Othello: Lewkenor’s Venice, the Moor and the Globe

A Venetian source identified by Shakespeare scholars, a foreign general under whom Lewkenor had served, a Moroccan embassy and a performance at the Globe: the historical connections explored here bring together the literary, military and diplomatic worlds of Shakespeare’s tragedy.

A Venetian book and a Shakespearean tragedy

In 1599 Lewes Lewkenor published The Commonwealth and Government of Venice, an English account of the republic’s political institutions, courts, laws, magistrates and military organisation.

Lewkenor was a veteran of continental warfare and a writer whose knowledge of European affairs extended beyond the contents of books. His experience of military service gives particular interest to the passages in which he discusses Venice’s employment of foreign commanders.

His Venetian publication translated Gasparo Contarini’s account of the republic and included additional material concerning the city and its territories. Within that material, political description meets historical observation and Lewkenor’s own experience.

In Othello, Shakespeare gives Venice a developed political life. Brabantio summons officers, the Duke and senators consider reports of a Turkish attack, and a foreign general is entrusted with the defence of Cyprus.

The republic is more than an Italian setting. Its institutions provide the public authority within which the private tragedy unfolds.

Text and publication: Contarini, translated by Lewkenor, The Commonwealth and Government of Venice (1599).

Edmond Malone identifies Lewkenor

The relationship between Lewkenor’s Venetian translation and Shakespeare’s tragedy was identified long before modern debates concerning Shakespearean authorship. Edmond Malone drew attention to the book in his commentary on Othello.

I have no doubt that Shakspeare, before he wrote this play, read the Commonwealth and Government of Venice, translated from the Italian by Lewkenor, and printed in quarto, 1599; a book prefixed to which we find a copy of verses by Spenser. This treatise furnished our poet with the knowledge of those officers of night, whom Brabantio here desires to be called to his assistance.

Edmond Malone, note on Othello, I.i; wording reproduced in The Works of William Shakespeare (1865), vol. XV.

Malone’s observation identifies a particular book and a particular institutional detail. His argument rests on the relationship between Brabantio’s words and the Venetian offices described in Lewkenor’s translation.

It also supplies a method for investigating the connection: compare the language and circumstances of the play with the institutions, geography and military arrangements described in the earlier book.

Later scholars, including H. C. Hart and Kenneth Muir, continued the discussion of Lewkenor’s Venetian material. The translator’s own biography adds a further dimension to that literary comparison.

The officers of night

When Brabantio discovers that Desdemona has left his house, he calls for weapons and assistance:

Get weapons, ho!
And raise some special officers of night.

William Shakespeare, Othello, I.i.

The expression attracted Malone’s attention because Lewkenor’s translation describes officials responsible for maintaining order during the Venetian night. Malone supported his observation with extracts from the book’s account of their duties.

These included keeping watch, making rounds through the city’s divisions and preventing disorder, housebreaking and violence under cover of darkness. The passage gives the night officers a defined place within Venetian civic administration.

Shakespeare’s reference therefore offers a more specific comparison than the ordinary appearance of guards or watchmen in a dramatic scene. Brabantio invokes an identifiable form of public authority as he attempts to recover his daughter.

The resemblance supports the longstanding argument that Lewkenor’s book helped inform Shakespeare’s representation of Venice. It does not, by itself, establish a personal relationship between the translator and the dramatist.

Lewkenor, The Commonwealth and Government of Venice (1599), pp. 97–99, as cited in Malone’s note.

The Venetian sea-bank

Lewkenor’s account also describes the maritime geography of Venice: a city within a lagoon, sheltered from the Adriatic by long coastal barriers. The discussion of the Lito Maggior belongs to this explanation of the city’s unusual physical setting.

In Othello, Cassio uses the expression “sea-bank” while describing an encounter with Bianca:

I was the other day talking on the sea-bank with
certain Venetians; and thither comes the bauble

Shakespeare, Othello, IV.i.

The verbal comparison is worth recording, but its geographical limits matter. Cassio speaks during the Cyprus portion of the play. The presence of Venetians in his recollection does not establish that the encounter took place in Venice, or that Shakespeare intended the Venetian Lido.

Lewkenor’s description and Cassio’s expression can therefore be compared as maritime language. The sea-bank offers a less precise source argument than the officers of night, whose institutional significance Malone explained in detail.

Together, these passages invite attention to the political and geographical vocabulary of the play. The next connection introduces something more personal: Lewkenor’s own service under a commander whom he names in his account of Venetian military government.

The General of Venice: a man Lewkenor had served

One of the most striking passages in Lewkenor’s account concerns Venice’s employment of a foreign Captain General. Here the translator moves beyond institutional description and names a commander under whom he had personally served.

