PETR OSOLSOBĚ
HOW COULD SHAKESPEARE KNOW
THERE WAS A ST. LUKE IN PADUA ?
The present Bishop of Padua, Antonio Mattiazzo, was very surprised when in
1992 he received a letter written in Greek from the Archbishop of Thebes,
Hyeronimus, dated 18th October 1992. The Greek metropolitan asked the
Bishop of Padua to donate to him a significant part of the relics of St. Luke
which rest in the Basilica of St. Justine in Padua. In this way, a Roman Catholic
authority was reminded of the presence of the Apostle‘s relics which after
centuries had fallen into oblivion. Were they really the legendary relics in the
custody of the Benedictine church of St. Giustina? In order to confirm or refute
the supposition, the bishop of Padua asked the Archbishop of Prague in 1993 to
lend him the skull removed from the skeleton in 1354 by order of Charles IV,
Roman Emperor and the Czech king, and transported to the cathedral of St.
Vitus in Prague. The skull was conveyed back to Padua and subjected to a
paleoanthropological examination performed by Prof. Vito Terribile Wiel Marin
from the University of Padua and by Prague anthropologist Prof. Emanuel Vlček
in 1998. The skeleton and skull belonged to (the same of) a man who died at the
age of between seventy and eighty five. He was 163cm high and robust. The
subsequent examination of the remains by the carbon method (C14) resulted in
first century A.C.1 Since that time, many experts, ecclesiastical authorities and
ordinary believers have rediscovered the fact of St. Luke’s presence in Padua.
Surveys of Shakespeare’s topographical knowledge are numerous and wellelaborated,
nevertheless they do not always succeed in distinguishing an ordinary,
easily retrievable intelligence from remarkable tokens demanding a deeper
explanation. These alone are the relevant point of departure for any interpretation.
In my article I shall concentrate upon an example of this kind, namely
Shakespeare’s allusion to St. Luke in Padova, because I find it unique from many
perspectives.
The comedy The Taming of the Shrew is rich in toponyms of Italian cities
(Mantua, Verona, Venice, Pisa, Bergamo, Florence, Rome). The main dramatic
plot takes place in Padua, which Shakespeare seems to have thought of as being
in Lombardy, while Lucentio says in his prologue I am arrive’d for fruitfull
1 See www.abbaziasantagiustina.org/conoscenza/san-luca.htm
118 PETR OSOLSOBĚ
Lombardy (I, 1, 4), but the other descriptions of Padua are quite fitting. There is
the importance of its famous university, founded in 1228, a well-known centre
of Aristotelianism, whose philosophy of virtue Lucentio is eager to study there
(I, 1, 17–20)2; the fact that Padua was a port at the time (I, 1, 42: “come
ashore”), which can be interpreted either as a sign of Shakespeare’s
topographical ignorance, since Padua never was a maritime haven; or
conversely, as proof of particular knowledge that Padua was connected by a
network of canals and waterways much used by travellers with Venice and with
other cities.3 Finally, the most remarkable fact, knowledge of which is
considerably rarer, is to be found in the fourth act of the comedy, representing
the hasty preparations for Lucentio’s wedding to Bianca.
1. The Cult of St. Luke in Padua
In the scene situated in front of Signor Baptista’s house, Lucentio (craving for
his daugher Bianca) is advised by his servant Biondello that: The old priest of
Saint Luke’s church is at your command at all hours (IV, 4, 84–85). And after
his master’s consent Biondello repeats: ...My master hath appointed me to go to
Saint Luke’s, to bid the priest be ready...(IV, 4, 98–99). At first sight, the
patrociny of St. Luke is not so obvious as that of others (e.g. St. Mary, Peter,
Paul, John, both Baptist and Evangelist, or James) and for a dramatic author
without definite knowledge of the place it would be safer to omit mention of it
and to risk being reproached for ignorance. Padua, then, was in the sixteenth
century, as it is today, broadly and predominantly associated with the cult of
Saint Antony, but even if Shakespeare had known this, it could have hardly
come to his mind to set the hasty and clandestine wedding in St. Antony’s
church on the advice of a cunning servant, because St. Antony was too public a
place. We can guess, according to the intentions of Lucentio and his servants,
that “the old priest of Saint Luke’s church” is meant to indicate a hidden place,
an inconspicuous church or a chapel where a service is performed and the chapel
maintained by a sole “old” priest so that the total discretion of the ritual is
granted by his supposed loneliness and senility.
