The Lewkenor Circle · Ambassadors and visitors
Virginio Orsini: The Duke at Twelfth Night
The Italian visitor whom Lewkenor accompanied to Elizabeth’s musical entertainment
Florentine School, circa 1610–15.
Portrait collection.
The Duke of Bracciano
Virginio Orsini (1572–1615) belonged to the powerful Roman Orsini family and the Medici dynasty through his mother, Isabella de’ Medici. His father was Paolo Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano.
His upbringing connected him with the Florentine court. In 1600 he accompanied his cousin Maria de’ Medici to France for her marriage to Henry IV. His subsequent journey to England brought him to Elizabeth I’s Christmas court.
Orsini’s family history was already notorious. His mother’s death had given rise to allegations against his father, while Paolo Giordano’s later marriage to Vittoria Accoramboni and her murder added further scandal to the household’s reputation.
Lewkenor named in the court instructions
For the Twelfth Day entertainment at Whitehall on 6 January 1601, the court issued detailed instructions for Orsini’s reception. Lewkenor appears among the gentlemen ordered to accompany him:
The Lord Darcy be warned to fetch the Duke of Brachiana, accompanied with Mr. Wm. Cecil, Mr. Lewkner, Mr. Edward Gorge, and Mr. Buc, to bring him to the court presently after 11 of the clock. That he be met at the gate by my Lord of Rutland and his two brothers, my Lord Darcy, Mr. Cotton and Mr. Savadge. And all these required to accompany him during his abode in the Court and those that brought him to carry him back that night.
Instructions for the Whitehall entertainment, 6 January 1601, Alnwick papers; spelling lightly modernised.
The instruction covers the whole visit: collecting the duke, receiving him at the gate, accompanying him during his stay and taking him back afterwards.
Lewkenor was still “Mr. Lewkner”. His knighthood and appointment as Master of the Ceremonies came under James I in 1603. The Orsini visit shows him already undertaking the reception of distinguished foreigners before that appointment.
Rich apparel, music and dancing
Elizabeth’s requirements for the entertainment were equally explicit. The Lord Chamberlain was instructed:
To confer with my Lord Admiral and the Master of the Revels for taking order generally with the players to make choice of the play that shall be best furnished with rich apparel, have great variety and change of music and dances, and of a subject that may be most pleasing to her Majesty.
Court preparations for 6 January 1601; spelling modernised.
The accompanying directions specified a place for the singer Hales:
To appoint music severally for the Queen, and some for the play in the Hall. And Hales to have one place expressly to show his own voice, send for the Musicians of the City to be ready to attend. The Children of the Chapel are to come before the Queen at dinner with a Carol.
Instructions for the Twelfth Day entertainment.
An appended note records the evening performance:
In the Hall, which was richly hanged and degrees placed round about it, was the play after supper.
Note accompanying the preparations. “Degrees” refers to raised seating.
Orsini’s own account
Writing to his wife Flavia Peretti, Orsini described the reception from the visitor’s perspective:
On the Tuesday morning, she [the Queen] sent her coaches and two great ones to take me and carry me to court. Arrived there, I found at the gate the Earl of Rutland, one of the first nobles of the realm, who assisted me to alight. He received me in her Majesty’s name, and led me to a lodging appointed for me.
Orsini to Flavia Peretti; extract from the English translation reproduced in Leslie Hotson’s account of the visit.
He noticed the languages spoken by the assembled courtiers and Elizabeth’s command of Italian. He also described the elaborate order of the procession:
The order is such that I am having the whole noted in writing; nor do I believe I shall ever see a court which, for order, surpasses this one.
Orsini’s account of the visit.
His admiration gives a visitor’s view of the ceremonial arrangements in which Lewkenor participated.
“A mingled comedy”
Orsini’s description of the evening confirms the combination of theatre, music and dance:
Her Majesty mounted the stairs, with such sounding of trumpets that methought I was on the field of war, and entered a public hall, where all round about were rising steps with ladies, and diverse consorts of music. As soon as her Majesty was set at her place, many ladies and knights began a grand ball. When this came to an end, there was acted a mingled comedy, with pieces of music and dances, and this too I am keeping to tell by word of mouth.
Orsini to Flavia Peretti; extract.
He remained close to Elizabeth during the entertainment:
I stood ever near her Majesty, who bade me be covered, and withal caused a stool to be fetched for me; and although she willed me a thousand times to sit, I would never obey her. She conversed continually with me.
Orsini’s account of the evening.
The performance was embedded in a larger social occasion: conversation, the offer of a seat, dancing and a final collation of sweetmeats.
Duke Orsini and Duke Orsino
Leslie Hotson proposed that the unnamed comedy was Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. The visitor’s name and the specified musical entertainment give the opening an especially suggestive setting:
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
Duke Orsino, Twelfth Night, I, i.
If Hotson’s identification is accepted, the honoured Orsini would have heard a fictional Orsino call for music at the beginning of an entertainment prepared for his visit.
The court instructions and Orsini’s letter establish the comedy and musical spectacle. The surviving accounts leave its title unstated. The earliest securely identified performance of Twelfth Night is John Manningham’s record of the Middle Temple feast on 2 February 1602.
The Lewkenor connection
Orsini’s visit supplies a named occasion on which Lewkenor attended an Italian duke at a royal theatrical entertainment. George Buc, later Master of the Revels, was among the same escort party.
The evidence joins foreign travel, language, hospitality, music and performance within a single day at Whitehall. It also places Lewkenor inside the arrangements themselves, carrying out the duties that would become the substance of his later office.
Related Shakespeare investigation
Twelfth Night — Duke Orsino, Whitehall and the Shirley Brothers →
Sources and further reading
Twelfth Day ceremonial directions, 6 January 1601, Alnwick Castle Archives, Letters and Papers, volume 7, folios 19v–22r.
Don Virginio Orsini’s letters to Flavia Peretti concerning his English visit; English extracts reproduced by Leslie Hotson, The First Night of Twelfth Night (1954).
John H. Astington, “A Drawing of the Great Chamber at Whitehall in 1601”, Records of Early English Drama Newsletter (1991).
Folger Shakespeare Library: Orsini’s visit and the proposed Twelfth Night performance.
John Manningham’s diary, 2 February 1602, Shakespeare Documented.
The Master of the Ceremonies, 18 October 2026, sections concerning Orsini’s visit, the Whitehall instructions and Twelfth Night.