Welcome back to Tracing Shakespearean Mysteries. We have now arrived at Case File 6, and at this point we have assembled a considerable body of evidence suggesting that the questions surrounding the author and his sources are anything but straightforward, as we discovered in the previous episode about Love’s Labour’s Lost and Love’s Labour’s Won. We are also grappling with the challenge of explaining the remarkable breadth and precision of geographical knowledge reflected in a number of the plays: The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, all seemingly set in Italy. How this knowledge was acquired lies at the heart of our enquiry.

But we still have plenty to investigate, so in this episode we'll be taking a closer look at The Merchant of Venice, written between 1596 and 1598. Yes, we're back in Italy once again - this time confronted with puzzles of both a logistical and a linguistic nature. But before we begin discussing these, we should perhaps just take a quick look at the main events of the play.

Young Bassanio, a gentleman deep in debt, asks the wealthy merchant Antonio, for a loan of 3,000 ducats so that he may court a beautiful heiress, Portia, who lives in Belmont. As Antonio’s ships are all at sea and he has no ready money to lend, he agrees to secure the loan from the Jewish money-lender Shylock. The two men have long been at odds, so there is no love lost between them. Shylock consents to lending the money on one condition: if the sum is not repaid within three months, he will be entitled to take a pound of Antonio’s flesh.

Meanwhile in Belmont, Portia is bound by her late father’s will to marry the man who chooses correctly between three caskets - gold, silver, and lead. Several suitors have already failed the test, thereby forfeiting their right to ever marry. When Bassanio arrives, he selects the lead casket and, as a result, wins Portia’s hand in marriage. At the same time, Bassanio’s friend, Gratiano, falls in love with Portia’s maid, Nerissa, and there are plans for a double wedding.

But soon afterwards, news reaches Belmont that all of Antonio’s ships have been lost at sea and that Shylock intends to claim his pound of flesh. Bassanio confesses everything to Portia, who proposes that they marry immediately so that, with the help of her wealth, he can sail at once to Venice and offer Shylock far more than the sum owed. As soon as he departs, however, Portia devises another plan. She sends a servant to Padua to consult her learned cousin, a lawyer, and arranges to meet the servant at the mainland ferry-stop to Venice, which she and Nerissa will travel to by coach.

Once in Venice, Portia - disguised as a lawyer - appears in court to defend Antonio. The case seems hopeless, since Antonio has signed the bond. But just as Shylock prepares to cut the flesh, Portia points out that the contract permits him to take a pound of flesh but says nothing about shedding blood. If he spills a single drop of Christian blood, he will forfeit all his goods. The court rules against Shylock. He is compelled to convert to Christianity and to leave his wealth to his daughter, who has eloped with Lorenzo, one of Bassanio’s friends.

After the trial, Portia, still disguised, asks Bassanio for his wedding ring as payment for saving Antonio. Though reluctant - having promised never to part with it - Bassanio eventually yields. Gratiano likewise gives Nerissa his ring. When they are all back in Belmont, the women reproach their husbands for giving away their rings, until the disguises are at last revealed. Antonio’s ships are reported as having safely returned home, and everyone is happy - except for Shylock, of course.

With the exception of Romeo and Juliet, the plays we have examined so far diverge significantly from their probable source material. The Merchant of Venice, however, follows its narrative source strikingly closely. Even more intriguing is the fact that the story appears in Il Pecorone, Giovanni Fiorentino’s fourteenth-century collection of novellas, printed in Italian in 1558, which was not translated into English or French until the nineteenth century. We have already come across a similar mystery with regard to Julius Caesar: how did our playwright come to know the story when it was printed only in Italian? So let’s look more closely at just how similar the two versions really are.

First, the protagonists. The central figure of Fiorentino’s story is Giannetto, whose doting godfather Ansaldo - described as the richest merchant in Christendom - clearly serves as a model for the Shakespearean Antonio, who is portrayed not as Bassanio’s doting godfather, but as his doting kinsman. Both men, lacking sons of their own, are depicted as melancholic figures.

Next comes the husband test. Giannetto sails from Venice with two companions, each commanding a ship laden with precious goods bound for Alexandria in Egypt, where they hope to make their fortunes. But after a few days’ sailing, Giannetto abandons his friends when they see the beautiful port of Belmonte, owned by a wealthy young widow. Like Portia - who also resides in Belmont - the widow is seeking a husband. Her challenge, however, is far more risqué than the play’s casket test, as she vows to marry only the man who can successfully share her bed, while any suitor who fails must forfeit all his possessions. Instead, our author opted for the casket test, a device already familiar to audiences. In fact, the story of the three caskets had been circulating for centuries and was first printed in 1472 in the Gesta Romanorum, a popular medieval Latin collection of moralised tales.