Always they do entertain in honorable sort, with great provision a Captain general, who always is a stranger born: he that now enjoyeth that place is one John Baptista de Monte a Florentine born, a notable soldier, and a very honourable Gentleman, one under whom I have served in the wars, and am in all thankfulness to acknowledge many favors that I received both from him and his brother Camillo de Monte.

Lewes Lewkenor, The Commonwealth and Government of Venice (1599), p. 166; spelling modernised. Checked against the EEBO–TCP transcription.

John Baptista de Monte, also known as Giovanni Battista del Monte, was a Florentine professional soldier. Lewkenor identifies him as the holder of a Venetian command and records his own obligations to both him and his brother Camillo.

The passage is unusual because its autobiographical detail appears within an explanation of government. The English writer describing Venice’s military arrangements had served under the commander whom he names.

Lewkenor had served under the very man he identifies as Venice’s Captain General. His account brings personal military experience into the description of the republic: he knew the commander, had served under him, and acknowledged favours received from both Baptista and his brother Camillo.

This establishes a personal connection between the translator and the foreign General employed by the republic: a connection that gives particular interest to the military world of Othello.

Othello and the command of Venice

Shakespeare’s Othello is likewise a foreign professional soldier entrusted with the republic’s defence. His authority depends upon his experience, his reputation and the confidence of the Venetian government.

When Brabantio brings his accusation against him, the Duke and senators are already considering reports of an Ottoman expedition. The public emergency and the private complaint meet in the same council chamber.

Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you
Against the general enemy Ottoman.

William Shakespeare, Othello, I.iii.

The comparison concerns more than a shared profession. Lewkenor describes a republic that employs an outsider in a senior military command; Shakespeare places a foreign general at the centre of its response to danger.

The offices should not be treated as demonstrably identical. Del Monte’s position in the historical account and Othello’s dramatic commission to Cyprus belong to different kinds of evidence. Their shared feature is the republic’s reliance on an experienced commander born beyond its own community.

Lewkenor’s personal disclosure gives that institutional parallel an additional dimension. For him, foreign military command was part of an experienced world of service, patronage and obligation.

The Estate of English Fugitives: the soldier’s account

Four years before the Venetian translation, The Estate of English Fugitives appeared under the initials L. L. Generally attributed to Lewes Lewkenor, it draws upon the experience of English soldiers and exiles abroad.

The book takes its readers into the Low Countries, where military employment, religious allegiance and political loyalty could pull men in different directions. English exiles served within the armies and patronage networks of continental powers.

Lewkenor knew this environment through his own military career. He served in the Spanish Netherlands, and a severe arm wound brought his soldiering career to an end.

The account illuminates a professional world shaped by dependence upon commanders, uncertain rewards, frustrated advancement and the practical consequences of changing allegiance.

It is also a polemical work. Its portraits of soldiers and exiles must be read with attention to its political purposes, rather than treated as an impartial military register.

The appearance of the del Monte brothers in Lewkenor’s military writing connects this earlier publication with his later description of Venetian government. The same relationships cross the boundary between personal history and political exposition.

Military promotion: Cassio and Iago

The professional soldier’s concern with advancement is established at the very beginning of Othello. Iago resents Michael Cassio’s appointment as lieutenant and claims that his own experience has been disregarded.

Why, there’s no remedy; ’tis the curse of service,
Preferment goes by letter and affection,
And not by old gradation, where each second
Stood heir to the first.

Shakespeare, Othello, I.i.

Iago presents the appointment as a triumph of influence and personal favour over seniority. His complaint turns military promotion into a question of honour, recognition and resentment.

This is Iago’s account of the decision, and the audience has reason to distrust his judgement. His contempt for Cassio does not establish that Cassio is unqualified.

Nevertheless, the grievance belongs to the professional environment that Lewkenor knew. A soldier’s fortunes depended upon decisions made by commanders and patrons, whose favour could bring advancement or disappointment.

The comparison supplies historical context for Shakespeare’s treatment of service and betrayal. A direct borrowing requires more specific evidence than the existence of a familiar military grievance.

Rowland York and the treachery of soldiers

Rowland York, also written Yorke, belongs to the military history explored in connection with Lewkenor’s writings. His career in the Low Countries became associated with changing allegiance and the betrayal of military trust.

The proposed comparison with Iago concerns the destructive possibilities of an experienced soldier’s privileged position. Familiarity with a commander and access to his confidence can become instruments of betrayal.

In Shakespeare’s tragedy, Iago performs loyalty while privately working to destroy the man he serves. His military standing helps him move between Othello, Cassio and the other participants in the action.

York provides a historical comparison for this conjunction of service and treachery. Identifying him as the original of Iago, however, remains an interpretation rather than an established fact.

The value of the comparison lies in the military world it opens to view: a world in which reputation, reward and allegiance could determine both a soldier’s usefulness and the damage caused by his betrayal.

