Pescetti’s Work known in England—Probable use by Sir William Alexander in the Composition of “The Tragedy of Julius Caesar”—The Evidence—Parallels between “Cesare” and Alexander’s Work—Shakespeare’s Knowledge of the Work—The Two Part Nature of “Julius Caesar”—Jonson’s assumed Collaboration—Shakespeare and Italian.
Pescetti’s Drama an Improvement on its Senecan Predecessors—Its Particular Value to the Literary Historian—Summary of the Argument—Conclusion.
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.”[4]
The inscription upon the title page of the 1594 edition is as follows:
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.”
A second edition followed in 1604 from the same press (Girolamo Discepolo) in 4º.
This is exceedingly rare; the only copy which I have traced is in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice. I use the 1594 text, following the copy in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale at Florence.
