Where then did Shakespeare set in?

 

Shakespeare, writing Measure, was thinking of Italy, not Germany. Although throughout the play the duke is not attributed a proper name, the personae list calls the Duke ”Vincentio”, a common Italian name Shakespeare used for an Italian character in his Taming of the Shrew. “Lucio” is also an Italian name, used in Romeo and Juliet, and of course Juliet too. “Claudio”, “Isabella”, “Angelo”, “Marianna” and “Bernardine” are also names given elsewhere to specifically Italian characters. The prisoner with the unique non Italian name Ragozine is a pirate. Although Escalus is not typically Italian, it is a Latin name. Middleton presumably left all other Italian names because changing them would have required profound correction of the play.

Furthermore, vineyards are mentioned three times. Like other Renaissance Englishmen, Shakespeare associated wine with Italy, not Austria. Italy was also notorious for lechery and prostitution. Prostitution and sexuality are the main vices associated with the city portrayed in Measure. On the contrary, according to the stereotype that was current at the time, the Germans and northern Europeans were less lecherous.

We know for sure that Shakespeare read Giambattista Giraldi Cinthio’s popular book Ecatommiti¹ and used Tale 85 for Measure. Some scholars are convinced he used some material from Tale 56 and was particularly influenced by the role in that story of a “Duke of Ferrara”. The book was written while Cinthio was living in Ferrara. In the sixteenth century, under the patronage of the Este family, the independent city of Ferrara rivaled and in many ways surpassed Florence as the centre of Italian literary culture. The Duke of Ferrara was a patron of both Tasso and Guarini, who together created a model of tragicomedy that began to influence English drama, including, in particular, Measure, at the very beginning of the seventeenth century. Obviously the city might be appreciated for such achievements in literature and art. Not only Shakespeare but Middleton himself set his Phoenix, performed at Court in February 1604, in Ferrara. This play includes a Duke of Ferrara as well. Marston’s character the Duke of Ferrara has much in common with Vincentio. Ferrara is mentioned as well in Shakespeare and John Fletcher All is True III.2. 324 (in the passage usually attributed to Shakespeare).

So, the evidence for Italian Ferrara is particularly strong. It grows even stronger in view of the fact that the word Ferrara is metrically similar to Vienna and that it could have been substituted easily without changing the verse.

 

Conclusions

There are reasons to suppose that Shakespeare set the play in Italian Ferrara and that Middleton changed the setting in order to establish the Thirty Years War as a backdrop. So, the first part of the present research makes an attempt to reject the adopted (in the First Folio) setting in the German city of Vienna, while the second part aims to ascertain the original setting. Some direct or indirect evidences for the eventual adaptation include:1. Shakespeare's 1603-04 audience would not have had any particular association with Vienna; indeed, Measure for Measure is the only English play written before 1660 that is set in Vienna. Vienna was known primarily as “the principall Bulwarke of all Christendome against the Turke,” yet Shakespeare makes no reference to Turks, Moors, or Ottomans in the play.2. The play contains several obvious signs of revision including:- systematic expurgation consistent with 1608 Act to Restrain Abuses by Players;- act divisions;- a stanza of a Fletcher’s song that was written between 1617 and 1620.3. An October 1621 English newsletter describing the King of Hungary's advance on Vienna provides a basis for Lucio’s remark about the Dukes coming “not to composition with the King of Hungary...”, and the first gentleman’s rejoinder “Heaven grant us its peace, but not the King of Hungaries”.4. The Italian names of the characters suggest that the play’s original setting was in Italy, and Shakespeare’s audience would have associated the city’s sexual licentiousness with Italy, not Germany.5. The use of Ferrara was a common setting for other plays of the same period.6. “Ferrara” has the same metrical structure as “Vienna”.