Welcome back to Tracing Shakespearean Mysteries. Before beginning today’s episode, let me briefly recap the mystery evidence presented so far - evidence that, at least for the moment, defies explanation. In Case File 1, we discussed the setting of The Tempest on the island of Ischia, the legend of the sorcerer's cave, the Colonna family’s role in giving their names to the characters in the play and the significance of the dark figure of Caliban. In Case Files 2 & 3, we explored the author’s familiarity primarily with the city of Verona, but also with Milan, suggesting he was well-acquainted with both places and the waterways which connected them.

In this episode, we’ll be turning our attention to two mysteries, one concerning The Rape of Lucrece, the other A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We’ll start with the latter, written around 1595, which is a play that feels quite unlike any other in the Shakespearean canon. With its enchanted forest, tangled love stories, mischievous fairies, and a play-within-a-play, it stands apart from the other comedies in both tone and imagination. So, what exactly makes it so distinctive and where did this strange, magical story come from?

We’ll begin with the title. 'Midsummer Night', which occurs around 24th June, at the time of the summer solstice, has traditionally been seen as a moment of celebration, magic, and transformation in many cultures. It’s a time when the boundaries between the ordinary and the extraordinary seem to blur. The play’s addition of 'dream' to the title only enhances this idea. For one night, reality is suspended, and the magical influence of the woodland fairies creates chaos in the lives of the human lovers. But by the light of dawn, everything is restored to order. At its core, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a fairy-tale which explores the themes of love, illusion, and the unpredictability of life, all set against a backdrop of playful fantasy.

Now, let’s take a quick look at the plot of the play. The story is set in Athens and a nearby magical forest. Hermia is in love with Lysander, but her father insists she marry Demetrius. When consulted, Theseus, the Duke of Athens, tells Hermia that she must either marry Demetrius or become a nun. So, Hermia and Lysander decide to flee through the forest, away from Athenian law. Hermia confides in her best friend, Helena, about their plan. Helena, who is desperately in love with Demetrius, hopes that revealing the lovers’ escape will win his affection and allow her to spend some time with him. As a result, Demetrius follows the couple into the forest, with Helena trailing behind.

Meanwhile, deep in the forest, Oberon and Titania, the king and queen of the fairies, are having a heated argument. To teach Titania a lesson, Oberon resorts to magic with the help of his servant, Puck, who first transforms the head of Bottom, one of the mechanicals, into that of a donkey. While Titania sleeps, Oberon instructs Puck to apply the juice of a magical flower to her eyes, causing her to fall in love with the first creature she sees upon waking— namely, Bottom. The real confusion begins, however, when Puck mistakenly administers the potion to Lysander, causing him to fall in love with Helena instead of Hermia.

At the same time in the forest, the mechanicals are rehearsing their play, Pyramus and Thisbe, hoping to perform it for Duke Theseus at his upcoming wedding to Hippolyta. Oberon and Puck become tangled up in their magic, but eventually, they manage to set everything right. Lysander returns to loving Hermia, and Demetrius remains in love with Helena. Titania’s enchantment is lifted, and she reconciles with Oberon. Bottom returns to his normal self, and the mechanicals perform their comical play at the wedding of the three couples.

Let us now consider the literary sources of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which are numerous and diverse. One of the most important is Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a text that our author drew on repeatedly throughout his career. From Ovid comes not only the story of the play-within-the-play, Pyramus and Thisbe, whom we have already spoken about in connection with Romeo and Juliet, but also the wider motifs of magical interference, transformation (Bottom with a donkey’s head) and obstacles in love.

From Greek mythology come the characters of a King called Theseus and a Queen Hippolyta who appear in another of the author’s favourite sources, Plutarch’s Parallel Lives. They also feature prominently in Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale, where they become Duke Theseus and his wife Hippolyta, who rule as the noble leaders of Athens.

Alongside these classical sources, the play draws heavily on English folklore, particularly in its portrayal of fairies and woodland spirits, which were common figures in pastoral works in the late 16th century. In fact, Oberon and his fairies appear in Robert Greene’s play, James IV, written in about 1590. The character of Puck is based on the folkloric figure of Robin Goodfellow, a mischievous sprite familiar to Elizabethan audiences and explicitly named in the play. At that time, Midsummer’s Day celebrations included bonfires to ward off evil spirits, as well as fertility rites and flower magic; it was believed that gathering certain herbs and flowers on Midsummer’s Eve could bring luck, love, or protection. It was also thought that fairies and spirits were especially active, influencing humans, crops, and livestock.

