Contexts and Connections of Italian Elements in Shakespeare’s Plays

Table of Contents

Methodology

Experiencing Shakespeare’s Plays through Their Contexts: Contemporary and Historical, Creative and Social

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Italian Elements in the Plays of Shakespeare: Contexts and Connections, Especially Venetian

Part One

Early Commerce, Diplomacy, and Cultural Influence

Chapter One

Italians in England from the Mid-Thirteenth to the Early Sixteenth Centuries: From Merchants to Bankers to Royal Councilors

The Fourteenth Century: Commerce and the First Diplomatic Contacts, Literary and Humanistic Influences

The Fifteenth Century: English Interest in Italian Humanism and Artistic Expression  

Italian Humanists as (Shadow) Diplomats and Royal Secretaries

Venetian Commerce Declines

Venetian Patrician Amalgamation of Commerce, Governance, and Cultural Patronage  

Chapter Two

Henry’s Reign, Warring Leagues, and the End of Venice’s Flanders Galleys

The Wars of the League of Cambrai, Suspension of Venetian Maritime Commerce with England

The Treaty of London, the Resumption of Trade, and the Search for Alternatives

War by Other Means: Charles and Henry Pressure Venice  

War Resumes on the Italian Peninsula 

Francis is Captured, Implications for Henry  

The Sack of Rome, An Independent Wolsey (?), and Henry VIII     

Pursuing Henry’s Divorce   

The End of the War, of the Flanders Galleys, and of Divorce Efforts in Rome. The Coronation of Charles 

New Religious Differences Generate Political Conflict

Chapter Three

Turbulent Transitions

Henry’s Aggressive Late Relations with Italian States. The Brief Reign of Edward VI 

Italian Protestants Make Their Way to England, English Catholics to Italy

Queen Mary and Renewed Relations with Venice  

A Cultured Young Venetian Merchant Visits England 

Elizabeth’s Reign: Growing Interest in Italian Language, Literature, and Arts  

Italian Theater Arrives in England

Diplomatic Ties with Italian States Suspended, England Competes in Commerce with the Mediterranean

The Battle of Lepanto and the Venetian Loss of Cyprus

Increasing English Commerce in the Mediterranean and Connections with the Turkish Porte 

A New Wave of Italian Religious Refugees, Increasing Interest in Italian Literature in England

The Decline of Italian Performers and the Rise of the English Clown

Italian Inspiration Englished

The Crown, English Merchants, an Italian Financier and Diplomat 

Elizabeth’s Final Years

Commerce and Theater: England as Marketplace of the World

Part Two

Shakespeare’s Italy

Chapter Four

Shakespeare’s Creative Use of Italian Elements in His Plays

Part One

Shakespeare Opens in His Italy

Facts, Language, Texts, Performance Practices, and Imagination United

Elizabeth and the Promotion of Italian Culture

Shakespeare’s Bishopsgate Residence and Real-Life Italian Elements 

Two Gentlemen of Verona

Civic Settings and Literary Connections

The Theatrical Context: Italian Elements

Company Patrons and Government Authorities: All in the Family

Two Gentlemen’s Italian(-Inspired) Elements  

Speed as Clown, Sheep Literary and Real

Lance: doubling, shoes, family, dog 

Considering Ruzante as Source

Part Two

Henry VI Parts 2 and 3, The Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus and Comedy of Errors

Henry VI, Parts 2 and 3 

The Taming of the Shrew and (Possible) Italian Contributions  

Literary and Theatrical Texts

Political Geography

Improvisational Practices

Women’s Real and Imagined Lives

Titus Andronicus

Comedy of Errors

Chapter Five

Shakespeare’s Mature Vision of Italy

Part One

Shakespeare’s Verona, Mantua, Milan, Venice, and Padua from Life and from the Arts

Love’s Labours Lost

Richard II

Romeo and Juliet

Midsummer Night’s Dream

Henry IV, Part 2

The Merchant of Venice

Part Two

Much Ado About Nothing, Merry Wives of Windsor, As You Like It, Henry V, Hamlet, Twelfth Night

Much Ado About Nothing

Merry Wives of Windsor

As You Like It

Henry V

Hamlet

Twelfth Night

Chapter Six

Othello: A New Monarch Takes the Throne and Venetian Ambassadors Return

Venice Responds to the Transition from Elizabeth to James

Early Performances of Othello

The Italian Historical Contexts of Othello

Venice’s Tripartite Defense System

Venice at War on the Mainland and at Sea

The Turkish Threat to Cyprus

The Literary/Theatrical Context

A New Source for Bandello’s novella

A Savorgnan Connection?

Giraldi’s novella

Shakespeare’s Othello

The Challenge to Authority as Paradigm

Nomen omen (name = destiny)

Defense as Motivator

Desdemona, A ‘Fair Warrior’

Othello as Military Officer

Defense of the Maritime State as Background

A Note on the Clown

Conclusion: The Play and the State, the Play as the State

Chapter Seven

Epilogue: Italian Elements in Shakespeare’s Late Works

Measure for Measure

King Lear

All’s Well That Ends Well

Timon of Athens

The Queen’s Masque and Pericles

Troilus and Cressida

A Change of Ambassadors 

The Tempest

The Winter’s Tale

Henry VIII

Two Noble Kinsmen

Coda

Conclusion

The Pivotal Role of Commerce and Theater in the Transition to the Early Modern Era

Bibliography

Index

Biography

Linda L. Carroll is Professor Emerita of Italian at Tulane University, USA. Her interests include Renaissance performance arts. She is the author of Thomas Jefferson’s Italian and Italian-Related Books in the History of Universal Personal Rights (2020) and Commerce, Peace, and the Arts in Renaissance Venice (2016).

"The articulated references to Italian scripted and improvised comedies of lesser-known and well-known playwrights and the novella tradition provide new models of cultural exchange and forms of intertextuality that impacted early modern English theater at all levels of dramatic structures, including sources, imagery, rhetoric, set speeches, characters, and seminal theatergrams." - Michele Marrapodi, Università degli Studi, Palermo