Surprisingly enough for the contemporary researcher, a church dedicated to
St. Luke really did exist in Padua at the time when the comedy was written. St.
Luke’s chapel was an integral part of the romano-gothic church of Santa
Giustina. It was built up after 1177 when the relics of Saint Luke the Evangelist
were discovered under the ground of the churchyard of Santa Giustina (Justine).
The circumstances of the discovery of its significance for the religious life of the
2 Cf. Sells, The Italian Influence in English Poetry (1955), pp. 82–84. I quote according to B.
Morris edition of The Taming of the Shrew, op. cit., p. 173.
3 Elze, Essays, trans. 1874. The Supposed Travels of Shakespeare, pp. 295–296; Sells, The
Paradise of Travellers, 1964, pp. 114–115. In Morris, ibid.
119HOW COULD SHAKESPEARE KNOW THERE WAS A ST. LUKE IN PADUA ?
city I will return to later. After its construction, St. Luke’s chapel served as a
parochial church up to the 17th century. Today, it is a rectorate of the parish of
Santa dei Servi on the street of the XX settembre. The church was visited by the
confraternity of painters for a long period and it is not at all beyond the bounds
of possibility that in the time that interests us, there could have been an old priest
known and respected by people.4
The special devotion to Saint Luke in Padua, as we have said above, was a
result of the discovery of his relics in the graveyard of Santa Giustina in 1177,
where many other relics from the former basilica were hidden in the ground to
protect them from barbaric depredations. A lead coffin containing his bones was
found among them. Nowadays, it is generally accepted that the remains reached
Padua long before the sack of Constantinople in 1204, probably during the 8th
century, in the times of the iconoclastic riots (741–770 A.C.). The presence of
Saint Luke in Constantinople is in full accordance with St. Jerome’s words
relating to him (De vir. III, 7): “Sepultus est Constantinopoli, ad quam urbem
vigesimo Constantii anno, ossa ejus cum reliquiis Andreae Apostoli translata
sunt”. Oral tradition recalls the name of Urio, priest and custodian of the Basilica
of Saint Apostolis in Constantinople who, fearing the unwelcome attentions of
iconoclasts, had the relics removed to Padua.
Even if the tradition is not entirely certain, what is quite certain is that the
Holy Roman Emperor and Czech King Charles IV, opened the marble arch
(made in 1313), extracted the lead coffin and in 1354 (9th November), ordered
the skull of Saint Luke to be removed from the skeleton and the precious reliqui
to be transported to Saint Vitus Cathedral in Prague, where it remains up to the
‘present day (a fact generally unknown even to contemporary Czech believers,
including ecclesiastics). The last examination ascertaining the division of both
parts of the same body was made in 1997–1998 when the skull was loaned by
Prague to Padua.5
A second recognition after 1354, took place in 1463. A commission had to
decide if other relics, in the custody of Venice, belonged to Saint Luke. After
many sessions and examinations, the process acknowledged the verity of
Padua’s relics while those of Venice where attributed to a man of the age of
twenty deceased no more than two hundred years before the examination.
4 Trolese, Francesco: Il culto si San Luca in Santa Giustina a Padova. In: Luca evangelista.
Parola e immagine tra Oriente e Occidente. Padova, Museo diocesano 14th october 2000 –
6th january 2001, catalogue made by G. Canova Mariani – P. Vettore Ferraro – F. Toniolo –
A. Nante – A. De Nicolo Salmazo (Padova, Il Poligrafo, 2000), pp. 123–130.
5 The results of the antropological research made under the head of Vito Terribile Wiel Marin,
University of Padua, has been already published. Here, I quote from his article: Gli indizi
che confermano l’antica tradizione. In: 30 giorni, n. 11, novem. 1998, pp.75–77.
