Shakespeare in Venice?

Two of Shakespeare's plays conjure vivid images of Venice...

And so, the big question: was Will ever there????

The city of Casanova, Vivaldi, Canaletto and over 11,000 courtesans (according to a 1509 catalogue of prostitution) positively sparkled with business, culture, religion and entertainment.

Shakespeare’s Venice was a crossroads of trade and money-lending, exotic characters and cultures, danger, threat and loss, glamour and excess and excitement.

And beauty.

Much like today.

Othello begins in Venice, whilst The Merchant of Venice plays out its whole story amidst the canals and palazzi and ghetto of the city.

Shakespeare sets a number of plays in Italy, but nowhere does he give such a sense of place as he does in these two plays of the Serenissima.

Anyone visiting Venice feels the co-existence of the past and the present, history and tourism, ancient crumbling beauty and new, shiny bits.

So how much of Shakespeare’s Venice still shimmers along canals and echoes out of palazzos?

I open the shutters of my hotel and the scents of garlic, fish and lemon rise with the sounds of the bars below, tinny music and excited greetings, exchanges of news. In Venice you are always cheek by jowl with everyone else, glimpsing your neighbours from your windows, passing close by on your calle.

“…this is Venice,

My house is not a grange.” (O 1.1.105-106)

Brabantio in Othello exclaims that he is hardly likely to be robbed as he doesn’t live in some secluded rural house, but rather in Venice, where folks live on top, beside and close up to each other, where houses and palazzi hold each other up on their wooden bases and the sights, sounds and smells are constantly shared, observed and reflected across the canals.

No burglar stood a chance.

Not much has changed. The centuries old houses and palazzi still stand shoulder to shoulder on their watery supports, some with grilles over their windows, their heavy wooden water doors or iron grilles shut against intruders.

Wandering around the calli and the campi is to time travel back hundreds of years. Shakespeare would find himself in familiar territory.

The greatest change is most likely the increasing erosion and crumbling of brick and façade.

So how about Venice's most famous method of transport? Would Shakespeare recognise these sleek, black beauties?

Around Shakespeare’s time there were something like 10,000 gondolas transporting the Venetians around the city and lagoon, the Uber of the day.

It might seem to a traveller in Venice today that they are just as numerous, since even the narrowest canal seems to have at least two of these elegant crafts drifting down them.

But there are only a mere 400 now, with the trade and the training strictly controlled.

Shakespeare’s Venetian waterways were truly alive with thousands of these vessels.

Today they are a tourist treat, a romantic symbol, seemingly thought so even by the locals.

I saw a Venetian couple taking a gondola ride, gazing at each adoringly as they slid silently through the lapping water and, as the next bridge came into view, the young signor had hung a painted banner across the bridge, proposing to his love:

Mi vuoi sposare?

As she said yes and burst into tears, the gondolier launched into song and all their friends (and tourists) on the bridge cheered and clapped. Gondolas, it seems, are not JUST for the tourists!

When lovers elope in The Merchant of Venice,

“…the Duke was given to understand

That in a gondola were seen together

Lorenzo and his amorous Jessica,” (2.8.7-9)

Similarly it is reported to Brabantio that his daughter, Desdemona, has slipped away from her father’s house and taken to the “gross clasps” of Othello by “a knave of common hire, a gondolier.” (1.1.125)

Common hire, maybe, since there were so very many of them – and still seem to be.

But a knave?

Well, perhaps back then, yes.

However, your 21st century gondolier undertakes study, training and exams comparable to a university course, including history, languages and physical technique.

Exceptionally skilled and with controlled prices, I think we must consign Shakespeare’s term of “knave” to history.

Some folks deny that Shakespeare knew of the waterways and gondolas of Venice, that ‘gondola’ was just a word for a little boat.

But he uses the word in both his Venice plays, as he also knew of the other transport.

Portia, about to assume the identity of a young lawyer, orders legal documents and clothing to be brought:

“Bring them (I pray thee) with imagin’d speed

Unto the traject, to the common ferry

Which trades to Venice.” (3.4.52-54)

The traghetto, a ferry known and used then as it is now, charges a tiny amount (compared to its more glamorous cousin, the gondola) and transports anyone and everyone, local and tourist, grandee and peasant, across the canals.

This is the uber for the working person rather than the romantic tourist, and Portia knows it.

[Anorak alert: Shakespeare also mentions a gondola in As You Like It, which some folks say is evidence that he isn’t referencing the specific Venetian vessels since that play is set in Arden, wherever that is??? (Warwickshire? Or the Forest of Ardennes?)

My take on it is that Rosalind uses the term to take Jaques to task for not enjoying his international travels, and could very clearly be referencing what we understand as a Venetian gondola.

So there.]

The villainous Iago sneers that Desdemona is “super-subtle Venetian,” meaning that she is pampered and delicate, as opposed to the “barbarian” Othello.