At the same time, A Midsummer Night’s Dream reflects the influence of the Italian commedia dell’arte, especially in its tangled romantic relationships, mistaken identities, and rapid shifts between harmony and chaos. These elements contribute to the play’s comic energy and culminate, characteristically, in an ending marked by multiple marriages and a vigorous bergomask dance.

Another significant influence on the play comes from Italian pastoral drama, particularly Aminta, written in 1573 by Torquato Tasso, which was a highly successful play performed in Italian courts in the late sixteenth century. This celebrated pastoral features nymphs and satyrs, a woodland setting, and frequent references to the magical power of Cupid. Love is repeatedly described as a kind of enchantment—a wound inflicted by Cupid’s arrow and an irrational force capable of suddenly transforming the characters’ emotions.

Tasso’s play is set in idyllic countryside and centres on the shepherd Aminta, who is deeply in love with the nymph Silvia. She initially resists his affection, drawn instead to a nobleman who embodies traditional courtly love, creating a tension between pastoral simplicity and courtly restraint. A similar contrast appears in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, where the forest—free from civic rules and social discipline—stands in opposition to the law-bound world of Athens. Aminta explores themes of love, jealousy, and emotional suffering, yet ultimately resolves in harmony, as misunderstandings are overcome and Aminta and Silvia are reunited.

Tasso’s pastoral drama entered Elizabethan literary culture through Thomas Watson’s 1585 adaptation of Aminta into English prose and verse, Amyntas. Watson later returned to the work as a source of inspiration for his Latin love-elegy sequence Amintae Gaudia, which was published shortly after his death in 1592, by his great friend Christopher Marlowe.We will be returning to this work in a later episode.

Having traced all these possible influences on the play, it’s hard not to ask why the author goes to such unusual lengths to draw on them — only to then twist, reshape, and in some cases undermine them. Why construct a work that seems to subvert so many of its own sources? This question leads us to another. Could the setting itself be more significant than is usually assumed? Rather than functioning simply as a backdrop, could the actual setting have been the primary source of inspiration, shaping both the play’s structure and its playful reworking of earlier literary traditions?

To answer this question, we clearly need to look closer at the setting, and for this we must return to The Shakespeare Guide to Italy written by Richard Paul Roe. For reasons which I will now explain, Roe suggests, in my view quite convincingly, that the setting of A Midsummer Night’s Dream could be located in the Po Valley, thirty kilometres south-west of Mantua. The small town of Sabbioneta was built by Duke Vespasiano Gonzaga Colonna between 1554 and 1591 as an ideal town, designed according to the military and architectural principles of the Roman architect Vitruvius. This wasn’t just a practical project—it was an intellectual one. In the main square, the Duke placed a statue of Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom, with the hope that Sabbioneta would become a gathering place for scholars and thinkers. This ambition was soon realised, and Sabbioneta became known as “Little Athens.”

Of particular interest to any playwright of the period was the construction in the town of one of the world’s earliest purpose-built indoor theatres, the Teatro all’Antica. Built between 1588 and 1589, it was designed by the architect Vincenzo Scamozzi, who had previously worked with his more famous mentor, Andrea Palladio, on the Olympic Theatre in Vicenza, a town between Verona and Venice. This put Sabbioneta firmly at the cutting edge of theatrical innovation in the late sixteenth century. Although no playlists survive from the theatre in this period, we can make informed guesses as to the kinds of works that would have been performed there.

Pastoral drama was especially fashionable. There were pastoral comedies by writers such as Torquato Tasso, as we’ve seen, and pastoral tragicomedies by figures like Giovan Battista Guarini. Alongside these were commedie erudite - “learned comedies” modelled on Plautus and Terence - written in elegant Italian for courtly audiences by authors such as Ludovico Ariosto and Pietro Aretino.

