Italian Family Fueds



Italian Family Feuds

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PART ONE:

Ha, Banishment!

Be merciful, say “death”

---Romeo

How would an American feel about being banished from his or her hometown and forced to move, say from New York to Newark, or Minneapolis to St. Paul? Depressed, probably. But it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Romeo, on the other hand, says, “There is no world without Verona walls.” Juliet agrees, “Banished is worse than death.”

Why are Romeo and Juliet so devastated by Romeo’s banishment? After all, Mantua, Romeo’s new residence, is only 25 miles from Verona, a half day’s ride by horse.

To answer this question we have to travel back in time, to late Medieval and early Renaissance Italy, and put ourselves in the lovers’ shoes. In those days, banishment from one’s city was the same as being booted out of one’s country. Your city was your country – thus the term “city-state”. Italy was not yet a unified nation like England or France. It was divided into a patchwork of city-states – minature nations. By the end of the 12th century, it had more than 200 of these tiny countries within its borders. A century later Dante described Italy as a “ship without a helmsman in harsh seas.” Gradually big cities like Venice, Milan, Verona, Florence, and Sienna gobbled up their smaller neighbors. Nevertheless, Italy remained fractured. If a similar situation existed in the United States, Detroit, Chicago, Houston and Pittsburgh would be independent countries, each with its own president.

People living in Italy at this time thought of themselves not as Italians, but as Venetians, Milanese, Florentines, Veronese. They were very proud of their local/national heritage. For example, in 1499, when Florentine artist Michelangelo overheard a group of foreigners -Lombards from Northern Italy – claim his new sculpture, the Pieta, was the work of a Lombard, he became irate. A few nights later, he slipped discretely into the church where the Pieta was housed and signed it. It’s the only piece of art Michelangelo ever put his name on. The words “Michelangelo, Florentine Artist” are draped across the virgin’s chest in Latin. Michelangelo’s city was as much a part of his signature as his name.

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To Romeo, exile implies not only separation from his family, friends and new wife, but from his country and customs. Thus, for him, “exile hath more terror in his look…than death.”

PART TWO:

From ancient grudge

Break to new mutiny

--- Prologue

Great families vied to control the city-states in which they lived. Power struggles between rival clans often degenerated into street brawls, like the one that opens Romeo & Juliet. Banishment was the customary punishment for the losers. Famous Italian exiles include Dante and the Medici, who were kicked out of Florence following civil unrest. Family feuds were so ferocious that the whole male line of a family might be ambushed and killed on their way to church.

In 1478, the powerful Pazzi family and their allies attacked the male members of Florence’s leading family, the Medici, while they were at mass. Giuliani de Medici was murdered in front of the altar, stabbed 19 times. His older brother, Lorenzo de Medici fought his way to safety and later avenged his brother’s death by ordering the executions of the Pazzi consipirators. Leonardo da Vinci, who loved to study the human body in all possible positions, sketched the hanging corpse of one of the Pazzi conspirators as it dangled from the Bargello, a medieval palace in Florence which today serves as the National Museum.

The skylines of Italian city-states reflected the rivalry within them. Powerful families transformed their homes into high-towered fortresses. According to a 12th-century medieval observer, “each household has a tower and at times of strife they fight each other from the tops of the towers.” In Pisa, he claimed he saw “about 10.000 turreted houses.” Clearly the man was exaggerating to make a point; the skylines of Italian cities bristled with defensive tower. The only town in Italy where these medieval skyscrapers still stand is San Gimignano in Tuscany;only 15 of the original 72 still remain.

What were these Italian families fighting about? Did noble families throughout Italy hold “ancient grudges” against each other like the Capulets and the Montagues? If so, what was the grudge?

The feud between the Capulets and the Montagues was probably real. The Italian poet Dante mentions it in the Divine Comedy, nearly 300 years before Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet.

“Those who are alive within “Italy”

Now can’t live without their warring-

Even those whom one same wall and one

Same moat enclose gnaw at each other….

Montecchi and Cappelletti, sad already,

And, filled with fears…”

The Italian names for Montague and Capulet are Montecchi and Cappelletti. To understand their “ancient grudge,” we must examine the politics of the period. Because Italy wasn’t unified, it was vulnerable to foreign powers. France ruled the southern part of Italy. Germany controlled much of the north. The Papal states in central Italy, they were under the Pope’s authority. Throughout this period, France and the Popes teamed up against the Holy Roman Empire, who they vied as a mutual threat, a kind of international bully.

To strengthen its own position, powerful families in Italy sided with either France and the Popes or Germany. The families who supported the Pope and the French were called Guelphs. In times of war, the Guelphs relied on military aid from France against opposing families. When Dante wrote about them, the Capulets were a Guelphs family from Cremona, a town just west of Mantua.

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Families allied with the Holy Roman Empire were Ghibellines. The 14th-century Montagues were Ghibellines from Verona. Shakespeare, of course, makes both families citizens of Verona, as did earlier writers for the Romeo and Juliet tragedy, like Arthur Brooke ad Matteo Bandello. In the seesaw struggle for power within cities like Verona, sometimes the Guelph faction dominated and sometimes the Ghibelline.

In Romeo and Juliet, Tybalt is the strongest man of the new generation of the Capulets. After he’s killed, the Capulets’ political position is greatly weakened. Especially since their only heir is a female. Therefore, Lady Capulet’s desire to see Romeo die for slaying Tybalt may be more than simple revenge. Romeo is the sole son and heir of the Montagues. If he’s put to death, the Capulets may gain the upper hand, especially if Juliet marries into a rich, powerful and well-connected family like that of Count Paris, a kinsman of the Prince of Verona.

Lord and Lady Capulet’s sudden desire to marry off Juliet after Tybalt’s death may also be in part politically motivated. At the beginning of the play, Lord Capulet is in no hurry for Juliet to marry. He tells Paris:

“My child is yet a stranger in the world.

She hath not seen 14 years.

Let two more summers within their pride

Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.”

Because family quarrels constantly disrupted city-states, the populace often hired a prince to rule over them-or at least to serve as a kind of political referee in clan disputes. These princes were usually selected from outside the city, so they would not favor one family over the other. Prince Escalus is clearly one of these neutral princes.

QUESTIONS:

1. Why is Romeo upset about being banished to a city only 25 miles away? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. Why were houses built like fortresses with high towers? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. Who were the Cappellettis and Montecchis? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. Define banishment and tell why it was used. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5. What was the role of the prince? Why was he hired from outside the city? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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