Venice, we deduce, has a sophistication, breeding, style and approved behaviour. As long as you’re not looking at the tourists, but rather the contemporary Venetian inhabitants, this is true.

During a recent visit to one restaurant, the table of six businessmen meeting for lunch looked like an advert for Armani, and the two signore chatting about the art works soon to appear for the Biennale had a gilt-edged style and elegance that could only be in Italy.

Nothing wrong with “super-subtle,” Iago!

Does Shakespeare make a sly allusion to how stylish the Italians are, and how sadly lacking the English can be?

Portia being cutting about her suitors, remarks on the English baron, young Falconbridge:

“How oddly he is suited! I think he bought his

doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet

in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere.” (1.2.70-73)

Clearly Shakespeare’s Venetians sneered at this poor English bloke’s lack of style and dress-sense.

Do the Brits stand out today in Venice as badly dressed?

Personally, I hope not!

Although the universal tourist uniform of t-shirt, shorts, trainers, backpacks and shapeless headgear is pretty much international.

Shakespeare and Portia alike would, I suspect, despair at the contemporary lack of style.

The Merchant of Venice opens with chat about how vulnerable ships can be at sea, subject to storms and rocks, so that merchants trading in silks and spices risk and lose their fortunes.

We are immediately transported to the great sea-faring city when the opulent Venetian Republic ruled a maritime empire that sprawled across the eastern Mediterranean.

The jeopardy of trade and loss of ships is the lynchpin of the play and Shakespeare leaves us in no doubt that we are in Venice, where wealth and loss, success and danger teeter around each other as if wearing shoes as high and perilous as chopines.

“…go forth

Try what my credit can in Venice do” (1.1.179-180)

Business, deals, transactions, loans, all sailing close to triumph or disaster.

As Antonio faces death at the hands of Shylock who is claiming his pound of flesh, Antonio understands well the rule of law and commerce in this strictest of states:

“The duke cannot deny the course of law:

For the commodity that strangers have

With us in Venice, if it be denied,

Will much impeach the justice of the state,

Since that the trade and profit of the city

Consisteth of all nations.” (3.3.26-31)

Money-lending and credit, profit and loss, as much the life blood of Shakespeare’s Venice as its waterways.

Today, I think we can agree that the city’s trade and profit still relies on “all nations” as the coaches, trains, planes and vaporetti deposit the camera-clutching sight seekers from every corner of the world in their thousands.

Venice as a financial and political power frayed swiftly through centuries of upheaval: occupation, Napoleon, Austria, war, and flooding.

The heady deals of credit and financial exchanges understood by Shylock and Antonio are just not there now, but nor, thankfully, is the ghetto.

The legacy of this era remains in the Gothic, Moorish and Eastern style of buildings, the sumptuous fabrics and rich colours adorning shops, hotels and restaurants, even if the ship-building yards of the Arsenal are not what they were and cruise ships the size of housing estates have replaced the argosies of Antonio, Shakespeare’s merchant.

Perhaps Shakespeare's Venetians would approve of the gilt, the marble, the silks,

the brocades, even as they stand perplexed at the next cruise ship blotting out the light as it spills its eager occupants onto the quay.

“What news on the Rialto?”

(MoV, 3.1.1)

The Rialto - the financial and commercial hub, where the news of who's doing what is exchanged as much as deals and loans.

Shylock knows all about Antonio’s ships at sea from the gossip on the Rialto.

And this is where they make their dark bargain: a pound of Antonio’s flesh if he cannot repay the loan of 3000 ducats.

Today the Rialto is the iconic view and few visit the city without seeing it from a gondola, vaporetto or walking up and over the bridge’s arc.

Commerce is still king here, though of a more touristy nature.

But the markets and produce of butchers, fishmongers, bakers etc still ply their trade nearby, so the buzz of commerce continues.

And then there are the masks.

Carnevale.

“Will you prepare you for this masque tonight?

I am provided of a torch-bearer.” (MoV, 2.4.22-23)

Shakespeare’s English masques were revels which his audience would understand as elaborate theatrical extravaganzas using disguise and costume.

But we are in Venice: this is the intrigue of revellers carousing in disguise through the narrow streets with burning torches, definitely in party mode.

Venetian masks: they glitter and dazzle with their sightless eyes from sumptuously dressed boutiques or hanging in their thousands on the tourist stalls.

Many originate from the characters of commedia dell’ arte, a theatre form beloved by Venice, plus there are simple white masks and the spectacular carnival masks.

Venice Carnevale turned mask-design and mask-wearing into an art form: splendid, eccentric, menacing and extraordinary.

The birth of the mask was the need for aristocrats to gamble and carouse without being recognised, and they had gaps in the calendar when this was sanctioned: from October 5th until Christmas, Ascension and from Dec 26th to Shrove Tuesday.

