The Three Princes of Serendip The Three Princes of Serendip The Three Princes of Serendip is the English version of the story "Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo" published by Michele Tramezzino in Venice in 1557. Tramezzino claimed to have heard the story from one , who had translated the Persian fairy tale into Italian, adapting Book One of Amir Khusrau's "Hasht-Bihisht" of 1302. The story first came to English via a French translation, and now exists in several out-of-print translations. "Serendip" is the Old Persian name for Sri Lanka (Ceylon). The story has become known in the English-speaking world as the
Horace Walpole December arriving at Florence. Here he struck up a friendship with Horace Mann, an assistant to the British Minister at the Court of Tuscany. In Florence he also wrote "Epistle from Florence to Thomas Ashton, Esq., Tutor to the Earl of Plymouth", a mixture of Whig history and Middleton's teachings. In February 1740 Walpole and Gray left for Rome with the intention of witnessing the papal conclave upon the death of Pope Clement XII (which they never did see). Walpole wanted to attend fashionable parties and Gray wanted to visit all the antiquities. At social occasions in Rome he saw