riches and even refers to “The divine Comedy” of Dante (Now my son, we approach the city they call Dis, with its grave citizens) when he jokingly speaks of “Pisa, renowned for its grave citizens” (I/1).
In the framing device, the lord’s servants boast to the drunken tinker, Christopher Sly, of the riches in their master’s house.
Corregio, Jupiter and Io (c. 1530)
Dost thou love pictures? We will fetch thee straight
Adonis painted by a running brook,
And Cytherea all in sedges hid,
Which seem to move and wanton with her breath
Even as the waving sedges play wi’ th’ wind.
We’ll show thee Io as she was a maid
And how she was beguiled and surpris’d,
As lively painted as the deed was done.
Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,
Scratching her legs, that one shall swear she bleeds
And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,
So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.
All of the subjects here can be found in the Italian art of the 16C, but not in the English art of the same period.
3.6 Measure for Measure
With an old camera in my rucksack and a veiled suspicion in my head, following in the footsteps of Richard P. Roe, I went to Padua in search of “the moated grange”.
Shakespeare’s blackest comedy “Measure for Measure” is set in Vienna- yet not in Vienna. The characters all have Italian names. The source of the piece is Italian (Giraldi Cinthio, Hecatommithi VIII,5) and the intrigues are all Italian by nature.
We remember: Angelo, the Deputy of the Duke, promises to pardon Isabella’s brother Claudio of the crime of fornication if she goes to bed with him. In the same breath, he orders Claudio’s execution. Fortunately the Duke, disguised as a monk, manages to put a stop to this puritan hypocrite’s machinations.
I formerly vented the suspicion that Shakespeare’s Vienna stands for Milan where a similar assault, sentenced by the governor of Milan, took place in 1547 (see: Kreiler 2009 – and: The Plot of Measure for Measure. Notes and Queries, July 29, 1893). However; how did Shakespeare know about Milan? In Cinthio’s Hecatommithi, the event is set in Innsbruck and the governor is replaced by Maximilian I (1459-1519), the Holy Roman Emperor. - Shakespeare then speaks of “Vienna” thus bringing the story under the sovereignty of the Habsburgs.
We have to ask: “Which Italian town, under Habsburg influence, has a “convent of the order of Saint Clare”, a church with the name of “Saint Luke’s” and a “moated grange” nearby?
DUKE. I will presently to Saint Luke’s; there, at the moated grange, resides this dejected Mariana. (III/1)
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