So, the three caskets of the play substitute Giannetto’s three attempts to win the lady, each with a ship financed by his godfather. On the third attempt, the widow’s maid secretly reveals that her mistress gives her suitors a sleeping potion before retiring with them. Armed with this knowledge, Giannetto finally secures his bride.

Then there are the terms of the loan. Having lost most of his money by funding Giannetto’s two failed attempts, in order to fund the third voyage, his godfather, Ansaldo, borrows 10,000 gold ducats from a Jew, who demands a pound of flesh if the debt is not repaid on time. In The Merchant of Venice, the sum is reduced to 3,000 ducats, but the essential terms of the bargain remain the same.

Then there are the clever plans of the ladies, which are strikingly similar. While Portia gives Bassanio 60,000 ducats, in the novella, Giannetto’s new wife gives him 100,000 ducats and sends him on horseback to Venice, She soon follows in disguise, presenting herself as a gentleman judge returning from his legal studies at the famous University of Bologna, and arrives just in time to save Ansaldo - much as Portia rescues Antonio in The Merchant of Venice. In the play, however, Portia assumes the role of a “doctor of laws,” obtaining legal papers and lawyer’s robes from her learned cousin in Padua, where the university, like that in Bologna, was renowned for the study of law.

Then there is the trial itself. The courtroom scene in the play closely mirrors the lengthy account found in the original tale. But in the source story, the threatened cutting of the flesh is considerably more gruesome, as a block and cleaver are brought into court, as if for an execution, whereas in the play Shylock brandishes only a knife. In both versions, the crucial turning point comes when it is declared that not a drop of blood may be shed, and the outcome in both is similar. However, the playwright places much greater emphasis on the strict laws of Venice, revealing a remarkably sophisticated understanding of Venetian commercial regulations.

At the time, Venice’s prosperity depended upon rigorous regulation of trade and finance. Moneylending - one reason Jewish communities were permitted to reside in the city - was tightly regulated. Contracts drawn up by notaries were binding, and specialised courts dealt with commercial disputes. This served to create an image of reliability and legal stability which Venice needed in order to maintain its international trading supremacy. In fact Antonio says:

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. (3.3.30-34)

Citizenship was granted sparingly in Venice. Outsiders were required to live in the city for many years before they could even apply for it, and approval depended on meeting a demanding set of additional qualifications. Citizens - a term mentioned in the play - enjoyed broader privileges and stronger legal protections than other residents. Although Jewish communities faced significant restrictions, they were nevertheless afforded a degree of protection by the state because of their importance to Venice’s financial system and prosperity. At the time, Christians were prohibited from lending money at interest, as the practice was considered sinful under Church doctrine, which made Jewish moneylenders economically essential.

Apart from international commerce - we learn that Antonio has ships trading with Tripoli, The Indies, Mexico and England - one of the most important commodities in the Venetian economy was salt. As the town controlled major salt-producing areas in the Adriatic, its distribution throughout northern Italy and Central Europe was closely regulated by the authorities in order to maintain Venetian dominance. Salt merchants could become very wealthy, so perhaps for this reason in the play, Antonio's circle of friends includes Salarino, Salerio and Salanio—sometimes called Solanio in modern editions—all names derived from the Italian sale, meaning "salt." There’s no denying, that’s a confusing trio of names. Whatever the author had in mind, he never explicitly identifies these men as merchants, let alone salt merchants, but their dialogue reveals an intimate knowledge of shipping, cargoes, navigation and the hazards of maritime trade. They appear to move with ease in the commercial world that Antonio inhabits, strongly suggesting that they, too, belong to Venice's mercantile community.

Finally, the ring episode appears in both stories. In each, the disguised lawyer demands a ring as payment before hastening back to Belmont. Both narratives conclude with reconciliation. In the novella, Ansaldo marries the maid who assisted Giannetto in conquering the lady of Belmonte. In the play, however, Nerissa - Portia’s maid, and a far more developed character, has recently married Gratiano, and she, like her mistress, tests her husband by asking for the return of her ring. The comic resolution in both stories restores harmony, but not before exposing the fragility of promises.

Given how remarkably similar the two narratives are, it’s hard not to wonder how this novella ended up in an English play when no contemporary translation existed - and how the playwright knew so much about Venetian law. The plot truly thickens, and our investigation takes yet another twist. So, what else did the author know about Venice?

