Shakespeare's Guide to Italy: Retracing the Bard's Unknown travels, Richard Paul Roe, c. 2011, in personal library.
Link to notes on that book here.
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Two Gentlemen of Verona
The story leading up to the tapestries of Pavia are included in this chapter! Tapestries of Pavia. May and I saw the tapestries last year when they were on exhibit at the Kimbell Museum in Ft Worth.
Background: Thousands of soldiers emerge from the woods, arquebuses and halberds in hand, preparing to fight against the vast French army. The Battle of Pavia tapestry series captures the famous Battle of Pavia, fought between the Habsburgs and French, resulting in a Habsburg victory. These tapestries depict a range of scenes from the battle, including the capture of French King Francis I, the rout of the Swiss, and the retreat of the French army. Within the tapestry, a vast amount of emphasis is placed upon the landsknecht soldiers, landsknecht being the German word for mercenary, who played an instrumental part in the victory of the Habsburgs over the French army. The tapestries themselves connect to a wider image of European consumption, trade and mercenary lifestyles. The tapestries of the Battle of Pavia showcase Europeans conspicuous consumption of luxury goods, their connection to the global trade network, and mercenary culture.
My notes from Roe's book:
- Most of the 15th century, Italy prospered.
- All of this changed, 1494 (think Christopher Columbus, 1492).
- France, Charles VIII of France invades Italy
- invited by the Duke of Milan -- "Il Moro" to help put down troublesome neighbors
- the invasion market 30 years of hell for much of Italy
- one French king after another invaded
- then another Charles arrives
- troops from Spain, Germany, Swiss Federation arrive in Italy
- "Carlos" --most powerful monarch in Europe since Charlemagne
- Charles V, King of Spain (1516) and Holy Roman Empire (1519) -- but not "confirmed" by the Pope
- domain also included
- all of Spain's New World possessions; also included;
- the low countries
- kingdoms of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia
- Mediterranean islands, parts of North Africa
- some duchies of Italy
- Medicie Pope Clement VII in Rome, on the side of France.
- Charles V (HRE) defeats the French at Pavia -- 1525 -- 30 km southwest of Milan.
- HRE troops sack Rome!
- "Sack of Rome" -- rome impoverished for years to come
- two years later Pope Clement VII and Charles V (HRE) kiss and make up!
- 1529: Treaty of Cambrai -- Milanand most of Italy become dependencies of the Spanish Crown
- 1530: Charles V (HRE) arrives at Bologna
- Pope Clement VII makes it official -- crowns Charles V the official HRE (Emperor)
- prior: he called himself HRE but not with official papal confimration
- now he had final confirmation as HRE
- HRE now wanted Milan
- great excitement in Milan where HRE scheduled to arrive
- the play, Two Gentlemen of Verona pretty much anti-climactic after that -- HRE disappears and returns to Spain!
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Nautical Terms In The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Chapter 2: "Sailing to Milan"
"This is the play with the most and most highly varied, descriptions of and allusions to things Italian in the entire Shakespeare canon. Indeed, if critics were to choose one single Italian play to criticize, this is that play.
Every Shakespearean authority has misread this play with regard to geographical locations and royal titles.
The confusion begins early (p. 37): Valentine is sailing from inland Verona to inland Milan in a ship!
"Road": authorities "translate" "roads" into seaports. Absolutely incorrect.
"Along select channels of the seas, and in the large and smooth rivers the world over, there are wide laces for ships to anchor called "roads" (though some recent dictionaries call them "roadsteads").
Roads are the preferred places for ships to ride at anchor, either to be served by lighters, or else to compe up, in turn, to a nearby quay, to load or unload passengers and cargo.
A port, on the other hand, is a haven or harbor of calm water with surrounds of solid land, often enhanced with projecting jetties. Ports are a refuge from the stormy hazards of seas or great lakes, as well as being a suitable place to accommodate long-range commerce and transportation.
From wiki:
A lighter is a type of flat-bottomed barge used to transfer goods and passengers to and from moored ships. Lighters were traditionally unpowered and were moved and steered using long oars called "sweeps" and the motive power of water currents. They were operated by skilled workers called lightermen and were a characteristic sight in London's docks until about the 1960s, when technological changes made this form of lightering largely redundant. Unpowered lighters continue to be moved by powered tugs, however, and lighters may also now themselves be powered.
The playwright's precise knowledge of sailing, and the language of sailors, is legendary.
Shakespeare clearly differentiated between ports and piers, and roads. -- p. 38.
A port is a facility on a harbor or waterway where ships can dock, load, and unload cargo, while a roadstead is a sheltered area of water near the shore where ships can anchor safely but without the same level of protection or facilities offered by a port.
In Hampton Roads, Virginia, ships could be moored offshore for lightening:
Fort Monroe: at the mouth of the roads, on the north side, southeastern-most point of the "Virginia Peninsula."
Newport News Transit Center is on the southwestern-most point of that peninsula, "inside" and on the north side of Hampton Roads.
Meanwhile, Norfolk is on the Elizabeth River, on the south side of the Hampton Roads. The mouth of the Elizabeth River is quite wide and empties into the Hampton Roads. Directly east of Norfolk is Virginia Beach, on the Atlantic Ocean.
Much, much more about naval and sailing terms in this play in this chapter / book.
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