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Did Shakespeare know Italy?
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May 10, 2012 · William Shakespeare set a third of his plays in Italy. Take a tour of Verona, Padua and Venice -- three fair cities in which he laid his scenes.
- Francesco da Mosto
1. Shakespeare's Knowledge of Italy. [Antistratfordians have often fixated on the knowledge of Italy supposedly displayed in Shakespeare's plays, believing that only someone who had personally visited the country (such as the Earl of Oxford) could have written so knowledgeably.
Did Shakespeare visit Italy? Most scholars insist that the author, despite setting a third of his plays in the country, did not travel there. The most commonly cited proof is that he transformed the inland cities of Milan and Verona into ports.
- The Sycamores of “Romeo and Juliet”
- Plots and Puns
- But Did Shakespeare Visit Italy?
- Speaking The Language
- England’s Idea of Italy
- Portia’s Brenta Estate
In “Romeo and Juliet”, we see the warring Montagues and Capulets against the backdrop of Verona, then Romeo’s solitude in Mantua. Famous for so-called “Juliet’s balcony” as well as its inspiring Roman Arena, Verona has monopolised “Romeo and Juliet” tourism. At a beautiful Palladian mansion like Villa Zambonina, you can imagine throwing your own Ca...
Stratfordians and Non-Stratfordians often divide over a key point: should Shakespeare’s biography mirror the content and context of his plays? Michael Egan, editor of The Oxfordian, explains: “[t]he strongest element in the (…) non-Stratfordian argument is the disjunct between Shakespeare’s work and his life”. For many Stratfordians, whether sycamo...
Many Stratfordians doubt he could have, suggesting he “read political treatises, novellas, tourist books, published traveller’s reports or unpublished ones in manuscript”, as well as relying on “oral sources of all kinds: personal acquaintances with visitors at court, Italian merchants living in London, scholars, musicians, a cultural mediator like...
John Hamill, former president of the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship, points to Cossolotto and Cutler’s top-10 list of reasons to doubt Shakespeare’s authorship. Number 4 focuses on education. Although it is agreed Shakespeare attended Stratford Grammar School, he didn’t go to university. Hamill highlights that his works are populated by an “extensiv...
England was captivated by its imagination of Italy. Laura Tosi explains that Elizabethans viewed Italy as “the most advanced civilisation of the time in the fields of art, music and literature as well as banking, fencing and political science”, a fantasy we discover in many of Shakespeare’s comedies. They also, however, imagined Italy as “the cradl...
In “The Merchant of Venice”, Portia is based at her family estate, “Belmont”. While many Stratfordians consider Belmont a fictional location, some Oxfordians delve into possible locations, focusing on “Belmonte” and “Montebello”. Noemi Magri and Roe even state that Villa Foscari “Malcontenta”is “Belmont”. Both sides agree at least that a (real or f...
Apr 25, 2014 · In his book of 2002, ‘Shakespeare era italiano’ (Shakespeare Was Italian), Sicilian professor Martino Iuvara suggests that Shakespeare was not born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England to a glove maker and wool merchant John Shakespeare and his wife Mary Arden.
In this episode I talk to our guests about the different properties we know Shakespeare lived in, which ones he owned and when he bought them, and we also look at what life would have been like living in these very different properties, both for Shakespeare and his housemates.
Aug 11, 2011 · Shakespeare in Italy: Shakespeare set 15 of 37 plays in Italy, but where did the characters go and did Shakespeare himself ever visit the country? For centuries Shakespeare scholars have been debating the role of Italy in Shakespeare’s plays and especially whether or not the old Bard had personally visited the country and thereby acquired the ...