Well, it appears that he was well acquainted with the Jewish community there. It is important to remember that Jews had been expelled from England in 1290, so knowledge of Jewish life would have been limited and largely drawn from contemporary European sources. Despite this, our author portrays Venetian Jews with remarkable detail. While not explicitly mentioning the Ghetto - which was established in 1516 on an island that had previously housed a metal foundry, called a geto in Venetian dialect, from gettar’, “to cast metal”- our author does make a passing reference to the diverse Jewish communities living there. For example, when Shylock says he cannot immediately produce 3,000 ducats, he says he will ask his friend Tubal for help, describing him as “a wealthy Hebrew of my tribe.”

In the 16th-century Venetian Ghetto, several distinct groups lived side by side: Italian Jews, German Ashkenazi Jews, Levantine Jews, and Spanish and Portuguese Sephardic Jews, each with their own origins, customs, and synagogue. Given the limited space within the Ghetto, as the community grew, buildings were extended upwards to seven or eight floors - earning them the modern nickname “the skyscrapers of Venice” - and in some cases they extended outwards. Shylock’s home is described as a “pent-house.” In fact, still today, one building in the main square of the Ghetto projects outwards from the first floor and is supported by columns, creating a pedestrian passageway beneath - the very type of structure Elizabethans referred to as a “pent-house.”

I’d just like to take a moment to point out that in The Shakespeare Guide to Italy, R. P. Roe examines all of the settings in The Merchant of Venice in far greater detail than I can here. I have previously referenced this insightful work with regard to Shakespearean plays set in Italy. While I do not agree with every conclusion Roe draws, I do share his view that the playwright possessed an unusually deep and precise knowledge of Venice - and, indeed, of Italy more broadly.

That said, let’s explore another location in the play by looking at the language used. In Act III of The Merchant of Venice, there are two especially interesting speeches that might provide us with significant information. In Scene 1, when Shylock prepares to claim his pound of flesh from Antonio, Bassanio must quickly return to Venice from Belmont, presumably by boat and soon after, Portia tells her servant Balthazar to ride quickly to Padua with a letter for her cousin, the lawyer Bellario.

In speed to Padua: see thou render this

Into my cousin's hand, Doctor Bellario;

And, look what notes and garments he doth give thee,

Bring them, I pray thee, with imagined speed

Unto the traject, to the common ferry

Which trades to Venice…     (3.1.50-56)

After visiting Doctor Bellario in Padua, Balthazar must then ride to the Venice ferry stop on the mainland, where Portia herself will meet him, after travelling 20 miles by coach from Belmont. To her maid Nerissa she promises to give the details of the plan during the trip:

But come, I’ll tell thee all my whole device,

When I am in my coach, which stays for us

At the park gate; and therefore haste away,

For we must measure twenty miles to-day.     (3.4. 85-88)

So, what does this tell us? When we put all the information from these two speeches together, we end up with a bit of a logistical mystery for there is, in fact, a real location just outside Venice that makes these directions from Belmont surprisingly plausible. It seems very likely that the author had in mind one of the elegant palaces just south of Venice, along the River Brenta, whose banks were - and still are - lined with the summer homes of wealthy Venetians.

From Venice, boats could ‘sail’ up the river - or rather they were pulled upstream by horses - directly to a private landing stage. Also, from this location, a coach ride to the mainland ferry stop and stage post at Mestre would have been roughly twenty miles. Meanwhile, a servant travelling on horseback would first need to ride to Padua and then on to Mestre — a journey of perhaps forty or more miles. When you look at the geography, the movements in the play suddenly feel very possible. If you would like to see the locations for yourself, I have posted a map of the area on the website, as well as a link to a video of the villas. We should also remember that in the source story Belmont, or Belmonte, is set further south of Venice - a few days’ sailing away in fact, so the River Brenta location is unique to the play.

These details - including the distances involved - suggest a surprisingly precise knowledge of the area, and the language used in these two short speeches is just as telling. Portia sends her servant to “Doctor” Bellario; elsewhere he is described as a “doctor of laws,” while Nerissa disguises herself as a “lawyer’s clerk.” In England at the time, terms such as “lawyer”, “attorney” or “barrister” for a legal professional were more common. Instead, the terminology of ‘Doctor’ feels distinctly Italian. Even today, the Italian word dottore is used for all university graduates, not strictly for medical doctors, which makes the usage in the play sound especially authentic.

Another linguistic curiosity mentioned in the first speech is the word ‘traject’, a previously unknown anglicised form of the Italian word for ferry, traghetto. In fact in her speech Portia even explains what a ‘traject’ is:

Bring them, I pray thee, with imagined speed

Unto the traject, to the common ferry

Which trades to Venice...

In fact, English travellers of the period - Fynes Moryson in 1594 and Thomas Coryat in 1608 - both use the Italian plural traghetti when referring to ferries. They do not employ the form “traject,” and still less the even more improbable “tranect,” which appears in some editions of the play.

