# How did Shakespeare know so much about Italy?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-shakespeare-know-so-much-about-italy/673399
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [November 8, 2013, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-shakespeare-know-so-much-about-italy/673399 "2013-11-08T10:25:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2014, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-shakespeare-know-so-much-about-italy/673399/21 "2014-02-02T09:59:03Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#):
>
> The reason Shakespeare was sufficiently **interested** in Italy to set plays there was because at the time Italy was perceived as uberkewl (a word Shakespeare actually uses in _Henry VII Part 2,_ BTW), being at the cutting edge of the Renaissance and the New Learning.
This remained the general sentiment in England for a long time. A couple of centuries later, Dr. Samuel Johnson was pontificating: “A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see.”
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### Author:  [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2014, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-shakespeare-know-so-much-about-italy/673399/22 "2014-02-02T17:57:02Z")
The Shakespeare plays set in Italy (or Vienna, or Bohemia, or wherever) were about Italy etc. about as much as _The Mikado_ was about Japan anyway. Gilbert may have known more about Japan than Shakespeare knew about the places he wrote about, but neither of them felt any need to get it right, and I don’t think their respective audiences demanded it of them (for different reasons, likely).
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### Author:  [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2014, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-shakespeare-know-so-much-about-italy/673399/23 "2014-02-02T22:05:46Z")
There wasn’t an “Italy” as a country when Shakespeare was alive. Italy didn’t become a nation until 1861 and it gained most of its current form by 1870 (it lost Trieste after WWII) There were maps available at the time and it’s probable that Shakespeare spoke with people who had actually been to the states which comprised Italy at the time.
Anyway, Shakespeare wrote his plays for people who probably didn’t know where the places he wrote about were and who almost certainly never would have traveled there during their lifetimes. He didn’t have to get it “right”; close was good enough.
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### Author:  [@Brynhildr\_Budladottir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brynhildr_Budladottir)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2014, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-shakespeare-know-so-much-about-italy/673399/24 "2014-02-03T01:35:08Z")
> [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](#):
>
> The Shakespeare plays set in Italy (or Vienna, or Bohemia, or wherever) were about Italy etc. about as much as _The Mikado_ was about Japan anyway. Gilbert may have known more about Japan than Shakespeare knew about the places he wrote about, but neither of them felt any need to get it right, and I don’t think their respective audiences demanded it of them (for different reasons, likely).
Gilbert deliberately didn’t research much about feudal Japan in order to write _The Mikado_ and emphasise his point (satire of Victorian England) across more strongly. I think I read somewhere that the most research he did was into the general “look” of feudal Japan (the costumes, the way people sat) and adding the “Miya sama” marching song.
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### Author:  [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2014, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-shakespeare-know-so-much-about-italy/673399/25 "2014-02-05T01:37:45Z")
From the Globe?
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### Author:  [@Brynhildr\_Budladottir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brynhildr_Budladottir)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2014, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-shakespeare-know-so-much-about-italy/673399/26 "2014-02-05T02:22:09Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#):
>
> From the Globe?
LOL 😉
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2014, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-shakespeare-know-so-much-about-italy/673399/27 "2014-02-05T02:34:24Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#):
>
> Has there _ever_ been a royal who could write anything worth reading?
Yes, but most of them were Chinese.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2014, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-shakespeare-know-so-much-about-italy/673399/28 "2014-02-05T02:36:14Z")
> [@vontsira](#):
>
> This remained the general sentiment in England for a long time. A couple of centuries later, Dr. Samuel Johnson was pontificating: “A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see.”
Of course, that was the age of the [Grand Tour](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_tour), and the gentry were not considered fully educated until they’d done it.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2014, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-shakespeare-know-so-much-about-italy/673399/29 "2014-02-05T02:38:03Z")
> [@Morwen Edhelwen](#):
>
> Gilbert deliberately didn’t research much about feudal Japan in order to write _The Mikado_ and emphasise his point (satire of Victorian England) across more strongly. I think I read somewhere that the most research he did was into the general “look” of feudal Japan (the costumes, the way people sat) and adding the “Miya sama” marching song.
That’s the impression I got from [_Topsy-Turvy._](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy_Turvy)
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### Author:  [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2014, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-shakespeare-know-so-much-about-italy/673399/30 "2014-02-05T18:12:15Z")
> [@Morwen Edhelwen](#):
>
> LOL 😉
Thank you. (I, quite shamelessly, am rather proud of myself!)
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