For special occasions, such as ducal weddings or other courtly celebrations, intermedi were inserted between the acts of these plays. In the most elaborate productions, these interludes could number up to six and typically featured mythological allegory, intricate stage machinery, music and dance. Their combination of drama, spectacle and musical performance made them the direct precursors of opera.

Alongside these scripted forms of drama in the theatre of Sabbioneta, performances of the commedia dell’arte, with their masked characters and semi-improvised humour, would almost certainly have formed part of the theatrical repertoire.

Today, the town is recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. To give you a better understanding of this remarkable place, which is still very much as it was four hundred years ago, I’ve shared links on the website to four short videos about Sabbioneta. And I would definitely suggest a visit to the town if you ever get the opportunity.

Now let’s look at why Sabbioneta could be the backdrop to the play. This small, fortified gem was built not as a town in the usual sense, but as a ducal court, which is exactly the setting of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. For this purpose, the town was divided into distinct areas: one section was devoted to power and governance, containing the Duke’s political and administrative palace alongside other civic buildings and a library. Behind the palace, Vespasiano Gonzaga Colonna (Yes a branch of the Colonna family we met in Case File 1 about The Tempest) constructed a small church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, intended as both a private place of worship and a family tomb, which Duke Gonzaga always called the “Temple.” While ancient Greek couples did not historically marry in temples, the playwright alters this tradition - perhaps taking advantage of the setting in Sabbioneta - since in the fourth act, when announcing the triple wedding, Duke Theseus declares:

For in the temple by and by with us

These couples shall eternally be knit: (4.1.187-188)

Other areas of the town were given over to military barracks, citizens’ housing, and the workshops of tradesmen—the kind of craftsmen we might easily associate with figures like Bottom and his fellow players. In keeping with contemporary military defence strategies, the town walls were encircled by a moat, beyond which stretched a treeless expanse, up to seven hundred metres wide. This open ground ensured that any approaching enemy would be clearly visible from the high walls of the town.

As Roe notes in his book, the walls themselves were interrupted by two town gates. One of these, named Porta Vittoria, was once popularly referred to as the Duke’s Oak. This is exactly the location Quince designates when the mechanicals plan their secret rehearsal of Pyramus and Thisbe. Seeking to avoid prying eyes, he instructs them:

...in the palace wood, a mile without the town,

By moonlight; there we will rehearse, for if

we meet in the city, we shall be dogged

with company, and our devices known.

[...] At the Duke’s Oak we meet. (1.2.97-106)

And the “palace wood, a mile without the town” Quince refers to, may well have been the oak woodland which once existed beyond the clearing, about a mile to the north-east of Sabbioneta. This was Duke Vespasiano’s hunting ground, a feature common to many Italian Renaissance courts. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, we find Duke Theseus hunting in just such a landscape, which makes the parallel even more intriguing.

As for the gate’s earlier name, the Duke’s Oak, this may simply reflect the fact that the road leading from it ran directly towards the Duke’s oak woodland. Alternatively, it may refer to the drawbridge over the moat, which no longer exists, but which could itself have been constructed from oak. Another possibility is that the roof of the gate, which today is tiled, may once have been constructed using oak timbers to provide shelter for the guards. We may never know exactly the reason for the gate’s nickname, but we do know that oak was widely used throughout the town, and as evidence of this, I’ve included a photograph on the website of the richly carved oak eaves of the Garden Palace, which vividly convey the character and craftsmanship of Sabbioneta at the time of its construction in the second half of the 16th century.

This Garden Palace was the Duke’s private residence, a pleasure palace with a beautiful garden, where he entertained his guests. This might well be the palace to which Bottom refers in Act IV of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, when he urges his fellow mechanicals to prepare for their performance:

Get your apparel together,

good strings to your beards, new ribbons to your

pumps; meet presently at the palace. (4.2.35-37)

To summarise, Sabbioneta, in the sixteenth century known as “Little Athens,” is a town which possesses all the settings to be found in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: a “temple” where Duke Theseus and Hippolyta of Athens married, alongside the other couples; a pleasure palace where the mechanicals performed their play; a gate known as the Duke’s Oak, which served as a meeting place, leading towards an oak woodland about a mile away, where Duke Theseus went hunting, the mechanicals rehearsed their play, the four lovers lost their way, and the visiting fairies made their home. With all these parallels in mind, is it really so far-fetched to imagine that A Midsummer Night’s Dream drew its inspiration not from an unknown story, nor from an abstract Athens, but rather from this very real “Little Athens” in northern Italy? What are your thoughts?