In the second speech, Portia says the coach is waiting at the park gate. This, too, seems to echo Italian usage. It reads almost like a direct translation of the Italian parco, the word used for the grounds or gardens of a villa, whereas in sixteenth-century England, a “park” usually meant a hunting enclosure — most commonly a deer park — rather than landscaped gardens... Let’s not forget Venus’s words to Adonis in the poem: I'll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer /Feed where thou wilt...

If we refer again to Fynes Moryson’s book An Itinerary written in 1594, we find a detailed description of the Parco di Pratolino near Florence, owned by the Medici family. Yet Moryson consistently translates parco as “garden” or “gardens,” never as “park.” The villas along the River Brenta typically combined formal gardens, not with woodlands, but with productive agricultural land - grain fields, orchards, and vineyards. In most cases, marshy ground had been drained to make such cultivation possible. This kind of terrain was not well suited to deer, which makes the English sense of “park” as a hunting ground seem out of place. Once again, the wording feels like our author has a deeper knowledge of Italian than is generally assumed.

Since we’re on the topic of linguistic puzzles, let’s briefly jump to another play, written a few years earlier, The Comedy of Errors. We’ll be exploring this play in a later episode, so for the time being I’ll just say that it is set in Ephesus, in modern-day Turkey, and is a farcical story about two sets of identical twins who were separated at birth and unknowingly find themselves in the same city, sparking a chain of mistaken identities and escalating confusion.

What is of interest to us at the moment, given that we are looking at the language used, is a particular viticulture metaphor delivered by one of the central characters, Adriana, to her husband Antipholus:

Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine,

Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine,

Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state,

Makes me with thy strength to communicate.   (2.2.185-188)

Although the play is set outside of Italy, Adriana’s imagery references the traditional method of cultivating vines in the Venetian Republic and elsewhere in the Italian peninsula, but particularly in the north-east. This was to maritare - literally to marry - the vines to elm trees. The trees were planted at regular intervals, each with a vine at its base, so that the plants could climb up the trunk and then be draped like garlands from one tree to the next. The elms offered sturdy support - which is what Adriana alludes to in her speech: she is the weak vine, while her husband is the strong elm. This aerial method of viticulture had the added advantage that the soil below was free for the cultivation of other crops. I have posted a painting of this kind of vineyard on the website.

This practice of using elm trees to support vines was mentioned by Virgil in The Georgics, written over 2000 years ago. He says, ‘ulmisque adiungere vitis conveniat’, in other words, it was a good idea to train vines up elm trees.

In 1590, Edmund Spenser also mentions the practice in Canto 1 of Book 1 of The Faerie Queene:

Much can they prayse the trees so straight and hy,

‘The sayling Pine, the Cedar proud and tall,

The vine-prop Elme, the Poplar never dry’,

In 1595, our friend the traveller Fynes Moryson, who was riding towards Vicenza - a town between Venice and Verona - wrote that there were corn fields with Elm trees growing in the furrows, which support the vines: so that one field gives bread, wine and wood to burn.

The method is also mentioned by the English diarist John Evelyn, travelling in northern Italy in 1646. When he describes Verona, he writes:

...in my opinion, the situation is the most delightful I ever saw, it is so sweetly mixed with rising ground and valleys, so elegantly planted with trees on which every autumn Bacchus seems riding as it were in triumph, for the vines reach from tree to tree; here, of all places I have seen in Italy, would I fix a residence.

But neither Virgil, Spenser, Moryson nor Evelyn mentions the term to marry the vines to the trees, which we only find in the play. Clearly it would require very specific local knowledge to write such a speech, so we find ourselves with yet another question: where did our author learn this terminology?

Returning to The Merchant of Venice, it seems that we now have many questions and very few answers: how did the author find the source story which was only written in Italian?; how did he know so much about Venetian trade and laws?; how did he know so much about Jews in Venice?; how did he choose such a precise location for Belmont?; and how do we explain all the linguistic curiosities? The pressure is mounting as more questions are added to our list of mysteries. What do you make of our evidence so far? Are you perhaps thinking that William Shakespeare just knew more Italian than we credit him with? Or that perhaps he travelled around Italy during those ‘lost years’, the years when the records fall silent about him in the 1580s, ten years before writing the plays? Or might he have had a friend who knew Italy and Italian well and was prepared to translate for him over the years? Or might there be another answer?

Clearly, we need more evidence, so our investigation continues. Perhaps we'll uncover more clues in the next Case File when we'll be discussing Hamlet and the astronomical mystery it holds. I hope you'll join me for that.