The Duke of Milan
Encyclopedia
The Duke of Milan is a Jacobean era
stage play, a tragedy
written by Philip Massinger
. First published in 1623
, the play is generally considered among the author's finest achievements in drama.
, most likely in 1621 or 1622; an apparent allusion to the imprisonment of the poet George Wither
in Act III, scene 2 makes sense at that point in time.
There is no record of a revival of The Duke of Milan during the Restoration
era. A heavily adapted version by Richard Cumberland
was staged at Covent Garden
in 1779
, but lasted only three performances. Massinger's original was revived by Edmund Kean
at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
in 1816; Kean hoped to repeat his sensational success as Sir Giles Overreach in A New Way to Pay Old Debts
, another Massinger play. Kean, however, was not able to achieve the same result with The Duke of Milan.
in 1623 by the stationer Edward Blackmore, who issued a second quarto in 1638
. Massinger furnished the first edition with a dedication to Katherine Stanhope, the wife of Philip Lord Stanhope, then Baron of Shelford
and future Earl of Chester. Massinger also dedicated his poem A New Year's Gift to her. Katherine Stanhope (c. 1595–1636) was a cousin of Mary Sidney
, Countess of Pembroke and a sister of Henry Hastings, 5th Earl of Huntingdon
, the primary patron of John Fletcher
, Massinger's longtime collaborator.
versus Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
and King of Spain — though Massinger makes no attempt at, and maintains no pretense of, strict historical accuracy. His protagonist, the "supposed Duke of Milan," is called Ludovico Sforza
, though the historical figure of that name predeceased the events of the play by a generation; Massinger conflates him with his son and successor, Francesco Sforza. Massinger's sources for Italian history in the relevant era were William Thomas's The History of Italy (1561
) and Francesco Guicciardini
's Historia d'Italia, most probably in Geoffrey Fenton's translation (third edition, 1618
). The plot of the play actually derives from ancient history, specifically the story of Herod the Great
as recorded in The Jewish War
and Jewish Antiquities
by the historian Josephus
(which Massinger most likely knew in Thomas Lodge
's 1602
translations).
The Duke of Milan also shows a strong debt to Shakespeare's
Othello
, for its general plot of a man betrayed by unreasoning jealousy into suspecting his innocent wife and so destroying himself. (Othello was first printed in 1622
.) The concluding plot device of the corpse's poisoned kiss derives from two earlier plays, The Revenger's Tragedy
(1606
) and The Second Maiden's Tragedy
(1611
), both probably the work of Thomas Middleton
.
The duke's mother Isabella and his sister Mariana are especially resentful of Marcelia's dominance at the court; but they have small recourse to remedy their unhappiness.
Sforza receives unwelcome news: the French troops of Francis I have been defeated at the Battle of Pavia
by the Spanish armies of Charles V. Since Sforza is an ally of the French, his position is now critical. His friend the Marquis of Pescara comes to counsel him; Pescara recommends that Sforza go directly to the Emperor and make his submission, rather than wait for Spanish troops to show up on his border. Sforza takes his friend's advice. Just before he hurries away, however, he gives a special instruction to his favorite and brother-in-law Francisco; if he, Sforza, does not return alive from the Emperor's camp, Francisco must kill Marcelia. Sforza cannot stand the thought of her ever marrying another man.
Sforza goes to confront the Emperor; he behaves with dignity and sincerity, explaining that he maintained his allegiance to the French king out of loyalty for Francis's past support. In honor, he could do nothing else. Charles admires Sforza's forthright manner, and confirms Sforza as Duke of Milan; even Charles's mercenaries are impressed with the Duke...and with the payment he makes to them. Sforza quickly returns to Milan and Marcelia.
In his absence, however, Francisco has made sexual advances to Marcelia; when she rebuffs him, he shows her Sforza's written order for her death. Marcelia is deeply offended by this. Francisco palliates Marcelia with an abject apology; when Sforza returns, Marcelia does not inform on the favorite's conduct — but she is notably cool to Sforza, much to his shock and distress. The malicious Mariana and Isabella use this situation to cause dissension, spreading word that Marcelia is unfaithful with Francisco. Sforza rejects the idea; but Francisco, acting on his own motives for revenge, tells the Duke that Marcelia has propositioned him. Enraged, Sforza stabs Marcelia. With her dying breath, Marcelia tells her husband the truth. Francisco flees from the court, confirming his guilt. Sforza is in a "frenzy" of grief at what he has done. To keep the Duke from harming himself or others, the doctors of the court have to convince Sforza that his wife is not yet dead.
