The Master of Verona (93 page)

Then there are the living Veronese. Antonella Leonardo at the Ministry of Culture was unbelievably kind and helpful, answering questions and arranging for my wife and me to meet a half dozen fascinating people while we stayed. It was due to Antonella that we were invited to visit the vineyard and estate owned by the Count Serego-Alighieri.

Antonella also connected me with Professor Rita Severi. Rita teaches at the University of Verona. She, her husband Paolo, and their lovely daughter Giulia took us out for the single most enjoyable evening in a three-month tour of Europe. I learned more about Verona in that night than in two years of reading. Rita led me to the city library, where I was inundated with books as a gift from the head librarian. She also translated Manoello Guido's verses for me. I am very much in her debt.

Two days later we were taken on another tour by Daniela Zumiani, who showed us the Roman ruins under the city, available through shop basements and restaurant wine cellars. She was as enthused as could be by our little project. In her honor, let me plug her book, SHAKESPEARE AND VERONA — PALACES AND COURTYARDS OF MEDIEVAL VERONA, available in both English and Italian.

In spite of all this research, there will be errors. They are entirely my own.

Of course, none of this would be possible without the words, wit, and wisdom of William Shakespeare.

I've written about the origin of this novel at length elsewhere. But it's worth mentioning here, at least quickly.

The cause of the famous feud in
Romeo & Juliet
is never actually mentioned in Shakespeare's play, because it's not vital to the show. By the top of Act One, the 'ancient grudge' is already an established fact. Nothing more needed,.

Awhile back, I was hired to direct
R&J
. It was my first time directing Shakespeare, and I was poring through it religiously. I was just finishing the final scene when a line jumped out at me. Paris, Romeo, and Juliet are all dead, and the parents are discovering the bodies. As Romeo's father enters the tomb, the Prince says to him:

Come, Montague, for thou art early up

To see thy son and heir now early down.

Lord Montague replies:

Alas, my liege, my wife is dead tonight;

Grief of my son's exile hath stopped her breath.

What further woe conspires against my age?

These lines baffled me. Clearly I didn't need Lady Montague for the final scene — her husband just told us she's dead. I flipped back to find her last scene. Lady Montague hasn't been heard from since Act One, Scene One, in which she uttered a mere two lines. Huh? Why do we care if some woman we barely remember is dead?

Of course in Shakespeare's day, the actor playing Lady Montague was probably needed in another role. The exigencies of the stage. Still, the rules of dramatic structure nagged at me. An off-stage death like that is supposed to be symbolic. But of what?

Then it hit me — the feud! The thing that gets closure at the end of the show is the feud! Montague and Capulet bury the hatchet. They're even going to build statues to honor their dead kids. Could Lady Montague's death be symbolic of the end of the feud? The only way that could work would be –

If she were the cause of the feud.

Like Athena from the brow of Zeus, the idea was born fully formed. A love triangle a generation earlier, between the parents. Romeo's mother, engaged to young Capulet, runs off with young Montague instead. A feud born of love, dies with love. The symmetry was irresistible.

Oddly enough, all this doesn't affect the actual performance of the show. The play stands, as it always has, on its action and language. A backstory is superfluous. But the idea had its hooks in me. Doing research, I found that Dante was in Verona, Giotto was in Verona, Petrarch comes to Verona. I read about the Palio, and Cicero's letters. I visited the city, made friends, toured ruins and explored.

Most of all, I discovered Cangrande. Things came full circle for me when I decided to tie Cangrande's history to Shakespeare's best young character — Mercutio. Thus was born the Star-Cross'd series, of which this is the first.

I expect to get mugged by Shakespeare and Dante scholars alike. The Dante folk will take issue with several of my choices. His movements prior to his arrival in Verona are much debated, and I've chosen one of the more contentious routes, having him go to Paris to teach at the University. It was merely an excuse to have Pietro witness the final humiliation of the Knights Templar, but it is still plausible, if not probable.

I also have Dante growing a long beard, something his contemporaries say he had, but some modern scholars deny vehemently (who cares?). And I spell his name wrong. Alighieri is the Florentine spelling of the name. But after he was exiled from Florence, why would he use their spelling? I have him returning to an earlier variation of the name, and Pietro, ever the obedient son, does likewise. I am always one for flouting expectations, and I find I'm in good company. Dante himself uses this spelling in his Epistle to Cangrande — specifically, '
Dantes Alagherii.'
Of course, there is debate whether Dante himself wrote it. And on and on…

The historical Pietro is something of an enigma. There are a few facts, and great swathes of his own writing, but none on his early years. So I gave him a life that will surely be seen as ludicrous by the Dante set. All I can say in my own defence is, Dante would have done it. So would Shakespeare. They both loved a good story.

