A Short History of British Attitudes towards Italy

A course for students of Tourism

Unit 1

England’s vision of Italy in the Middle Ages and in the

Renaissance

The Middle Ages

In the Middle Ages travellers came to Italy

• to study in its great universities (Bologna, Padua)

• On pilgrimage

• For diplomatic and commercial reasons

Italy in the collective consciousness of England

• Entered English consciousness rather early.• Much before Italy became an autonomous nation,

it was perceived as a homogeneous entity that lived in a specific territory and shared common cultural roots and characteristics.

• The Italian world remained a constant component of the English background even during the centuries of Italy’s political eclipse”.

Chaucer•direct knowledge of Italy, •participation in Italian life•admiration and imitation of its masterpieces •Many of the characters that populate his works, if not Italian are fashioned after Italian models.

Early Modern Age

• A trip to Italy was considered indispensable for rounding out a gentleman’s education and make him– a humanist– a poet (sonnetteer) – a perfect courtier– A subtle politician–

Cultural and Intellectual Relations between Italy and England

• Many educated Italians in England (e.g. Florio who translated Montaigne)

• Italian language, history and literature were taught, studied and translated intensively

• Wyatt and Surrey started the Renaissance in England by translating and imitating Petrarch and disseminating the notion of idealized love.

• Baldassar Castiglione’s Il libro del Cortegiano (1528, translated into English by Sir Thomas Hoby in 1561) taught English people refined manners and the art of brilliant conversation and witty repartee.

Italy compared to a Paradise on Earth (Reading N. 3)

Italy was thought • the most advanced civilization of the time, • the most progressive society. • In politics and warfare, science and technology,

finance, banking and commerce, art, music, and literature, Italy was the leader

• A place of different surprising customs (such as the use of forks, fans, umbrellas, women actresses on stage etc.)

• The cradle of a classical past

The Perception of Italy after the Reformation (Reading N. 4)

• An “Epicurean heaven ”—a hell associated with gross voluptuousness, false religion and villainy;

• Humanists accused of being indifferent to religion• A land of sexual transgression• A decadent, corrupt place, where revenge,

political intrigue, rapacity, and horrible crimes are a common practice

• A bad example for English people: “Inglese italianato è un diavolo incarnato”

Explanation of negative views

• In light of the Reformation and of the wars with Spain it was convenient to represent Catholic countries, and especially Italy, the home of the Pope, as the source of all evils.

• Italy was divided into many competing courts and warring states and therefore was more unruly and violent than England.

• Machiavelli’s Prince was misunderstood as an encouragement to political crime and a black legend grew around him.

Texts that helped disseminate negative views of Italy

• Semi-fictionalized travel narratives such as Coryat’s Crudities or Nashe’s The Unfortunate Traveller,

• translations of many shocking Italian novellas,

• romances such as Lyly’s Euphues • drama (Elizabethan and, even more so,

Jacobean)

Italy in Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama

• An exotic setting

• Imitation of Italian commedia erudita

• Imitation classical models.

Popularity of Senecan model of tragedy

• In search for tragical models from the classical past, choice falls on Seneca’s tragedies,

• Seneca’s tragedies are the least classical and closest to popular medieval tradition– Bloody themes– Supernatural elements– Cruel tyrants

• Seneca’s tragedies reached England through Giraldi Cinthio’s Italian adaptations – Transformed tyrants into shrewd Machiavellian

politicians

• The Elizabethan stage tyrant is a combination of Senecan tyrant, Machiavellian intriguer and local intriguing politicians (e.g. Thomas Cromwell)

Popularity of the black legend of Italy on stage

• Interest in the figure of the tyrant• Machiavellian myth• Hatred for Counter-Reformation, Inquisition, the

Jesuits—all enemies of Protestant England and associated with arch-enemy Spain– Torture, Imprisonment, Trials

• Success of revenge tragedy staging the most intricate and cruel forms of destroying the enemy – Impossible in Protestant ethos

– Had to take place in Spain or Italy

Italy as the land of transgressive sexuality

• Italy is the land of disinhibition, free and easy love.

• Italy is the land of strong passions.

• Italy is the land of illicit love– Adultery, – incest, – attempted rape

Contradictory views of Italy

• Italy is a poet’s paradise– Love poetry, sonnet sequences– Sentimental comedies– Romances– Pastoral poetry

• Italy is a revenger’s inferno– Elizabethan and Jacobean tragedies

Some of the many Italian sources used by Early Modern Dramatists• Ariosto, Aretino, commedia erudita

• Commedia dell’arte

• Giraldi Cinthio’s Hecatommiti

• Matteo Bandello’s Novelle,

• Ser Giovanni Fiorentino’s Il Pecorone,

• Boccaccio’s Decameron

• Italian theoretical writings abut the theatre

A List of the most famous Early Modern tragedies set in Italy

• Thomas Dekker, The Honest Whore• Ben Jonson, Volpone• John Marston, The Malcontent; Antonio and

Mellida; Antonio’s Revenge.• George Chapman, All Fools • Cyril Tourneur, The Revenger’s Tragedy• John Ford, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore• Richard Webster, The Duchess of Malfi; The

White Devil• Thomas Middleton The Revenger’s Tragedy;

Women Beware Women

About ten plays of Shakespeare’s are set

entirely or partially in Italy

• no proof that he travelled to Italy• Often factually incorrect• Had many sources to draw on • Sets his plays in the major Renaissance

Italian power centres (Venice, Tuscany and the Spanish protectorates)

• Leaves out Rome (except in the classical plays also called Roman plays)

Differences in the representations of Italy beween Shakespeareand his

contemporaries • Shakespeare avoids all the excesses and horrors

his contemporaries attributed to Italians• Othello and Shylock, the chief violent characters

of the Italian plays are not thoroughly Italian, Othello being a Moor, Shylock a Jew and Jago, as his name suggests, Spanish or Portuguese.

• Many of his most Machiavellian characters and events are to be found outside his Italian plays.

Affirmative view of Italy

• Closer to the spirit of comic romance literature

• Closer to Ariosto and Castiglione

• Idealized love

• Witty and polite conversational exchanges

• Many plays end in reconciliation or find a modus vivendi

Plays located in Italy• The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1580s ) • Romeo and Juliet (1594-95)• The Taming of the Shrew (1594)• The Merchant of Venice (1596-97)• Much Ado About Nothing (1598-99)• All’s Well That Ends Well (1604)• Othello (1604)• The Winter’s Tale(1611) • The Tempest (1611)Other plays such Twelfth Night or Measure for

Measure although set elsewhere present Italian characteristics. Cymbeline’s Rome is more Renaissance than ancient