Francisco is shown with his sister Eugenia; their conversation reveals that Sforza had seduced Eugenia three years earlier, but then abandoned her when he met Marcelia. Francisco has been planning revenge for this affront ever since. His final act in this plan is to disguise himself as a travelling medical man — "A Jew by birth, and a physician" — who can cure the Duke's mental distraction. In this disguise, Francisco agrees to maintain the fiction that Marcelia is still alive; he paints her corpse with cosmetics, so cunningly that she appears to live again. Seeing the made-up body, Sforza kisses his late wife — and is poisoned by the toxic cosmetics. Francisco scorns the tortures that await him, and exults as Sforza dies.
Jacobean era
The Jacobean era refers to the period in English and Scottish history that coincides with the reign of King James VI of Scotland, who also inherited the crown of England in 1603 as James I...
stage play, a tragedy
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
written by Philip Massinger
Philip Massinger
Philip Massinger was an English dramatist. His finely plotted plays, including A New Way to Pay Old Debts, The City Madam and The Roman Actor, are noted for their satire and realism, and their political and social themes.-Early life:The son of Arthur Massinger or Messenger, he was baptized at St....
. First published in 1623
1623 in literature
The year 1623 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*February 2 - The King's Men perform Twelfth Night at Court on Candlemas....
, the play is generally considered among the author's finest achievements in drama.
Performance
Massinger's play was performed by the King's MenKing's Men (playing company)
The King's Men was the company of actors to which William Shakespeare belonged through most of his career. Formerly known as The Lord Chamberlain's Men during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it became The King's Men in 1603 when King James ascended the throne and became the company's patron.The...
, most likely in 1621 or 1622; an apparent allusion to the imprisonment of the poet George Wither
George Wither
George Wither was an English poet, pamphleteer, and satirist. He was a prolific writer who adopted a deliberate plainness of style; he was several times imprisoned. C. V...
in Act III, scene 2 makes sense at that point in time.
There is no record of a revival of The Duke of Milan during the Restoration
English Restoration
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
era. A heavily adapted version by Richard Cumberland
Richard Cumberland
Richard Cumberland may refer to:* Richard Cumberland , bishop, philosopher* Richard Cumberland , civil servant, dramatist...
was staged at Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
in 1779
1779 in literature
-Events:* William Blake enrols at the Royal Academy*April 6 - Premiėre of Iphigenie auf Tauris by Johann Wolfgang Goethe.-New books:* Richard Graves - Columella* Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi - Woldemar...
, but lasted only three performances. Massinger's original was revived by Edmund Kean
Edmund Kean
Edmund Kean was an English actor, regarded in his time as the greatest ever.-Early life:Kean was born in London. His father was probably Edmund Kean, an architect’s clerk, and his mother was an actress, Anne Carey, daughter of the 18th century composer and playwright Henry Carey...
at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
in 1816; Kean hoped to repeat his sensational success as Sir Giles Overreach in A New Way to Pay Old Debts
A New Way to Pay Old Debts
A New Way to Pay Old Debts is a play of English Renaissance drama, the most popular drama of Philip Massinger. Its central chararacter, Sir Giles Overreach, became one of the more popular villains on English and American stages through the 19th century.-Performance:Massinger most likely wrote the...
, another Massinger play. Kean, however, was not able to achieve the same result with The Duke of Milan.
Publication
The play was first printed in quartoBook size
The size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the height and width of its cover. A series of terms is commonly used by libraries and publishers for the general sizes of modern books, ranging from "folio" , to "quarto" and "octavo"...
in 1623 by the stationer Edward Blackmore, who issued a second quarto in 1638
1638 in literature
The year 1638 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*February 6 - Luminalia, a masque written by Sir William Davenant and designed by Inigo Jones, is staged at the English Court....
. Massinger furnished the first edition with a dedication to Katherine Stanhope, the wife of Philip Lord Stanhope, then Baron of Shelford
Philip Stanhope, 1st Earl of Chesterfield
Philip Stanhope, 1st Earl of Chesterfield , son of Sir John Stanhope and his wife Cordell Allington, was an English aristocrat. Stanhope was knighted in 1605 by James I...
and future Earl of Chester. Massinger also dedicated his poem A New Year's Gift to her. Katherine Stanhope (c. 1595–1636) was a cousin of Mary Sidney
Mary Sidney
Mary Herbert , Countess of Pembroke , was one of the first English women to achieve a major reputation for her literary works, poetry, poetic translations and literary patronage.-Family:...