120 PETR OSOLSOBĚ
In 1562 (March 15) a solemn procession across the large square in front of the
new church (Prato della Valle) with the relics of Saint Luke transported from the
old to the new church of Santa Giustina, certainly must have made a great
impression on on-lookers, citizens as well as travellers, and on the international
flocks of university students from all European nations. On that occasion, the
lead coffin was left open and the relics were exposed to public veneration. The
impact of the religious event was intense and it lasted for many years in the
memory of those who witnessed it. Could it have reached England in
Shakespeare’s times? What if we work on the assumption of a provisional
conclusion, that the mention of the church of Saint Luke in Padua in The Taming
of the Shrew (IV, 4) is by no means a casual accessory device of landscape
imagery, but an indication betraying deeper knowledge of and commitment to
religious affairs? Shakespeare knew at least, that Saint Luke was not a minor
cult in Padua, and he probably had not forgotten the principles of devotion to
saints and their relics, their intercession for the living and the dead.6 Moreover,
he knew their role in concluding contracts, as we see from the example of oathswearing
from the same play: Yes, by Saint Anne, do I. (Taming, I, 1, 249).7
2. Who could describe Italy, its saints and relics ?
Now, let us once again raise the same question: how could Shakespeare ever
have got to know about the cult of Saint Luke in Padova and about the existence
of his chapel, about which most of his compatriots and contemporaries were so
completely in the dark ? If we deny as improbable the possibility that
Shakespeare have been travelling in Europe or Italy, there had to be a good
informer or passionate narrator (one or many) who had had direct experience,
knowledge and a suggestive eloquence. Infatuation by Italy, then, is in the whole
work of W. S. so apparent, intense and constant that it embraces his dramatic
beginnings and his ends too, and – last but not least – it shows Italy in so lovable
a light (in contrast to its representation as a bulwark of obscurantism, papacy,
corruption and crime so frequent in the dramaturgy and homiletics of his time).
It would seem that his love for Italy dates from an earlier time, probably from
his boyhood. Could he possibly have met a former student from Padua ? The
Veneto was never a part of the Papal State and Padua still remained the goal of
English students into the time of Elizabeth’s reign. But the traditional
significance of the university of Padua for English religion, law, culture and
6 Duffy, Eamon, The Stripping of the Altars, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992)
7 Saint Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary, though non mentioned in the Bible. The cult of
Saint Anne, reminds Brian Morris in the Arden edition, “was specially attacked by Luther
and the Reformers. Cf. Twelfth Night II, 3, 111, the only other occurrence of this oath in
Shakespeare.” In: W. Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew, by Brian Morris (London:
Arden edition 1997 [first ed. 1991], Methuen and Co. Ltd.), p. 183.
121HOW COULD SHAKESPEARE KNOW THERE WAS A ST. LUKE IN PADUA ?
letters (epitomized by the figure of Cardinal Reginald Pole) was overshadowed
by German schools (Hamlet’s Wittenberg among them).
It would seem that Shakespeare, like many people of his time, knew Italy
much more from narratives than from usage maps. No good and reliable map of
the time puts Padua in Lombardy but under the jurisdiction of the Dukedom of
Venice under to which it had always belonged. On the other hand, the detail
discussed (St. Luke in Padua) cannot be found on any map of the region, even on
a map of the city of Padua itself, because the antique chapel of St. Luke was, as
we remarked upon above, located in the romano-gothic church of Santa Giustina
and that is why it was not usually either marked or mentioned.8 Finally, our
supposed narrator on Italy whom Shakespeare should have met, directed his
attention to details of a kind in which a religious person, pilgrim or a priest,
would be deeply interested. These are the cases of saints, relics or images
important to Catholic spirituality. It was especially Jesuits, as Alison Shell9 has
observed, who developed sophisticated imaginative techniques for stimulating
bravery. Their consistency in behaving like the saints they venerated, on trial, in
prison and on the scaffold, was perhaps the supreme achievement of the
controversial imagination, turning worldly defeat into spiritual success.
