Merchants, Usurers and Harlots: Genoa in Early Modern English Drama

This article discusses the presence of Genoa in early modern English drama, which is far more considerable than commonly assumed. While most early modernists are probably aware that John Marston’s The Malcontent (c. 1603, publ. 1604) and John Ford’s The Lady’s Trial (1637–38, publ. 1639) are set in Genoa, not everyone in the field might be as familiar with the Genoese setting of John Day’s Law Tricks, or Who Would Have Thought It? (1604–05, publ. 1608) and Henry Glapthorne’s The Ladies’ Privilege (c. 1637, publ. 1640). In addition, several plays of the period host a significant amount of references to Genoa. For some reason, though, this wealth of references to and depictions of the city and its inhabitants has only attracted very limited and mostly cursory critical remarks. Yet, a closer investigation into the appropriation of Genoa can in the first instance reveal how the focus of depictions of Genoa is more narrow and specific than is the case with portrayals of other Italian cities, and can ultimately lead to a broader mapping of the overall appropriation of Italy in early modern English drama, as well as to further critical insights into the plays that are set in or host references to Genoa. This article has a threefold aim: to consider a handful of written sources playwrights are more likely to have drawn upon for their depictions of the city and its customs; to map out references and allusions to Genoa in the dramatic writings of the period; and to discuss the social valence for sixteenth- and seventeenth-century London of the two core themes associated with the dramatic portrayals of Genoa, usury and sexual liberty.