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The legend of Juliet
and Romeo |
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...and the connection with Della Scala
family's castles of Montecchio Maggiore
The legend has attributed the two fortresses to the families of Verona of
Montecchi and Capuleti, as abodes of Romeo and Juliet, since half 19th
century, in full romantic period when the charm of medieval ruins created
suggestive and fantastic stories. |
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The historic attribution is easily confutable, as the story of the two lovers
and the conflict among their families has a literary peculiarity with few
comparisons in the documented historical reality of that time.
But the function
of the two castles of Montecchio can be important in the artistic
presuppositions that determined the idea, the background and the drafting of
the tale.
A legend of Siena
seems to be the original source of the literary tradition that Shakespeare
translated in an immortal tragedy: Masuccio Salernitano (1415 -1476) was the
first to give to this legend a literary language, where the tale "I due amanti
senesi" in his "Novellino", narrated the tragic end of the contrasted love of
the two protagonists, Mariotto and Ganozza. |
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Luigi Da Porto (1485 -1529) it was inspired to this tale for his "Istoria
novellamente ritrovata di due nobili amanti" ("Newly found story of two noble
lovers") appeared posthumous in 1531 and then, in other version, with the title
of "La Giulietta" in the 1539. Changed the folksy names of Masuccio's
story in Romeo and Juliet, utilized in the following literary tradition
till Shakespeare, Da Porto imagines the course of the story in Verona, during
the dominion of Bartolomeo della Scala (1301 -1304). Basing himself on a wrong
interpretation of the famous Dante's tercet "Vieni a veder Montecchi e
Cappelletti / Monaldi e Filippeschi, uom senza cura / color già tristi, e
questi con sospetti" (Purgatorio VI, vv.106-108), he attributes a violent
rivalry among two noble families of Verona, that tragically strikes the love
among the two young protagonists. In the plot key-elements are present as the
brawl, the death of Juliet's cousin perpetrated by Romeo, the banishment from
the city and the tragic end of the couple. With few arrangements and some
changes to Da Porto's original version, the tale was taken by Matteo Bandello
and by Spanish, French and English tragedians; Shakespeare approached directly
to the English versions of Painter and Broocke, used as models for his
masterpiece, that was staged in 1596.
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Piramo and Tsibe, Tristano and Isotta, Paul and Francesca: they are literary
models of the passionate and contrasted love, with tragic ending. It appears
clear as the story of Juliet and Romeo identifies itself in its peculiarity
from Luigi Da Porto. Luigi Da Porto, soldier and writer of Vicenza (1485
-1529), wrote the novel in his abode in Montorso Vicentino, where he retired
giving up the military life for a serious wound in the face during the War of
the League of Cambrai. Montorso is only some kilometers from Montecchio and,
from the windows of Da Porto's abode, the sight on the stately castles had to
appear very suggestive: it is likely that the image of two castles in
opposition among them on a hill has been of inspiration to the ideation of the
novel, as Da Porto attributed the name Montecchi to Romeo's family, with the
approach to the name of Montecchio Maggiore. If the tragic story of Juliet and
Romeo doesn't seem to have historical basis, and if the literary background has
been for a long time situated in Verona, it is also possible to think that the
castles of Montecchio Maggiore had had a not-secondary role in the poetic
imagination of his creator.
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