At this point, I would like to recall the Lancastrian hypothesis concerning
Shakespeare’s “lost years”, an explanation opened by Oliver Baker10,
substantiated by Chambers11, developed by E. Honnigman and recently enriched
by R.Wilson.12 The Jesuits had their residence in Padova from 1542 to 1606, the
date of their first expulsion by the Republic of Venice. They were able to return
only in 1657 and remained in Padua up to the supression of the Company in
1773. At the time that interests us here (1550–1600), they resided in the mansion
of The Knights of the Teutonic Order (Magione dei Cavalieri teutonici) situated
near the Ponte Pedocchioso or Ponderoso, on the crossroad of today’s Via
Ospedale and Via N.A. Giustiniani.13 Were there also English Jesuits at the same
place ?
From a geographical perspective, Padua is half way from Vienna to Rome,
and it was always a station for pilgrims coming from Middle-European regions,
8 Savioli, P.: Thesaurus urbis Paduanae. Patavii, typis Petri Mariae Frambotti, 1682, p. 141–
147. – Cavacius, J.: Historiarum coenobii D. Ivstinae Patavinae libri sex, Venetiis, ex
typographia Andreae Muschij, 1606, p. 278–282.
9 Shell, Alison, Catholicism, Controversy and the English Literary Imagination, 1558–1660
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
10 Baker, O., In Shakespeare´s Warwickshire and the Unknown Years. (London: 1937), p.
297.
11 Chambers, E. K., William Shakeshafte. in: Shakespearean Gleanings (London: 1944), p. 52.
12 Wilson, Richard, ‘Shakespeare and the Jesuits’, Times Literary Supplement (19 December
1997)
13 Zanardi, M.: I domicilia o centri operativi della Compagnia di Gesù. Atti di convegno di
studi, Venezia, 2–5th octobre 1990, Gregoriana libreria editrice, Padova 1995, p. 95.
122 PETR OSOLSOBĚ
where Jesuits took roots in Bohemia (Prague college since 1557), then in
Moravia in Olmutz and Brunn (today’s “Brno”, where there was a novitiate from
1573), in Austria in Vienna and Graz. In Henry More’s Historia Provinciae
Anglicanae Societati Jesu 14 the position of Padua in an itinerary of this kind is
confirmed by a mention that a member of the society Richard Tancred (...)
a young man of 22 did his studies in Olmutz and Prague, and then taught Greek
for two years at Vienna. He was summoned to Italy, and died at Padua on 13
September 1596.15 More refers to one of the most influential English Jesuit
writers, Robert Persons (possibly mentioned as “Master Parson” in The Twelfth
Night IV, 2), that in the period 1576–1578 he stayed at Padua for spiritual
exercises: He should do an eight-day retreat.... With this end in view, Persons
set out for Padua with a few like-minded companions (...) He had now set his
mind on a more spiritual life, and in his fresh awareness of the transitoriness of
things took a new and strange delight...Persons stayed for a time at Padua16 We
also know, that Persons could have been familiar with the the waterways and
canals of the region, for More observes that after journeying to Venice, and
taking ship for Piave without mishap, he came to Ferrara. After his being
received into the Society in Rome (July 4, 1578), Persons was transferred to
Padua to join the novices.17 On the point of joining then, his closest friend, Luke
Astlow, was suddenly snatched by untimely death in Padua. It seems
improbable, that Jesuits, having been in Padua at the precise moment of Luke
(sic!) Astlow’s death there, should have missed the awareness of overlooked a
topical coincidence with the place where St. Luke was fervently venerated.