, Countess of Pembroke and a sister of Henry Hastings, 5th Earl of Huntingdon
Henry Hastings, 5th Earl of Huntingdon
Henry Hastings, 5th Earl of Huntingdon was a prominent English nobleman and literary patron in England during the first half of the seventeenth century.-Life:...
, the primary patron of John Fletcher
John Fletcher (playwright)
John Fletcher was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; both during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's...
, Massinger's longtime collaborator.
Sources
The play is loosely based on historical events in northern Italy c. 1525, during the Italian wars of Francis I of FranceFrancis I of France
Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch...
versus Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...
and King of Spain — though Massinger makes no attempt at, and maintains no pretense of, strict historical accuracy. His protagonist, the "supposed Duke of Milan," is called Ludovico Sforza
Ludovico Sforza
Ludovico Sforza , was Duke of Milan from 1489 until his death. A member of the Sforza family, he was the fourth son of Francesco Sforza. He was famed as a patron of Leonardo da Vinci and other artists, and presided over the final and most productive stage of the Milanese Renaissance...
, though the historical figure of that name predeceased the events of the play by a generation; Massinger conflates him with his son and successor, Francesco Sforza. Massinger's sources for Italian history in the relevant era were William Thomas's The History of Italy (1561
1561 in literature
-New books:*Gabriele Fallopius - Observationes anatomicae*Sir Thomas Hoby - The Book of the Courtier *Julius Caesar Scaliger -Poetices...
) and Francesco Guicciardini
Francesco Guicciardini
Francesco Guicciardini was an Italian historian and statesman. A friend and critic of Niccolò Machiavelli, he is considered one of the major political writers of the Italian Renaissance...
's Historia d'Italia, most probably in Geoffrey Fenton's translation (third edition, 1618
1618 in literature
The year 1618 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*Sir Francis Bacon is appointed Lord Chancellor by King James I of England.*Ben Jonson sets out to walk to Scotland....
). The plot of the play actually derives from ancient history, specifically the story of Herod the Great
Herod the Great
Herod , also known as Herod the Great , was a Roman client king of Judea. His epithet of "the Great" is widely disputed as he is described as "a madman who murdered his own family and a great many rabbis." He is also known for his colossal building projects in Jerusalem and elsewhere, including his...
as recorded in The Jewish War
The Wars of the Jews
The Jewish War , in full Flavius Josephus's Books of the History of the Jewish War against the Romans , also referred to in English as The Wars of the Jews and The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem, is a book written by the 1st century Jewish historian Josephus.It is a description of Jewish...
and Jewish Antiquities
Antiquities of the Jews
Antiquities of the Jews is a twenty volume historiographical work composed by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in the thirteenth year of the reign of Roman emperor Flavius Domitian which was around 93 or 94 AD. Antiquities of the Jews contains an account of history of the Jewish people,...
by the historian Josephus
Josephus
Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...
(which Massinger most likely knew in Thomas Lodge
Thomas Lodge
Thomas Lodge was an English dramatist and writer of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.-Early life and education:...
's 1602
1602 in literature
The year 1602 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*February 2 - The King's Men perform Twelfth Night at the Middle Temple.*May 4 - Richard Hakluyt is installed as prebendary of Westminster....
translations).
The Duke of Milan also shows a strong debt to Shakespeare's
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
Othello
Othello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
, for its general plot of a man betrayed by unreasoning jealousy into suspecting his innocent wife and so destroying himself. (Othello was first printed in 1622
1622 in literature
The year 1622 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*February 28 - Loiola, a Latin comedy mocking the Jesuits, is acted at Cambridge; the performance is repeated before King James I on March 12.*March 12 - Teresa of Ávila The year 1622 in literature involved some significant...
.) The concluding plot device of the corpse's poisoned kiss derives from two earlier plays, The Revenger's Tragedy
The Revenger's Tragedy
The Revenger's Tragedy is an English language Jacobean revenge tragedy, in the past attributed to Cyril Tourneur but is sometimes considered to be the work of Thomas Middleton by "Middletonians"...
(1606
1606 in literature
The year 1606 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*May 27 - The English Parliament passes An Act to Restrain Abuses of Players, which tightens the censorship controls on public theatre performances, most notably on the question of profane oaths.*December 26 - Shakespeare's King...