But we cannot stop here, for there is also another mystery to be found just a 30 kilometre horse-ride away from Sabbioneta, in Mantua, at the court of the Gonzaga Dukes. A fresco located in the Camerino dei Falconi (The Falcon Chamber) in the Duke’s palace in Mantua is entitled Tarquinius and Lucrecia. The painting shows the dramatic moment of Sextus Tarquinius’s assault on Lucrecia, immortalised in the Shakespearean poem The Rape of Lucrece. Before discussing this work, as usual, I’ll just give you a brief summary of its key points.

During the Roman siege of Ardea, the king’s son, Sextus Tarquinius, becomes intrigued by Collatinus’ claim that his wife, Lucrecia, is exceptionally virtuous. The following day, Tarquinius secretly leaves the camp and visits Lucrecia’s home, where he is welcomed as her husband’s friend. However, that night, he enters her bedroom and threatens her into submission, warning that he will kill her and her male slave and disgrace her name by placing their bodies in a compromising position.

After the assault, Lucrecia summons her husband and father, confesses what has happened, and demands revenge. To preserve her honour, she then takes her own life in front of them with a dagger. News of her death provokes such outrage in Rome that the Tarquin family is expelled, bringing an end to monarchy and leading to the founding of the Roman Republic.

Given that in the 16th century, the scene in which Tarquinius assaults Lucrecia was commonly depicted, what could be the connection between the Shakespearean poem and the painting in the Duke’s Palace in Mantua? For an answer, we must look more closely at the painter himself, Giulio Romano, who served as chief court artist and architect to the Gonzaga court in Mantua for roughly twenty-two years, until his death in 1546. Although Romano was Raphael’s most celebrated pupil, he was scarcely known in England beyond elite circles, and his name would have meant little to the majority of London theatre audiences. And yet he appears in The Winter’s Tale:

[...] that rare Italian master, Julio

Romano, who, had he himself eternity and could

put breath into his work, would beguile Nature of

her custom, so perfectly he is her ape;    (5.2.104-107)

It was Sir Lionel Cust, director of the National Portrait Gallery in London between 1895 and 1909, who first pointed out that the poem The Rape of Lucrece appeared to give a detailed description of the paintings depicting the Trojan War in the Gonzaga palace in Mantua by Giulio Romano. On the ceiling of the Chamber of Troy, a dynamic battle scene teems with hundreds of soldiers, some with swords drawn and others engaged in combat, while billowing cloaks, bleeding bodies, rearing horses, chariots, spears, shields, and countless other details create a powerful impression of energy and movement. Running around the upper part of the room is a cycle of paintings recounting the origin of the war, beginning with the dream of Hecuba, and depicting such characters as Ulysses, Ajax, Achilles and Troilus.

It seems that these extraordinarily theatrical paintings made a great impression on the author of The Rape of Lucrece, who admiringly writes of their artist, 'In scorn of Nature, Art gave lifeless, life', commenting further with:

In Ajax and Ulysses, O, what art

Of physiognomy might one behold!

The face of either ciphered either’s heart,

Their face their manners most expressly told.

In Ajax’ eyes blunt rage and rigor rolled,

But the mild glance that sly Ulysses lent

Showed deep regard and smiling government.            (1394-1400) 

The poem’s minutely detailed and lengthy description —approximately two hundred lines - of these paintings is framed as a memory of something the troubled Lucrece remembers while she waits for her husband and father to return home:

To this well-painted piece is Lucrece come

To find a face where all distress is stelled.

Many she sees where cares have carvèd some,

But none where all distress and dolor dwelled

Till she despairing Hecuba beheld   (1443-1447)

As she takes in the scenes of suffering, Lucrece can’t help but compare the despair of its protagonists to her own private torment:

She throws her eyes about the painting round,

And who she finds forlorn, she doth lament.                 (1499-1450)

That phrase, “the painting round,” makes it feel as though she’s imagining herself back in that very room, surrounded on all sides by the wall paintings of the Trojan War, set off by Helen’s abduction.

