plans to “measure twenty miles to-day”. The village of Mira with the Villa dei Leoni (a country-residence of the Contarini family) lies about ten miles from Venice- including the crossing. If we’re not too strict about the ten miles then we could say that Belmont could have been in Stra - from Stra, Bathasar wouldn’t have had to travel far to the landing stage for the common ferry. Portia mentions a cloister that lies about two miles from Belmont. She could have meant the ancient cloister of Sant’ Ilario, close to Mira, or she could have meant the nunnery Monastero delle Muneghete close to Stra. We have neither the salient facts nor the inclination to say which of the two it was. After all Shakespeare wrote a comedy and not a travelogue.- But, what did he mean by the “Tranect”?
We encounter the place-name Tranect (with a capital”T”) in the good quarto (1600) and the First Folio (1623). (The word isn’t to change to “traject” (=traghetto =ferry) -because then we would have to accuse Shakespeare of doubling back on himself, which he did not usually do: “Bring them ... unto the Ferry, to the common ferry“.) Besides, where on the common ferry should beautiful Portia change her clothes? The shroud of mystery is removed by Violet M. Jeffery in her article “Shakespeare’s Venice” (1932).
The ferry to Venice docks in Lizza Fusina, where the Brenta river channel flows into the Laguna thus making the ship’s journey from Padua to Venice possible. Where two waterways meet, there used to be the problem of the river bed getting silted up making the passage of ships impossible. Today this problem is solved using locks. In the sixteenth century one used a different construction. The barges in Lizza Fusina were pulled over the dam by a ship-heaver, called “il carro”, or “Machina Traductrix”. Such was the name that the traveller Stephan Vinandus Pighius gave to this machine in 1587.
Vinzenzo Coronelli, Il carro
We encounter a description of the “Machina Traductrix” in Montaigne’s Italian diary, first edited in 1774. The french philosopher visited Italy in 1580.
We had lunch in an inn at Cà Fusina from whence one can embark for Venice. All of the ships that take this route are carried over land in Cà Fusina with the help of a system of levers and pulleys, operated by two horses, somewhat similar to an oil press. A wagon is pushed under the barge. Wagon and barge are then pulled over a wooden ramp to the canal that flows to the Venetian Laguna.
Franciscus Schott (1600) and Paulus Hentzner (1612) speak in a similar way of this construction.
The term Tranect originates from the Latin trans-nectere [nectere =to knit]. The meaning of the term is clear. A machine that lifts ships from one waterway to another by means of ropes, pulleys and levers.
When M. Jeffery made this discovery in 1932, she could hardly have realized that she had knocked the poor chap from Stratford out of the running. Shaksper, the genius at the kitchen table didn’t know that a “tranect” was a cross between a ship transporter, an inn and a changing room. (Any more than he knew what Antonio’s “Argosies” were, or his “Andrews”: Ragusian and Genoese hired ships, used by the Venetians to sail to the coasts of Africa and to the West Indies.)
Dating “The Merchant of Venice” at 1578/79, I called the attention to the statements of Stephen Gosson and Gabriel Harvey (both from the year 1579): one speaks of a play “The Jew” wherein is shown „the greedinesse of worldly chusers“ and the other one tells the recipient of his letter that he is: “fast bownde unto thee in more obligations then any merchant in Italy to any Jewe there” (see: Kreiler 2009). Moreover I made it quite clear that the author has plagiarised from “The Merchant of Venice”. Munday’s novel “Zelauto” (1580) envelops the extortionist theme from Shakespeare’s comedy.
In the third part of Zelauto, Munday tells the story of a scandalous loan, with its blood thirsty guarantee clause, similar to that in “The Merchant of Venice”. He ignores Shakespeare’s source (Il Pecorone IV.1) and bases his story directly on the liberties that Shakespeare took with Fiorentini’s work. In Fiorentino’s novel the heiress of Belmont conducts the defence of the merchant alone, Shakespeare provides her with a second woman disguised as a clerk. This constellation of characters was adopted by Munday and used as the basis of a new story.
3.5 The Taming of the Shrew
Whoever claims that it is possible to write about a place that one has never visited has obviously never tried to write a novel or a play. Any author will tell you that the first thing that they do is to go to the scene of their story and “get the feel” of the place. The feel of a trip to London might involve the missing tooth of a bus conductor, or the stoop of a flower girl. The authors don’t know themselves what they’re looking for, and they can only relate their experiences in such a way that the reader feels as if he’s there after a certain period of deliberation. (For instance, some people even say that they can smell the English countryside when they read Thomas Hardy and that they can taste the food described by Henry Fielding.)
Richard P. Roe read “The Taming of the Shrew” through the eyes of a connoisseur of Italy and thereby made some truly amazing discoveries.- The high born student, Lucentio, accompanied by his servant Tranio, travels from Pisa to Padua, where he waits for another servant, Biondello to bring his extensive luggage after him, in a barge.
LUCENTIO. If, Biondello, thou wert come ashore,
We could at once put us in readiness,
And take a lodging fit to entertain
Such friends as time in Padua shall beget.
But stay awhile; what company is this? (I/1)
A barge is slower than a mounted rider, so Lucentio and Tranio first have to seek simple lodgings - probably close to one of the canal docks in Padua. While they are waiting, they notice a small group of noble people: an elderly man, Baptista Minola with his two daughters, Katherina and Bianca, along with their respective suitors - Gremio and Hortensio. Baptista won’t hear of the nuptials of his younger daughter before the elder daughter, Katherine, is married off. In no time at all, Lucentio has fallen in love with Bianca. Baptista sends his daughter Bianca into the house nearby (a good reason for Lucentio not to change his lodgings). The area of the town is revealed later on in the story when “Saint Luke’s” parish church is named as the church where the marriage takes place.
Roe actually went to Padua to look for the place that is described here. He found Saint Luke’s parish church “San Luca”, built 1320, close to a canal dock. The canal, in the southern part of the old city (corner of Via 20 Settembre and Via San Gregorio Barbarigo), is still in existence. Across the road from the dock, the house that used to be a hostel (osteria) is still standing.
Shakespeare writes an exact description of a rich person’s house in Padua. That of “Cà gremio”:
GREMIO. First, as you know, my house within the city
Is richly furnished with plate and gold,
Basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands;
My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry;
In ivory coffers I have stuff’d my crowns;
In cypress chests my arras counterpoints,
Costly apparel, tents, and canopies,
Fine linen, Turkey cushions boss’d with pearl,
Valance of Venice gold in needle-work;
