Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Soone, William
SOONE or ZOONE, WILLIAM (fl. 1540–1575), jurist and cartographer, was educated at Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. 1545, and proceeded M.A. 1549. He became doctor of civil and canon laws probably at some university on the continent. The bursars' accounts of Caius College show that he was resident at Gonville Hall, probably as a fellow, from 1548 to 1555. In 1561 he became regius professor of civil law, and in June of that year was admitted fellow of Trinity Hall. He would not conform to the protestant religion, and, leaving Cambridge, went abroad. His successor in the professorship, William Clerke, was appointed in 1563. Soone is said to have resided at Paris, Dol, Freiburg, and Padua, and to have been a professor of law for some time at Louvain (but cf. Andreas, Fasti Acad. Lovan.). From Louvain he went, in all probability, to Antwerp, where he seems to have acted as assistant to Abraham Ortelius [q. v.] In 1572 he was at Cologne, where he published ‘Gulielmi Sooni Vantesdeni Auditor sive Pomponius Mela disputator de Situ Orbis’ (British Museum). Part of this rare book, the ‘Novi incolæ orbis terrarum,’ is copied from that of Arnold Mylius and published by Ortelius in the 1570 edition of the ‘Theatrum.’ Accordingly Ortelius complained, and Soone offered somewhat jesuitical explanations dated from Cologne, 31 Aug. 1572. Soone also copied the map of Cambridge which Richard Lyne [q. v.] had drawn for Caius's ‘History of the University’ (1574), and published his copy in Braun and Hogenberg's ‘Civitates Orbis terrarum’ (1575?). With this map went a description of the university (cf. translation in Gent. Mag. xlvi. 201). From Cologne Soone is said to have passed to Rome, and while there the pope made him podestà, of what town is unknown.
[Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. ii. 350; Willis and Clark's Arch. Hist. of the Univ. of Cambridge, pp. i, xcvi, &c.; Hessel's Eccles. Lond. Batav. tom. i.; Epistolæ Ortelianæ, p. 97.]