) and The Second Maiden's Tragedy
The Second Maiden's Tragedy
The Second Maiden's Tragedy is a Jacobean play that survives only in manuscript. It was written in 1611, and performed in the same year by the King's Men. The manuscript that survives is the copy that was sent to the censor, and therefore includes his notes and deletions...
(1611
1611 in literature
The year 1611 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*January 1 - Oberon, the Faery Prince, a masque written by Ben Jonson and designed by Inigo Jones, is performed at Whitehall Palace....
), both probably the work of Thomas Middleton
Thomas Middleton
Thomas Middleton was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. Middleton stands with John Fletcher and Ben Jonson as among the most successful and prolific of playwrights who wrote their best plays during the Jacobean period. He was one of the few Renaissance dramatists to achieve equal success in...
.
Synopsis
Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Venice, is a forceful and formidable ruler, whose "whole life hath been / But one continu'd pilgrimage through dangers, / Affrights, and horrors...." He has one controlling passion — his overwhelming, uxorious obsession with his wife Marcelia. He treats her with little less than idolatry; and she is affected by his extravagant praises. As one Milanese courtier observes,-
-
-
-
-
-
- ...when beauty is
-
-
-
-
- Stamp'd on great women, great in birth, and fortune,
- And blown by flatterers greater than it is,
- 'Tis seldom unaccompanied with pride;
- Nor is she that way free.
-
The duke's mother Isabella and his sister Mariana are especially resentful of Marcelia's dominance at the court; but they have small recourse to remedy their unhappiness.
Sforza receives unwelcome news: the French troops of Francis I have been defeated at the Battle of Pavia
Battle of Pavia
The Battle of Pavia, fought on the morning of 24 February 1525, was the decisive engagement of the Italian War of 1521–26.A Spanish-Imperial army under the nominal command of Charles de Lannoy attacked the French army under the personal command of Francis I of France in the great hunting preserve...
by the Spanish armies of Charles V. Since Sforza is an ally of the French, his position is now critical. His friend the Marquis of Pescara comes to counsel him; Pescara recommends that Sforza go directly to the Emperor and make his submission, rather than wait for Spanish troops to show up on his border. Sforza takes his friend's advice. Just before he hurries away, however, he gives a special instruction to his favorite and brother-in-law Francisco; if he, Sforza, does not return alive from the Emperor's camp, Francisco must kill Marcelia. Sforza cannot stand the thought of her ever marrying another man.
Sforza goes to confront the Emperor; he behaves with dignity and sincerity, explaining that he maintained his allegiance to the French king out of loyalty for Francis's past support. In honor, he could do nothing else. Charles admires Sforza's forthright manner, and confirms Sforza as Duke of Milan; even Charles's mercenaries are impressed with the Duke...and with the payment he makes to them. Sforza quickly returns to Milan and Marcelia.
In his absence, however, Francisco has made sexual advances to Marcelia; when she rebuffs him, he shows her Sforza's written order for her death. Marcelia is deeply offended by this. Francisco palliates Marcelia with an abject apology; when Sforza returns, Marcelia does not inform on the favorite's conduct — but she is notably cool to Sforza, much to his shock and distress. The malicious Mariana and Isabella use this situation to cause dissension, spreading word that Marcelia is unfaithful with Francisco. Sforza rejects the idea; but Francisco, acting on his own motives for revenge, tells the Duke that Marcelia has propositioned him. Enraged, Sforza stabs Marcelia. With her dying breath, Marcelia tells her husband the truth. Francisco flees from the court, confirming his guilt. Sforza is in a "frenzy" of grief at what he has done. To keep the Duke from harming himself or others, the doctors of the court have to convince Sforza that his wife is not yet dead.
Francisco is shown with his sister Eugenia; their conversation reveals that Sforza had seduced Eugenia three years earlier, but then abandoned her when he met Marcelia. Francisco has been planning revenge for this affront ever since. His final act in this plan is to disguise himself as a travelling medical man — "A Jew by birth, and a physician" — who can cure the Duke's mental distraction. In this disguise, Francisco agrees to maintain the fiction that Marcelia is still alive; he paints her corpse with cosmetics, so cunningly that she appears to live again. Seeing the made-up body, Sforza kisses his late wife — and is poisoned by the toxic cosmetics. Francisco scorns the tortures that await him, and exults as Sforza dies.