3. Edmund Campion in Padua with a copy of Salus Populi Romani
attributed to St. Luke
In the frame of the Lancastrian hypothesis, E. A. J. Honigmann18 and others
have seriously scrutinised the possibility of Shakespeare’s personally meeting
with Edmund Campion in winter-spring 1580/81 in Hoghton Tower near
14 Henry More: Historia Missionis Anglicanae Sociatatis Jesu (1660), edited and translated by
Francis Edwards, S.J. (London and Chichester: Phillimore,1981). I use Edward’s translation
for the purpose of my article.
15 More, op. cit., p. 28.
16 More, op. cit, p. 49.
17 More, op. cit., pp 52–3.
18 Honigmann, E.A.J.: Shakespeare: the “lost years”. (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 1985), 3rd edition, 1998, p. 11. – Richard Hoghton clearly acted as “business
manager” for his exiled brother, and may have been the most committed Catholic of the
brethren who remained in England: when Edmund Campion was captured by the authorities
in 1581 it was reported that the Jesuit had stayed with leading Catholics in Lacashire, whose
houses were searched by order of the Privy Council – “and especially the house of Richard
Hoghton, where it is said the said Campion lef his books. – Reference to Acta of the Privy
Council – APC, XII, 149.
123HOW COULD SHAKESPEARE KNOW THERE WAS A ST. LUKE IN PADUA ?
Preston, before Campion was betrayed and captured by the authorities on
Sunday the 16th of July 1581. It was reported that the Jesuit had stayed with
leading Catholics in Lancashire, whose houses were searched by order of the
Privy Council – “and especially the house of Richard Hoghton, where it is said
the said Campion left his books”.19 In Alexander Hoghton’s will made in the
same year (1581) the owner of Hoghton Tower asks Sir Thomas Hesketh “to be
friendly unto Fulk Gillam and William Shakeshafte now dwelling with me”.20
For further information regarding Shakespeare’s stay in Lancaster during his
“lost years” I enclose some bibliographical data.21
Now, Campion would have fulfilled at least some of the conditions for being
a person who might have cultivated in the young Shakespeare his susbequent
love for Italy: he was a man of great knowledge and eloquence and he was
sensitive to the spirituality of saints and he took great interest in the local saints
(in Prague, for example, he composed Oratio de S. Wenceslao; or when he
writes to Gregory Martin from Rome, asking himself what remains from that
Imperial City...But what men have stood firm in these miserable changes, – what
things ? The relics of the Saints, and the chair of the Fisherman. O prudence
!22). Moreover, we definitely know that he twice visited Padua. On the first
occasion, Campion left Rome for Vienna in June 1573, where he travelled
together with Magius, the Austrian provincial. Their way to Vienna led
inevitably through Padua. This time, Campion might have had a particular
reason for venerating the relics of St. Luke there. He was just transporting
a copy of the legendary St. Luke’s Madonna from Santa Maria Maggiore in
Rome, where the icon of the Blessed Virgin is enshrined. Legend claims that
it was made by none other than St. Luke the Evangelist, but this is clearly
not true. It is difficult to date, but the icon is at least a thousand years old.
She is called “Salus Populi Romani”, “Well-being of the Roman People”.
Several copies of the icon had been commissioned by Francesco Borgia,
third general of the Jesuit order, and transferred personally by Edmund
Campion as head of a group of novices coming from Rome to Prague and to
Brno in 1573. The image brought by Campion is still treasured as an altar piece
in the Jesuit church of the Assumption of St. Mary in Brno up to the present day.
We can, therefore, maintain with certainty that Campion, much devoted to the
cult of Jesus’s Mother23 was well-acquainted with the personality of St. Luke,
19 APC, XIII, 149. I quote according to Honigmann, op. cit., p.155.
20 Honigmann, op. cit., p. 24.
21 Simpson, Richard, Edmund Campion: Jesuit Protomartyr of England, ( 2nd edn, London:
John Hodges, 1896), p. 343; Waugh, Evelyn, Edmund Campion (London: Longmans, Green
& Co, 1935); Wilson, Richard, ‘Shakespeare and the Jesuits’, Times Literary Supplement
(19 December 1997).
