Why does Shakespeare love Italians?

[Queequeg]

Listening to the latest Melvyn Bragg podcast on The Tempest, I realized that a pretty big proportion of the most famous Shakespeare plays focused on Catholic Italians.  A lot of them are anti-Imperial Venetians or not completely dominated Veronese, but some of them-Prospero-are subjects of the Hapsburg Monarchies.  The podcast even mentions that Prospero was based on an Emperor. 

This strikes me as odd.  I suppose the contemporary English could have thought of the Italians as oppressed by the Emperor and the Spanish, but it seems weird to me that the English spent so much time fantasizing about life in a country that was an existential threat.  I suppose there's an advantage in not having to offend English or Protestant sensibilities by having the main characters be Papist Wogs.

[Valmy]

I thought it was three things:

1. because it was the Renaissance and anything Italian was cool.

2. Because it took place far from England thus able to make biting social commentary.

3. The English, and probably Shakespeare himself, knew jack and shit about Italy and thus could pretty much write whatever he wanted without somebody claiming no Milanese family was ever named Capulet.

You are thinking waaaaay too politically about this.  Shakespeare only had to worry about those sorts of sensibilities when he was writing his history plays.

[Queequeg]

Both the Capulets and Montagues were real. 

[Valmy]

Both the Capulets and Montagues were real. 

And had little or nothing to do with the Play.  Probably couldn't write that sort of stuff about the Nevilles.

[Ed Anger]

Podcasts. 

You= homo

[Savonarola]

I had a college prof who said that the 17th Century Englishman thought Italy was filled with hot-blooded natives.  This gave verisimilitude to Webster's "Duchess of Malfi."  That's one of many facts that I'd hate to ruin by research.   

I think Valmy has hit most of the major reasons why Italy was the choice for many of Shakespeare's plays.   Italy was the hub of civilization at the era; within a half century of Shakespeare young Englishmen would start visiting Italy on their grand tour.  It was exotic, a number of stories had come from there and filled with strange people driven by mad emotions.

[Sheilbh]

Ezra Pound put it down to the Reformation. Chaucer was writing in the same cultural universe as Italy and borrows from contemporary Italian texts. By the time of Shakespeare Italy is foreign and exotic.

I think that may be part of it. In addition he wouldn't use England, or only reluctantly, because that would be a comment on contemporary England. That would've been extremely risky for any theatre company at that time.

In addition at the time England was, I believe, quite obsessed with Italy,. Castiglione was at the peak of his popularity. The Italian courts were seen as the ideal. Italian fashions were very popular and I think that was probably a part of it. Similar to the way that a brief Ottoman-mania after the arrival of a Turkish ambassador may be part of the inspiration for Othello. The company wanted to cash in.

I'd also guess that the English view of the Italians was as tricksy and cunning and vengeful. Which make them great for intricately plotted revenge tragedies and comedies.

I'd guess the biggest reason is that lots of his sources were Italian. Othello and Measure for Measure are inspired by Cinthio. I think Romeo and Juliet are in Dante or the Decameron (probably Shakespeare's favourite source, many plays come from there). But then Shakespeare's genius is to make the story and the characters so, so much more interesting than the originals.

This strikes me as odd.  I suppose the contemporary English could have thought of the Italians as oppressed by the Emperor and the Spanish, but it seems weird to me that the English spent so much time fantasizing about life in a country that was an existential threat.

I don't think many people think in terms like that, really. If you can't set anything but history in your own country - and even they're politically fraught - then you'll just set stuff abroad. Italy was popular as an exotic place, a source of goods in London, a source of many great stories and not an existential threat but, unlike, Spain or France politically a non-entity.

What's really baffling is his view of Bohemia

Having said that I wonder if there's a slight shift after the Gunpowder Plot. Almost all the Italian set plays are before James's reign and I wonder if part of that was the increased sense of threat from Catholics in general (therefore Rome) rather than Spain or France specifically? Which probably leads into Jacobean revenge tragedy which were very often set in Italy.

[crazy canuck]

The prominance of Italy is one of the things the Oxfordians point to when making the case that Edward de Vere was the true author.

[Admiral Yi]

I thought the Veneto passed to Austrian control much later than the time of the Armada Which Can Not Be Beaten.

[Savonarola]

I thought the Veneto passed to Austrian control much later than the time of the Armada Which Can Not Be Beaten.

Yes, it would have been independent until Napoleon.

[Sheilbh]

The prominance of Italy is one of the things the Oxfordians point to when making the case that Edward de Vere was the true author.

Indeed.

[Queequeg]

The prominance of Italy is one of the things the Oxfordians point to when making the case that Edward de Vere was the true author.

Wouldn't a well-educated Oxford man know not to have a clock tower in Caesar? 

[crazy canuck]

The prominance of Italy is one of the things the Oxfordians point to when making the case that Edward de Vere was the true author.

Indeed.

Not a fan I presume.

[Sheilbh]

The prominance of Italy is one of the things the Oxfordians point to when making the case that Edward de Vere was the true author.

Indeed.

Not a fan I presume.

Class-based nonsense on a stick

[garbon]

Which probably leads into Jacobean revenge tragedy which were very often set in Italy.

'Tis Pity She's A Whore!