When these masked months held sway, whether Doge or courtesan, prince or ingenue, all could mingle, flirt, drink, gamble, dance and whatever other high jinks they fancied and not be recognised.

No wonder Shylock cautions his daughter to have none of it.

“What are there masques? Hear you me, Jessica,

Lock up my doors, and when you hear the drum

And the vile squealing of the wry-neck’d fife

Clamber not you up to the casements then

Nor thrust your head into the public street

To gaze on Christian fools with varnish’d faces

But stop my house’s ears, I mean my casements,

Let not the sound of shallow fopp’ry enter my sober house.” (2.5.28-36)

Shylock forbids his daughter to gaze on the rowdy sparkle and glamorous menace of a city famed for revelling, faces hidden in shadow and behind masks, a wild pursuit down a narrow calle, a liaison secretly carrying on in the felze, the gondola’s small cabin which ensured privacy for stolen, naughty delights.

The masks are still recognisable, Carnevale is still a thing.

Shakespeare would appreciate that.

But like everything that becomes too familiar, readily available, mass-produced, it loses its specialness.

Anyone can buy a Venetian mask, pack it in their case and take it home – a little bit of the city’s risqué past.

You know, that’s just fine.

We can all do with a little shiver of naughtiness, even if it’s just a fridge magnet.

Whilst the action in Venice consists of dangerous deals, subterfuge, threat and deception, the play also offers us the world of Belmont, 10 miles away, the sumptuous estate of Portia's home.

This location is all about marriage and love and is a counterpoint to Venice, offering a more tranquil answer to life.

It is true, all the ‘happy’ couples end up here at the end.

Act 5 begins with Lorenzo and Jessica sitting in the moonlight outside Portia’s house, exchanging lyrical references to great lovers of the classical past:

“The moon shines bright. In such a night as this,

When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,

And they did make no noise, in such a night

Troilus methinks mounted the Trojan walls,

And sigh’d his soul toward the Grecian tents

Where Cressid lay that night…” (5.1.1-6)

Lorenzo in particular has luscious poetic passages to create this romantic arcadian world:

“How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!

Here will we sit and let the sounds of music

Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night

Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patens of bright gold:

There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st

But in his motion like an angel sings…” (5.1.54-61)

When Portia returns from Venice, she too creates for us a sense that her home is a beautiful, benign world:

“That light we see is burning in my hall:

How far that little candle throws his beams!

So shines a good deed in a naughty world.” (5.1.89-91)

We can take it that Venice is the naughty world, she and Belmont the good deed (having just defeated Shylock in a court of law).

There's a big BUT.

Belmont is not a real place.

Shakespeare used his source Il Pecorone and ‘the Lady of Belmont’ to give Portia’s home its identity.

Much chat abounds as to where this real place might be, which elegant villa outside Venice it might be based upon.

Who really knows?

Does it matter?

What I find interesting is that the creation of Belmont is a fantasy.

It's not an idyllic arcadia.

Portia was trapped in a ghastly marriage contest by her father and now finds herself married to a man who clearly loves his chum, Antonio, more than he does her.

If he loves her at all.

He definitely loves her money.

(I’m sure I’ve said previously and will most likely say it again in the future – there are no truly happy marriages in Shakespeare.)

But Venice is absolutely real.

The Venice Shakespeare conjured is as vivid to us as the city is to today’s visitors.

Controversy alert:

I reckon Shakespeare visited Venice.

If you are in the camp of ‘Shakespeare didn’t really write Shakespeare’s plays – it was the Earl of Oxford or the Earl of Southampton or Queen Elizabeth or her bastard son or Kit Marlowe or some writers’ collective including Francis Bacon and Sir Walter Raleigh or the Easter Bunny,’ you should probably stop reading now.

Shakespeare left Stratford-upon-Avon after marrying and producing three children, and goes off-grid for a few years before popping up in London as an actor and burgeoning playwright. Where was he?

What was he doing in those lost years?

I have long held the belief that he ran away with a travelling troupe of actors and honed his craft going from place to place – including Italy and, specifically, Venice.

It’s as good a theory as anything else.

And goes some way to explain his love of Italy and vivid sense of Venice as a location.

I am not alone in the theory, by the way.

Respected academics and writers have explored the same idea.

I particularly commend to you the brilliant book ‘Shakespeare in Venice: exploring the city with Shylock and Othello’ by Shaul Bassi & Alberto Toso Fei, in which the footsteps of Shakespeare echo persistently under the bridges and along the calli as convincingly as if there was a photo of him posing in front of St Mark’s, quill in one hand, gelato in the other.

Shaul Bassi also, coincidently, once called my mother an ‘honorary Venetian,’ so he clearly knows what’s what.

The joy of all this chit chat is that no-one can really prove anything. We can only go on what we read, on enjoying the plays and, basically, on love and gut instinct.

Shakespeare is the ultimate man of mystery, as much a man of disguise, shape-shifting and elusive glamour as any reveller at Carnevale.