Date:1599
Description:A handbook on Venice for Shakespeare's contemporaries. In 1599 Sir Lewis Lewkenor translated from the Italian Gaspar Contarini’s Della Republica et Magistrati de Venetia. This was the first book in English exclusively to deal with the ancient city-state of Venice. Shakespeare may have read this book in manuscript to use it for the legal background to The Merchant of Venice, >, (4,1, lines 174-360) and he certainly used it for Othello’s defense against charges of witchcraft. 'She lov’d me for the dangers I had pass’d ... This is the only witchcraft I have us’d...' (1,3, line 168). Full title: Gasparo Contarini, The commonwealth and government of Venice. Written by the Cardinal Gaspar Contareno and translated out of Italian into English by Lewes Lewkenor, With sundry other collections, annexed by the translator, With a short chronicle of the lives and raignes of the Venetian dukes. London, Imprinted by John Windet for Edmund Mattes, 1599.
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Donor ref:SR 87.9 Venice [19,575] (32/10578)
Source: The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust - Library
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