For all that I'm going to piss off the Dante brethren, my treatment of Shakespeare may well be worse. I'm not messing with the man, they're used to that. I'm screwing around with his work. To the lovers of the Bard, I say this — all my initial ideas came from Shakespeare's text. I never work to correct him, as other authors have done (quite well, in some cases). Unlike the historical Macbeth and Richard III, Romeo and Juliet were not real people in need of defense.

Besides, Shakespeare was something of a thief himself. He stole plots right and left — including the story of Romeo and Juliet. His talent was in taking old stories and breathing new life into them. In a way, I feel I am honoring the Bard by following in his thieving foot-steps.

A few notes on spelling. I've bastardized quite a bit of Italian, especially titles and honorifics. 'Why?' you ask. 'Why not use the correct titles?' Because I'm straddling two worlds: the real, and the Shakespearean. Shakespeare had his Italians call nearly everyone
Signor
, so I've turned that into
Signore
, and occasionally
Monsignore
. And for words like honour and armour, I've gone with the more British spellings. Because while Shakespeare never seems to have spelled his name the same way twice, and certainly the First Folio uses both, when the words were important he added that extra vowel.

For the various inspirations, as well as cut scenes and editorial debates, please visit my blog,
www.themasterofverona.com
, or my website,
www.davidblixt.com
. And for up-to-date news on these and other books, there's my Facebook author page.

A bit about names. Mariotto and Gianozza are both taken from Masuccio Salernitano's thirty-third novel from IL NOVELLINO, an early version of the R&J story involving secret marriages, deaths of kinsmen, and a young groom fleeing to Alexandria. The bride is then forced to marry against her will, but is given a draught by the Friar that makes her appear dead. Unfortunately the Friar's message detailing the plan is waylaid by pirates (shades of
Shakespeare in Love
!). The story plays out the same as R&J, except Gianozza flees to a convent in Sienna, where she dies. Pregnant, if I recall correctly.

The love scene between Mari and Gianozza in the church is my homage to Luigi da Porto's version, in which the lovers court each other in secret in Friar Lorenzo's church all through a long winter until they can resist their passion no longer.

The name Antony I also borrowed from da Porto, a native Vicentine. In his version of the story (the first to name the lovers Romeo and Giulietta), he mentions the young girl's father is called Antonio. Juliet's mom in that story was named Giovanna, but that was the name of Cangrande's wife. Besides, it's way too close to Gianozza, so we won't be running with that.

Most other characters I borrowed from Shakespeare or from history, or else extrapolated from family histories.

About Kate and Petruchio — a lark, but putting them in this tale was actually a textual choice based on two sets of lines in the party scene from R&J. A lovely in-joke for anyone who's seen Shrew, and thus we have our time frame between the two plays.

One historical caveat. I have, with a few exceptions, stayed true to chronological history, something Shakespeare himself would never have bothered with. That said, records indicate that Katerina della Scala was replaced by her husband with a new wife in 1306, by whom he had two sons. I assume Katerina was dead when he did this, though one can never be sure with these medieval Italians. But I chose instead to breathe life into her for a good while longer, giving Bailardino's second wife to his brother, Antonio Nogarola. In a moment of pure practicality, I have kept the two children of Bailardino and made them Katerina's own, conceived late in life.

There is another problem, this one having to do with what building was called what when. The current layout of the Piazza della Signoria is almost exactly what it was, except there have been so many façades added, so many rebuilds, that it is almost certainly nothing like what it was. I have blended the then with the now in my mind and, though it may be wrong, the square is at least clear in my head. I hope it is as clear to you.

As for the Scaliger himself, I wish to point out that all the great feats I have attributed to him are true. I've played with numbers of the enemies he faced,
downsizing
them from the tales that have grown over the centuries. But he
did
break the Paduan army in 1314 with less than a hundred men, he
did
appear in disguise in 1317, cheering the invading Paduan army on, only to fight them back minutes later. In short, Cangrande is one of those figures whose life is greater than fiction.