldic authorities, such as the College of Arms in London or the Court of the Lord Lyon in Edinburgh. In the mediaeval era, many great nobles employed their own officers of...

s, in 1628, at Clerkenwell

Clerkenwell

Clerkenwell is an area of central London in the London Borough of Islington. From 1900 to 1965 it was part of the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury. The well after which it was named was rediscovered in 1924. The watchmaking and watch repairing trades were once of great importance...

, the London residence of the Jesuits. He filled various responsible offices of the order, and laboured on the perilous English Mission until his death.

Translation

As was the case with his contemporary Nathaniel Bacon

Nathaniel Bacon (Jesuit)

Nathaniel Bacon , also known under the assumed name of Southwell, , was an English Jesuit who served in Rome from 1647 until his death as Secretary of the Society of Jesus...

, English Jesuits, given their illegal status as recusants often published under assumed names. Plowden presented his translations under the name of the distinguished Welsh Salusbury family

Salusbury Family

The Salusbury family is an Anglo-Welsh family notable for their social prominence, wealth, literary contributions and philanthropy. The family started a bank, Salusbury and Co., which later shut down during the Great Depression.-Rise to prominence:...

. Shakespeare's The Phoenix and the Turtle

The Phoenix and the Turtle

The Phoenix and the Turtle is an allegorical poem about the death of ideal love by William Shakespeare. It is widely considered to be one of his most obscure works and has led to many conflicting interpretations. It has also been called "the first great published metaphysical poem". The title "The...

 (1601) is dedicated to John Salusbury (poet)

John Salusbury (poet)

-Life:Salusbury was a member of the Salusbury family of Lleweni in the Vale of Clywd, where they owned a considerable estate, including Lleweni Hall. Various members of the family acquired honours and appointments through their support of the Tudor monarchs...

, also the name of Jesuit active in Wales in the Jacobean era

Jacobean era

The Jacobean era refers to the period in English and Scottish history that coincides with the reign of King James VI of Scotland, who also inherited the crown of England in 1603 as James I...

. During the Civil War

Civil war

A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state....

 Sir Thomas Salusbury, 2nd Baronet was MP

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 from Denbigh

Denbigh

Denbigh is a market town and community in Denbighshire, Wales. Before 1888, it was the county town of Denbighshire. Denbigh lies 8 miles to the north west of Ruthin and to the south of St Asaph. It is about 13 miles from the seaside resort of Rhyl. The town grew around the glove-making industry...

. Under such a name, as resonant as his own among the Catholic gentry, Fr. Plowden translated from the Italian of Daniello Bartoli

Daniello Bartoli

thumb|right| Daniello Bartoli "Obiit Romae, die 13 Januarii, anno 1685, aet. 77"Daniello Bartoli was an Italian Jesuit writer and historiographer, celebrated by Francesco de Sanctis as the "Dante of Italian prose".-Ferrara:He was born in Ferrara. His father, Tiburzio was a chemist associated with...

 The Learned Man Defended and Reformed (London, 1660). With letters of dedication to George Monk

George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle

George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, KG was an English soldier and politician and a key figure in the restoration of Charles II.-Early life and career:...

 and William Prynne

William Prynne

William Prynne was an English lawyer, author, polemicist, and political figure. He was a prominent Puritan opponent of the church policy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. Although his views on church polity were presbyterian, he became known in the 1640s as an Erastian, arguing for...

 Plowden offers a Jesuit literary contribution to the Restoration by making Bartoli's "happy pen" speak English too. The celebrated L'huomo di lettere

L'huomo di lettere

.L'huomo di lettere difeso ed emendato by the Ferrarese Jesuit Daniello Bartoli is a two-part treatise on the man of letters bringing together material he had assembled as a teacher of rhetoric and a preacher...

 originally appeared in Rome (1645). It had become a Baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

 bestseller through dozens of editions in Italian and translations by the time Fr. Plowden presented it under the name of Salusbury at the press of the mathematician and surveyor William Leybourn

William Leybourn

William Leybourn was an English mathematician and land surveyor.-Career as a printer:In 1651 Leybourn entered into a business partnership with Robert Leybourn as a printer and seller of books...

 and sold by the well known bookseller and publisher Thomas Dring

Thomas Dring

Thomas Dring was a London publisher and bookseller of the middle seventeenth century. He was in business from 1649 on; his shop was located "at the sign of the George in Fleet Street, near St...

 "near St. Dunstan's Church" on Fleet Street

Fleet Street

Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...

 in 1660.

If the attribution of this translation to Plowden is correct, then the appearance of the following work in the next year and with the same printer bears close examination. Most now attribute it to the real "Thomas Salusbury, Esq.", younger brother of Sir John Salusbury,3rd Baronet. This is the Mathematical Collections with translations of Galileo, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems

Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems

The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems was a 1632 Italian language book by Galileo Galilei comparing the Copernican system with the traditional Ptolemaic system. It was translated to Latin as Systema cosmicum in 1635 by Matthias Bernegger...

 (1632) and works of Kepler, Castelli

Benedetto Castelli

Benedetto Castelli , born Antonio Castelli, was an Italian mathematician. He took the name "Benedetto" upon entering the Benedictine Order in 1595....

, Tartaglia

Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia

Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia was a mathematician, an engineer , a surveyor and a bookkeeper from the then-Republic of Venice...

 and other European authors significant for the scientific culture of the Restoration whose difusion it was Leybourn's purpose to promote. It is dedicated to Sir John Denham, a poet and the predecessor of Christopher Wren

Christopher Wren

Sir Christopher Wren FRS is one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history.He used to be accorded responsibility for rebuilding 51 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including his masterpiece, St. Paul's Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710...

 as Surveyor of the King's Works and a member of the newly founded Royal Society

Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

. The introduction promises to follow up with a life of Galileo, recently identified, also the work of the same Thomas Salusbury.