January 30

1595, 1937


1595. The first performance of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet".

Like so many of his plays, "Romeo and Juliet" was his version of an already existing drama, adapted to meet the expectations of an English audience that was mixed between the aristocracy and the urban peasantry. From the Italian commedia dell’arte he borrowed plots for "The Merchant of Venice", "The Tempest", "Two Gentlemen of Verona", "Othello", "The Taming of the Shrew" and "The Comedy of Errors". For "Romeo and Juliet" his source of sources was a novella by Masuccio Salernitano, the pen-name of Tommaso dei Guardati (1410-1475), which had been reworked at least twice before Shakespeare had a go at it; the first time as "Giulietta e Romeo" or "Historia novellamente ritrovata di due nobili amanti" by Luigi da Porto (1485-1529); the second time as "Giuletta e Romeo" by Matteo Bandello (1485-1561). Salernitano's text does not specifically locate the tale in place, but both da Porto and Bandello did locate it, in the city of Verona, in the region of Venice.

The Italian connection should not surprise us. English theatre did not meaningfully exist before Shakespeare's time, and when it did it took its cue from the commedia dell’arte. A significant number of English intellectuals and artists went to Italy to complete their education, but there was also a sizeable Italian community in London, precisely in that area where Shakespeare lived and worked. Two of those Italians had significant personal connections with Shakespeare: John Florio, the compiler of the first Italian-English dictionary, and Emilia Bassano, the wife of Alfonso Bassano, head of the Bassano family, a company of Venetian theatre artists who were in residence at the court of Queen Elizabeth.

John Florio was a scholar, educator, translator and poet, who wrote his poetry in English and Latin as well as in Italian. It so impressed Shakespeare's patron, Henry Wriothesley, the third Earl of Southampton, that he unceremoniously transferred his patronage to Florio, depriving Shakespeare of his stipend.

Some authorities believe that Emilia Bassano was Shakespeare's mistress (he gave her first name to Iago's wife and her last name, with a minor variation, to Portia's beau), suspecting her of being the mysterious "Dark Lady of the Sonnets", though this is unlikely. There is no doubt that Shakspeare knew Emilia and the members of her Venetian theatre family both on a professional and a social basis. As Venetians, the Bassano family would have been thoroughly trained in the theatre, arts and literature of the commedia dell'arte, and thoroughly acquainted with the Venetian works of Italian renaissance literature. It is quite likely that the Bassanos possessed both da Porto's and Bandello's novellas of the story of Romeo & Juliet – or Juliet and Romeo as it was in their versions - and that they performed these on various occasions, including in London. Da Porto names the two feuding families the Capuleti and the Montechhi, after two physically opposing castles bearing these names just outside Verona. Bandello's "Giuletta e Romeo" was translated into French by Pierre Boaistuau, and it is he who renders the family names into French as Capulet and Montague. There is also Arthur Brooke's "The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet", based on Boaistuau's French version of Bandello, which Shakespeare may well have known.


Vanessa Redgrave as Isidora Duncan (see May 27) in the 1968 biopic


I would have loved to have separated that last from this with a photo of Vanessa Redgrave playing Juliet, but alas, as far as I can discover, she never did, or at least, if she did, there are no photos out there in the Internet to pilfer. She did, however, play Ma Capulet, to Francesca Annis' Juliet and Robert Powell's Romeo, in the 1990 Belgian film "Romeo.Juliet", directed by Armondo Linus Acosta, an exploitation of the ancient tale, but actually, according to its own blurb, focused on "an eccentric bag lady who rescues the stray cats of Venice and puts them on a boat to set sail for the new world." Anything to make money!

And in case you are wondering why Vanessa Redgrave - my favouritest actor of any gender was born, today, in 1937 (she makes cameo appearances in this blog on June 20, May 27, August 8 and Oct 22).



Amber pages


Some days in history appear to have themes. Today, for example:


King Charles was beheaded in England


Hitler was named Chancellor of Germany


Gandhi was assassinated


North Vietnam launched the Tet offensive against the south


and British troops in Ireland perpetrated Bloody Sunday


The same day, not the same year, obviously. But tyrannies, of one form or another, all taking action against the individual


The years, incidentally, were 1649, 1933, 1948, 1968 and 1972

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