Baron Waldstein

The Diary of Baron Waldstein

Source: G.W. Groos (translated and annotated by), The Diary of Baron Waldstein: A Traveller in Elizabethan England (London: Thames and Hudson, 1981), p. 37

Text: Monday, 3 July [1600]
Went to see an English play. The theatre follows the ancient Roman plan: it is built of wood and is so designed that the spectators can get a comfortable view of everything that happens in any part of the building.

On the way back we crossed the bridge; it has very fine buildings on it, and fixed to one of them can still be seen the heads of a number of earls and other noblemen who have been executed for treason.

Comments: Zdeněk Brtnický z Valdštejna (1581-1623), or Baron Waldstein, was a Moravian artistocrat, who from 1597 to 1603 kept a diary (in Latin). In 1599 he went on a tour of Europe, and in 1600 visited England. His frustrating account of a visit to a London theatre, which names neither theatre nor play, could be describing the Globe (built the previous year), Swan or Rose, though it does at least establish its location as being south of the river. A second diary entry, for 2 August 1600, when he was still in London, merely notes “Went to see an English play”.

Posted in 1600s, Theatre, United Kingdom and tagged Audiences, Baron Waldstein, Diaries, London on January 16, 2018 by urbanora. Leave a comment

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