Gasparo Contarini, The commonwealth and government of Venice, 1599 - Book 5 - p. 125 detail.
The law of Venice inspired Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.
The trial in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (4,1, lines 15-36) of Antonio for non-repayment to Shylock of his loan, and ...
Gasparo Contarini, The commonwealth and government of Venice, 1599 - p.133.
A Shakespeare contemporary writes about Venice.
The lawyer Lewis Lewkenor travelled in Europe, perhaps as a spy working against the English Catholics. He translated Contarini's book on Venice, first ...
Gasparo Contarini, The commonwealth and government of Venice, 1599 - printer's ornament, p. 98, N4v.
A woodcut as decoration.
Woodcuts used to ornament Elizabethan texts were frequently ornate and often symbolic of ideas contained within the text with which they are associated. The cherubs with lute ...
Gasparo Contarini, The commonwealth and government of Venice, 1599 - title page.
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 ...
Gasparo Contarini, The commonwealth and government of Venice, 1599 - To the Reader - p. A4r.
A Shakespeare contemporary travels to Venice.
Sussex born lawyer, Sir Lewis Lewkenor (c. 1556-1626) was remotely related to the Combe family of Stratford-upon-Avon, which might, perhaps, have resulted ...
Geoffrey Chaucer, Workes, 1602 - binding in fine leather
A ‘morocco’ binding chosen by a ‘collector’.
The scarlet goatskin and gold tooling of this binding, created by Francis Bedford, was finished in the late nineteenth-century ...
Geoffrey Chaucer, Workes, 1602 - Family tree, p. A6r.
The author's family tree illustrates a Shakespeare sourcebook.
In this finely printed edition the preliminary pages of Chaucer’s Works include a portrait of the author, surrounded by an elaborate ...
Geoffrey Chaucer, Workes, 1602 - The Knight's Tale, Fol. 1, B1r.
The source for Shakespeare and Fletcher's play The Two Noble Kinsmen.
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, in which pilgrims each contribute a story to entertain their fellow travelers, begins with the ...
Geoffrey Chaucer, Workes, 1602 - title page, p.a1r
A Shakespeare source in England’s mediaeval poetry.
Geoffrey Chaucer’s works, written in the time of Richard II, at the end of the 13th century, were known and admired by Elizabethan contemporaries ...
Geoffrey Chaucer, Workes, 1602 - The Booke of Troilus begins. Fol.143, Bb5r
Chaucer’s Troilus, a source for Shakespeare.
Shakespeare’s debt to the work of Geoffrey Chaucer is primarily to the poem Troylus & Creseyde, which is a direct source for the play of Troilus ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c. 1572 - detail - decorative title panel
'Londinium': ancient capital of Shakespeare's England.
London had been founded on the banks of the River Thames when the Romans established their fortress at what became the Tower of London. The Latin ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c. 1572 - detail
A merchant’s wife and her companion in Shakespeare's London.
Shakespeare's leading ladies frequently reflect contemporary practice by having a companion, or housekeeper, who is not a servant ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c. 1572 - detail of a citizen and his servant
An alderman and his servant in Shakespeare's London.
The Londoner's fashionable gown with hanging sleeves is 'guarded' [edged] with fur. His servant carries a sword and buckler as a sign that he will ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c. 1572 - detail of city walls on the north-west.
London's City walls and the fields beyond in Shakespeare's time.
Close beyond the city walls lay fields and orchards. The engraving shows the wooden frames on which laundresses would hang fabric to ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c. 1572 - detail of descriptive panel
A printer describes his map of Shakespeare's London.
The French printer of this map of London used a corner to describe the city and the River Thames. Although it is in Latin this description would ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c. 1572 - detail of London Bridge
London’s bridge in Shakespeare's time.
London Bridge was lined with houses and shops, and was a route regularly travelled by Shakespeare from his lodgings in the city to his work across the river ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c. 1572 - detail of Londoners
Townsfolk of Shakespeare's England.
For country merchant class people such as the Shakespeare family the fashions of the city were slow to be adopted. Shakespeare was swift to comment in his plays ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c. 1572 - detail of Southwark district
Southwark: site of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.
When Shakespeare arrived in London, aged about eighteen, he found work, possibly as a tender of horses outside a playhouse known as The Theatre ...