Edwin Sandys, William Bedell, Paolo Sarpi, and the Editions of A Relation of the State of Religion

In 1605, the “Relation of the State of Religion” by Sir Edwin Sandys (1561-1629) was anonymously published in London. In this book, the author reflected in an irenic vein on the new confessional configurations of Europe that had been established after the end of the religious wars. A few months after publication, on November 3, 1605, the book was burned by order of the High Commission. However, Sandys' text continued to circulate in manuscript form and a few months after its publication, it was translated into Italian by William Bedell, the chaplain of the English ambassador to Venice, who was then involved in an ambitious Protestant propaganda program. This Italian translation was not published until 1625 and included some additions from Paolo Sarpi, who, along with Micanzio, helped Bedell with the translation. A new English edition, with a new title, “Europæ speculum,” was published in The Hague in 1629, the year of Sandys' death. This English edition was followed by six more published in England between 1632 and 1687. The text was also translated into French and Dutch. Sandys was one of the founders of the London Virginia Company and this work allows us to place England's global ambitions in the context of European political-religious debates. The report, in reflecting on this element, also discusses the reasons for the wide success of the text both in manuscript form and in print.