22 Campion’s letter from the College of the Society of Jesus, July 3, 1577. In. E.C. Opuscula,
p. 389. Simpson’s translation in his Edmund Campion, op. cit., p. 127.
23 In Brunn, Campion had a vision of St. Mary (1573) fortelling him his future martyrdom. In
Prague Jesuit college, Campion has found the first Sodalium of St. Mary.
124 PETR OSOLSOBĚ
author of the third gospel and of the Acts of the Apostles who only left us a
testimony of the circumstances of Angel’s annunciation and of Jesus’ birth.
Medicus by profession (Col 4, 14) and painter according to the old tradition, he
became patron of all artists, primarily painters. The fact that in the same journey
he was entrusted to convey to Bohemia a copy of the most famous Marian icon
of Western Christianity, a picture attributed to St. Luke himself, undoubtedly
must have fired his imagination, devotion and piety. When in 1573 Campion
was passing through Padua, the solemnities of the invention of St. Luke and
other saints exposed, transferred and venerated in 1562 still must have been
fresh in the memory of its inhabitants, clerics, religious communities and
university members.
Campion’s second visit to Padua dates from April 1580. After almost seven
years spent as a teacher of rhetoric and philosophy at the Prague college of St.
Clement (Clementinum), he was called to Rome. He left Prague on March 25,
1580 and went as far as Munich with Ferdinand, second son of Albert, Duke of
Bavaria.24 Then I drove in the carridge of Prince Ferdinand as far as Innsbruck,
thence I walked to Padua...At Padua I was shown about by young Matthias
Melchiarus, who scarcely left my side.25 At this time, I deduce, Campion took a
little rest in Padua after the long journey from Prague and before he took off for
Rome.
4. Conclusion
I must not conclude this little study without a caveat: it is both all too easy
and too difficult to claim and Campion’s influence on Shakespeare and almost
impossible to prove it by means of primary sources. (The only secondary source
remains the death-scene of Catherine Aragon based on Holinshed’s description
of the event taken from Campion’s History of Ireland.) It goes without saying
that Campion is not the only candidate for somebody who initiated Shakespeare
into the mysteries of Italian geography, institutions and other details.
Notwithstanding, Campion, as we have tried to prove, had many advantages for
the reasons we stated above. I maintain that Shakespeare’s knowledge of the cult
of St. Luke’s and his chapel in Padua is exceptional and in urgent need of
explanation. The redoubled mention of St. Luke in Padua in the comedy The
Taming of the Shrew functions for creating the atmosphere of the place, but at
the same time, I would argue, those reminiscences of old traditions and the “old
priest” were tokens of a nostalgia smoothly stirring Catholic memory and
imagery of the public. This tendency is more obvious in Measure for Measure,
where “a votarist of St. Clare” is made a heroine of purity and faith and the
monastic attributes are presented without the slightest mockery. A remarkable
24 Simpson, R., op. cit., p 135.
25 From Campion’s letter from Bologna to Prague, In: Opuscula, p. 40. In: Simpson, op. cit, p.
155.
125HOW COULD SHAKESPEARE KNOW THERE WAS A ST. LUKE IN PADUA ?
detail: the seat of the repudiated Angelo’s wife Mariana is situated at the moated
grange at St. Luke’s (act 4, scene 1) and Isabella announces her intent to visit her
(III, 1, 277) – I will presently to St. Luke’s; there at the moated grange resides
this dejected Mariana. Here again, the close juxtaposition of the names of Luke,
Mary and Anne (= Mariana) is speaking to a reader imbued with the Catholic
sensibility for whom St Luke was not only author of the “Marian” Gospel
(Annuntiation, Visitation, Magnificat, Birth in Bethlehem) but also her legendary
painter and patron of the art of painting.
Left: Salus Populi Romani is one of the so-called "Luke images" from Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome.
Right: Its copy commissioned by Jesuit general Francesco Borgia and from Rome via Padua up to Brno
[Brünn], Moravia by Edmund Campion in 1572/73.