ABSTRACT
Thomas Naogeorg wrote all his works, not just his plays, in Latin and did not consider the vernacular to be its equal. He was also expert in Greek and in the period between 1552 and 1558 translated a substantial body of Greek texts into Latin. Naogeorg calls this play and all his other plays a tragedy, which in the Humanist conception of the genre meant that the subject matter would be political, illustrating the fall of a contemporary tyrant. Naogeorg's play Incendia seu Pyrgopolinices is a kind of sequel to Pdmmachius which refers directly to contemporary events in the Empire, the fireraiser of the title being Duke Heinrich the Younger of Braunschweig-Wolfenbuttel, a leading light of the Catholic League. The advent of the Reformation and the subsequent Counter-Reformation ensured that the available dramatic talent did not evolve as secular drama but wrote in support of its respective confessional allegiance.
