It is the firm belief of The Shakespeare Code that William Shakespeare, Henry Wriothesley, the third Earl of Southampton and Thomas Nashe secretly visited Europe in the Spring of 1593 as spies for Southampton’s great friend, Robert Devereux, the second Earl of Essex…
Professor Roger Prior, the great Shakespearean scholar, has also come to the same conclusion that Shakespeare visited Italy in 1593…..
USING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CRITERIA!!!
The Code believes that that Shakespeare, Southampton and Nashe travelled to Madrid where they were received by King Philip II…
…..a great family friend of the Southamptons….
Harry’s grandfather, Lord Montague, had been King Philip’s Master of Horse when Philip had been King of England.
In Madrid Shakespeare saw two Titian paintings, owned by the King, that were to change his life….
……Venus and Adonis….
…..and The Rape of Lucrece….
When he was back in England, Shakespeare recreated these paintings in verse….
He even used the same colours in his poems as Titian had used on his canvases…
But it was the depth of Titian’s psychology which transformed Shakespeare’s art.
Up to then, English theatre had been two-dimensional…
Shakespeare began, like Titian, to flesh it out…
The three men then travelled round Italy, journeying from city to city by a network of canals….
Sometimes Shakespeare pretended to be the Earl of Southampton while the Earl pretended to be Shakespeare…
Just like The Taming of the Shrew….
…..when the aristocratic Lucentio….
…..changes clothes with his manservant Tranio….
They visited Verona and Padua…..
And, of course, the old home of the Dark Lady, Emilia Bassano’s family, Venice…
They even made it, in deadly secret, to Rome, where they saw the famous obelisk that Pope Sextus had erected in front of St. Peter’s…
Shakespeare and Southampton were profoundly moved by the sight of this Pagan monument, now embraced by the Old Faith….
It had been the last sight that St. Peter had seen before his martyrdom….
For the detailed evidence of this theory, Brothers and Sisters are invited to examine The Code’s eight part series: ‘Shakespeare in Italy’.
To read The Introduction, please click: HERE
To read Part One,’Willobie his Avisa’ and ‘The Parnassus Plays’, please click: HERE
To read Part Two, the Southampton letter, ‘The Unfortunate Traveller’ and the Obelisk at Rome, please click: HERE
To read Part Three, ‘Titus Andronicus’, please click: HERE
To read Part Four, ‘Venus and Adonis’ and ‘The Rape of Lucrece’, please click: HERE
To read Part Five, Julio Romano, please click: HERE
To read Part Six, Shakespeare’s Italian ‘Mistakes’, please click: HERE
And to read Part Seven, The Conclusion, please click: HERE
Absolutely fascinating blog entry. What did you say your sources were?
Dear Psi,
Thank your for your comment. Many sources is the answer! If you have a particular question, I’ll try my best to answer it!
Best wishes,
Stewart
[…] (See: Shakespeare in Italy) […]
[…] See: Shakespeare in Italy. […]
[…] See: Shakespeare in Italy. […]