16 September 2020
· Lauding the new DVS website, with a peek at my picture ·
As the apparel oft proclaims the man, the website oft proclaims the organisation. Until last week the De Vere Society’sI don’t capitalise the d in de Vere but the DVS does, most of the time. I’ll go with their D for this post. online presence has been modest, low-key. Not any longer. They’ve raised their visibility with a complete re-design of deveresociety.co.uk. The new site is copiously informative and quite handsome to look at. I say this not at all because it features a flattering update to my portrait. Perhaps slightly because.
The DVS have graciously permitted me to borrow their neo-Vere. See how they’ve spruced me up.
Left: Welbeck — Right: DVS
The hat was beyond redemption.
The ‘original’ portrait, known as the Welbeck, is actually a 17th-century copy of the now-lost painting I sat for in Paris in early 1575, before heading on to Italy. I was just shy of twenty-five. As I’ve explained elsewhere, prior to my departure from England my wife had obtained my promise to send a portrait home as quickly as possible, so she’d have it to look at while I was away. We both knew I’d be gone a while.
The occasion of the site’s début called for some commemorative verse. Simon Armitage may be Poet Laureate, but I beat him to the punch.
Ode on the launching of the
De Vere Society’s new website
- Here we are, the Society de Vere
- Says with their brand new website’s premiere
- Up to date, re-designed,
- In its pages you’ll find
- The life of the true Author, Shake-Speare
- Oxford’s not the ‘Shakespeare’ widely known,
- The one Stratford declares as its own.
- When you learn de Vere’s history
- Shake-Speare’s no mystery—
- William? The fable? Outgrown.
- This the DVS members submit:
- That the case for de Vere is legit
- And that doubts with good reason
- Are not Shakespeare treason
- But looking for answers that fit
- All are welcome to join DVS
- And to Oxford as Shake-Speare say yes
- Think anew, then discard
- Stratford’s notional Bard
- With each person who does, we progress.
©2020 @edevere17 all rights reserved
Go have a look at the shiny new site. You can also find the DVS on Facebook (deveresocietyuk) and Twitter (@deveresocietyuk).
Think anew. Say yes.
Don’t forget to tell them how much you like that portrait.
More about my travels on the Continent:
- • Smell the Gloves, Part 1
- [The real story of the perfumed Italian gloves I gave to Elizabeth]
- • Smell the Gloves, Part 2
- [The origin of the Oxford Glove meme, with some piratical pentameter at the end]
- • Patronage Alla Fiorentina
- [Florence, the Medici, and artistic patronage]
- • Doodling and Noodling
- [A sample of my handwriting discovered in Venice in 2015, and what it signifies]
- • It Was No Carnival in Flanders
- [In 1574, my four-week trip to the Eighty Years’ War]
Ever thanks to the DVS for allowing me to post the new me.
VERO NIHIL VERIUS