The artist is consistently praised throughout the painting’s description, with references such as 'the well-skilled workman', '[she] chid the painter for his wondrous skill' and the observation that 'the painter laboured with his skill, to hide deceit.' The vivid depiction of red blood 'reeked to show the painter’s strife,' while 'here and there the painter interlaces pale cowards,' and in portraying Hecuba, 'the painter had anatomised Time’s ruin'. It seems that the author cannot praise the artist’s ability highly enough.

Given that Romano’s painting of the rape is to be found in the Chamber of Falcons, perhaps we should not be surprised to find predatory, falcon imagery in the assault scene of the poem. As Tarquinius approaches the bedchamber:

... he shakes aloft his Roman blade,

Which, like a falcon tow’ring in the skies,

Coucheth the fowl below with his wings’ shade,

Whose crookèd beak threats, if he mount, he dies..

So under his insulting falchion lies

Harmless Lucretia, marking what he tells

With trembling fear, as fowl hear falcons’ bells.             (505-511)

To sum up, the extraordinary detail in the descriptions of the Mantuan paintings seems to suggest that the author must have seen them firsthand - we can almost imagine him jotting down his impressions in a notebook. If you’re curious to see these paintings for yourself, you’ll find a video link on the webpage.

So, the time has come to draw in the net we’ve cast throughout Case Files 2, 3, and 4 of this series. We have examined some of the works in the Shakespearean canon most likely written in the years 1594, 1595 and 1596 - namely The Rape of Lucrece, Romeo and Juliet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The abundance of local detail in these works, coupled with the close geographical proximity of their settings - Verona, Milan, Sabbioneta, and Mantua - must surely give us pause for thought. It is looking ever more likely that the author either visited or spent some time in the area. I have posted a map on the website of the various locations and waterways which you might find useful when considering the evidence.

And since, as we are told in sonnet 44, nimble thought can jump both sea and land, let’s pop over to London and see what William Shakespeare was doing in those years.

By 1594, theatres had reopened after a long closure due to plague. That year the Lord Chamberlain's Men was formed, of which Shakespeare became a shareholder-actor meaning he not only performed, but also received a share of the profits and had a say in decisions regarding plays, tours and other matters. Documents also survive regarding payments to the Lord Chamberlain's Men for lucrative court performances in front of Queen Elizabeth.

By 1596, Shakespeare was living in St. Helen’s Bishopsgate, where he appears in tax records for failing to pay his dues. In that same year, his only son Hamnet died at the age of eleven. 1596 was also the year his father, John, submitted a second application for a coat-of-arms, after an earlier attempt had been denied, which was finally granted, likely thanks to the payment and intervention of his son.

William was clearly doing well financially in these years because in 1597 he was able to buy New Place, one of the largest houses in Stratford-upon-Avon. There are also a number of legal and financial records from these years that bear his name. So it seems highly unlikely that William Shakespeare would have had time to visit northern Italy at this time, particularly as a one-way sea voyage from London to Venice could easily take two months.

In conclusion, we may have uncovered a possible explanation for why A Midsummer Night’s Dream stands apart from other plays - that is to say, rather than the play shaping the setting, the play seems to have been shaped by its setting in Duke Vespasiano’s town of Sabbioneta. At the same time, we have come across another location, not far from Sabbioneta, the Chamber of Troy in the Duke’s Palace in Mantua, which has made its way into the poem entitled the Rape of Lucrece. We have also seen that all the settings of the plays from this period are concentrated in a relatively small area of Northern Italy and often reflect a remarkable degree of personal knowledge on the part of the author. As we can likely rule out the presence of William Shakespeare in the region at this time, we still do not know where all this knowledge came from. One possibility is that he travelled to Italy during the so-called lost years (between 1585–1592), when he disappeared from historical records. If this was the case, the plays inspired by such a journey may have taken up to ten years to come to fruition. Is that likely? Yet another question to add to our growing list.

In the next Case File we’ll be looking into the mystery surrounding Love’s Labour’s Lost and searching for clues about its missing sequel, Love’s Labour’s Won.