Thursday 1 November 2012

The City of Venice

As mentioned in Week 2, Thomas Coryat visited different European countries and published his travelogue Coryat's Crudities in 1611.

File:Coryats Crudities.jpg

One of the places he visited and wrote extensively about was Venice, the setting for Volpone. Although Jonson's play predates Coryat's Crudities , the travelogue is useful in understanding representations of Venice that the English people would encounter in travel writing. Jonson's audience would be familiar with depictions of Venice as described in Coryat's text.

Have a look at the text here and consider Coryat and Jonson's representation of Venetian gentlemen, gentlewomen, and courtesans.


Consider also what Fynes Moryson's Itinerary (1617) has to say about Venice and the law in these pages (163-5)

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