INTRODUCTION
I intend in this monograph to demonstrate the probability of Shakespeare’s indebtedness in the composition of the first three acts of his “Julius Caesar,†to the “Cesare†of Orlando Pescetti, an Italian tragedy on the same theme, first published at Verona in 1594.[1]
This connection has never yet been demonstrated. The work seems almost totally unknown to the English literary world.[2]Shakespearean criticism, eager to investigate the smallest matters in regard to the great poet, is silent on Pescetti. I know of no French or German[3]references. In Italy, Pescetti has received scant notice; few writers have so much as mentioned “Cesare,†while not one has made any suggestion as to a possible connection between this play and “Julius Caesar.â€[4]
The inscription upon the title page of the 1594 edition is as follows:
Il CesareTragediad’Orlando PescettiDedicataal Sereniss. PrincipeDonno Alfonso II. d’EsteDuca di Ferrara, etc.(Device)In VeronaNella stamparia di Girolamo DiscepoloMDXCIIII
Il CesareTragediad’Orlando PescettiDedicataal Sereniss. PrincipeDonno Alfonso II. d’EsteDuca di Ferrara, etc.(Device)In VeronaNella stamparia di Girolamo DiscepoloMDXCIIII
Il Cesare
Tragedia
d’Orlando Pescetti
Dedicata
al Sereniss. Principe
Donno Alfonso II. d’Este
Duca di Ferrara, etc.
(Device)
In Verona
Nella stamparia di Girolamo Discepolo
MDXCIIII
Pescetti’s work is in quarto, and consists of six pages of dedicatory matter, and one hundred and fifty pages of verse, for the most part hendecasyllabic varied with septenarians. In the tragedy proper there are nearly four thousand lines.
The author in his dedication establishes, to his own satisfaction at least, the descent of the family of Este from the mighty Julius, and ventures the belief that Brutus and Cassius, though they could not abide Caesar’s rule, would rejoice in Alfonso’s. At the end of several pages of this sort of flattery we read: “Di Verona il dì 19 di Febraio 1594. Di V.A.S. Divotiss. et umiliss. Servitore Orlando Pescetti.â€