Shakespeare in Italy

Shakespeare had a fascination with Italy. Ten of his comedies are set wholly or partly in Italy - and only one in England. Critics have tended to say (probably still do) that they’re really about England - with Italian names and settings to make them sound more exciting to the groundlings. But actually, some of the locations are so accurately described in the plays that it’s abundantly clear that the Italian settings are genuine.

This is still largely denied by orthodox scholars. They like to point out errors, showing that Shakespeare didn’t really know about the real Italy. Such as having Valentine in The Two Gentlemen of Verona go from Verona to Milan by boat. “Silly boy! He didn’t even know that both

cities were inland.” But we now know, following the diligent work done by the Italian historian Dr Noemi Magri, that in the 16th century one of the best, and probably the safest, ways of doing the trip was by river and canal. Perhaps surprisingly, the Bard knew exactly what he was talking about.

Shakespeare Guide to Italy

There are many other instances of Shakespeare giving remarkably accurate descriptions. The best introduction to this is The Shakespeare Guide to Italy by the late American lawyer Richard Paul Roe, who spent some 20 years travelling the length and breadth of Italy in a quest for the locations of the various Italian scenes. It’s a very readable book (as one might expect from a lawyer - am I biased?) and called by Sir Derek Jacobi “a thrilling journey of discovery”.

Richard Roe finds precise Italian locations for scenes in ten plays, including one that no one has ever thought had any connection with Italy at all, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which, as we all know, purports to be set in and around Athens. We’ll come back to the Dream, as the location he discovered is near Mantua - a city that discerning travellers increasingly visit.

Probably the best examples of Italian locations are in Romeo and Juliet and The Merchant of Venice. They both show how detailed and precise was Shakespeare’s knowledge.

Verona

First, Verona. Towards the beginning of Romeo and Juliet, there is the street fight between the warring families. After it has been broken up by the Prince of Verona, Lady Montague asks where Romeo is. Benvolio, his friend, says that he saw him that morning “underneath the grove of sycamore that westward rooteth from this city side”. Amazingly there are still sycamores just outside the Porta Palio, one of the three western gates of the old city.

Richard Roe identifies Romeo’s house, as well as Juliet’s - the latter not having the balcony that was put there in the 1930s. (There is no mention of a balcony in that or any other Shakespeare play.) He also seeks out Friar Laurence’s monastery, San Francesco al Corso, now needless to say no longer a monastery.

In Romeo and Juliet there is also the kind of tiny, seemingly irrelevant detail that Shakespeare liked to slip into the plays. He refers to “Saint Peter’s Church” where Juliet is meant to be marrying Paris. Why mention it so precisely? Nothing happens there, as Juliet never marries Paris. Did it exist? Or, as some orthodox scholars have suggested, did Shakespeare just invent it? No, Richard Roe was able to identify which of the four San Pietro’s in Verona would have indeed been the Capulet parish church (San Pietro Incarnario, since you ask, although it’s no longer a church).

Venice

Now on to Venice. Again, it is amazing how much seemingly trivial detail is in The Merchant of Venice. It is abundantly clear that Shakespeare knew Venice well. It is also clear that he was familiar with aspects of Venetian trade - such as the Argosies (ships from Ragusa) and the

Andrews (ships from Genoa) that Antonio was so heavily invested in. And he was obviously very familiar with the situation of Jews in Venice, at a time when there were no Jews in England.

On the subject of trivial detail, we learn from the conspirators against Shylock exactly where Shylock lived, a “penthouse” in the Ghetto. There is only one that conforms to the description in the play. Remarkably, it still exists today. (The Oxford Shakespeare edition of the play has a footnote saying that a penthouse is a “porch” - which is notwhat it meant either then or now. It meant a structure attached to, or dependent on, another building, often supported on columns. Just what you can still see in Venice today. Check it out!)

The other bit of detail in the play allows us to identify Portia’s house. When Portia is preparing to come over to Venice to defend Antonio, she gives detailed instructions to her servant Balthasar. He has to go to Padua, collect the legal paraphernalia she needs, come back and meet her at the “Tranect”, so that they can catch the ferry to Venice. She gives the times and/or the distances involved in some detail. So we can work out exactly where her house is. The answer is that, although Shakespeare calls it Belmont, it must be the lovely Palladian house, the Villa Foscari (also known as La Malcontenta) on the Brenta Canal. It’s still there and is now part of the University of Venice.

The Tranect that Portia mentions is worth noting. It was a dam between the Brenta Canal and the Venetian Lagoon, the point at which the ferry left to go over to Venice. At the time Shakespeare would have known it, there was an elaborate contraption, driven by horses, for getting boats from the canal to the lagoon. Hence Shakespeare’s use of the unusual word “Tranect” (crossing). This is the way it appears in the First Folio of 1623, the first printed edition of all Shakespeare’s plays. Because the word is unusual, modern editors get in a muddle. They assume it must be a misprint. They change it to “traject”, with a lower-case t, and say it must refer to the ferry. Wrong! Better, as usual, to trust the Bard and indeed the First Folio.

Mantua and Sabbioneta

Finally, Mantua and the nearby town of Sabbioneta. No Shakespeare play has any scenes set in Mantua, but there are some interesting connections.

The first is Giulio Romano, who worked as a painter, sculptor and architect for the Duke of Mantua, Vespasiano Gonzaga, and is the only Renaissance artist named by Shakespeare in any of the plays. He gets a name-check in The Winter’s Tale. Hermione, who is thought to have been dead for 16 years, miraculously reappears as a highly realistic statue (which then comes to life). The statue is described as having been “newly performed by that rare Italian master, Julio Romano”.

Romano had an unrivalled reputation (confirmed by no less a figure than Giorgio Vasari) of being able to mirror nature. Which was the point of the reference to him in the play. The artist worked in Mantua for most of his life. He died young and is buried in Mantua’s Santa Barbara church.

The other Mantua connection arises because of an extraordinary discovery by Richard Roe, while he was on one of his voyages of exploration - not in Mantua itself but in nearby Sabbioneta. Not many people go there, but the intrepid Richard Roe joined a guided tour around the historic castle.

At the end of the tour, the guide referred to a passageway known as “the Duke’s Oak”. Roe knew his Shakespeare and a red light flashed in his mind. He remembered that the “mechanicals” in A Midsummer Night’s Dream agreed to rehearse their ridiculous play at “the Duke’s Oak”. What a coincidence!

He had also noted that, back in the day, Sabbioneta had a nickname: “La Piccola Atena” because of the scholarly events that Vespasiano Gonzaga used to organise in the castle there. Another coincidence!

But were these coincidences? Was the setting of the Dream in the real Athens in any way realistic? There are no mentions in the play of Greece or Greeks or Attica - just Athens. And a “Duke” who had an oak. But there were no Dukes in Greece. It’s a Latin-derived title. Actually, are there any oaks?

So Richard Roe felt he’d found another play located in Italy - in so far as A Midsummer Night’s Dream can be said to be located anywhere.

A heretical note

This article - so far - has deliberately avoided the question of who Shakespeare really was, that is to say who wrote the plays under the William Shakespeare name.

But obviously it does indicate that it couldn’t have been someone who had never been to Italy.

Readers may like to note that in 1575/6 an Elizabethan courtier, Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, spent over a year in Italy, basing much of his time in Venice, but also visiting many other Italian cities.

The notion that he, who is definitely known to have been a highly regarded poet and dramatist, might have written the plays is still thought, in academic circles, to be the most appalling heresy.

Tony Herbert

2 May 2025