Strangers, citizens and the meaning of service

The Venetian republic described by Lewkenor depended upon relationships extending beyond its own territories. Merchants, travellers, soldiers and foreign commanders contributed to its prosperity and security.

In Othello, Shakespeare makes the distinction between public service and private acceptance one of the tragedy’s central concerns. Othello’s military reputation secures the confidence of the Duke and senators, while his marriage to Desdemona provokes Brabantio’s hostility.

The republic needs the general’s experience, but his usefulness to the state does not protect him from prejudice. His professional standing and his vulnerability as an outsider exist together.

Lewkenor’s account provides a revealing background to this tension. Its descriptions of foreign visitors, commerce and military employment present a state whose dealings with strangers form part of its everyday life.

That international character does not make Venice a society without exclusions. Shakespeare repeatedly explores the distance between participating in a city’s affairs and being accepted within its community.

A related tension appears in The Merchant of Venice, where Shylock’s involvement in the republic’s commercial life does not secure social equality. The two plays approach the position of outsiders through different circumstances, but both expose the limits of belonging.

In Othello, Iago exploits those limits. He turns anxieties about marriage, difference and reputation against a commander whose public achievements cannot secure his private happiness.

War against the Turks: the urgency of Cyprus

The council scene in Othello is driven by reports of an approaching Ottoman attack upon Cyprus. The island’s defence becomes an emergency demanding a trusted commander and an immediate decision.

The senators receive conflicting intelligence about the fleet’s size and destination. Reports suggesting Rhodes are weighed against the strategic importance and vulnerability of Cyprus.

Shakespeare makes the audience watch a government interpret uncertain information. The council must distinguish a possible diversion from the enemy’s intended objective.

Othello enters this scene as the commander the republic requires. His military standing is established before the accusation concerning his marriage has been heard.

Lewkenor’s description of foreign commanders offers an institutional context for this dramatic arrangement. His personal connection with del Monte gives the comparison a biographical dimension as well.

The contrast with Cinthio’s narrative source is also significant. Shakespeare develops the movement to Cyprus into a council scene involving military intelligence, strategic debate and urgent mobilisation.

These additions give the tragedy a public framework. Othello’s marriage is brought before a government already dependent upon his service.

Shakespeare, Othello, I.iii. For the source discussion, see also T. Sipahigil, “Lewkenor and Othello: An Addendum,” Notes and Queries, new series 19 (1972), p. 127.

The traveller whose stories win Desdemona

Othello’s reputation rests upon a life of military service and travel. Before the Venetian Senate, he explains how the telling of that life brought him and Desdemona together.

Brabantio had welcomed him into the household and encouraged him to recount his experiences:

Her father loved me; oft invited me;
Still question’d me the story of my life,
From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,
That I have passed.

Shakespeare, Othello, I.iii.

His account moves through danger, captivity, escape and encounters with unfamiliar peoples and places. Desdemona’s attention to those experiences becomes central to his explanation of their love.

Lewkenor’s address to the reader offers a suggestive comparison. Describing the pleasure of hearing an accomplished traveller speak, he writes:

I could willingly endure to have mine ears enclined, while he distilleth into them the sweet liquors that he hath industriously extracted out of the painful fruits of his foreign travel.

Lewkenor, The Commonwealth and Government of Venice (1599), “To the Reader”; spelling modernised. EEBO–TCP transcription.

The comparison concerns the transformation of difficult experience into compelling narrative. The traveller has endured discomfort and danger; the listener receives knowledge and pleasure through the telling.

Othello describes a similar exchange. What he suffered becomes the subject of Desdemona’s fascination and sympathy. His foreign experience enters the household through his voice.

The resemblance offers a useful point of comparison between Lewkenor’s prose and Shakespeare’s scene. It does not make the two passages identical: Lewkenor praises instructive travel, while Shakespeare dramatises the emotional consequences of listening.

Those consequences also reveal a division within Brabantio’s household. The stories he encouraged help create an attachment he subsequently refuses to accept.

The language of military service

Military service organises the relationships through which the tragedy develops. Command, obedience, promotion, reputation and trust govern the professional lives of Othello, Cassio and Iago.

Othello’s identity is inseparable from his career. His experience gives him standing before the Senate, while his responsibilities carry him and Desdemona from Venice to Cyprus.

Lewkenor’s writings approach this world through both personal experience and political description. The Estate of English Fugitives presents soldiers and exiles whose fortunes depend upon commanders, patrons and shifting allegiances.

The Venetian translation describes the organisation of a republic’s forces and names a commander to whom Lewkenor acknowledges a personal debt.

His gratitude to Giovanni Battista del Monte and Camillo del Monte reveals the obligations created through service. Advancement and protection could depend upon relationships between individual soldiers and their superiors.

In Othello, Iago converts resentment over advancement into a campaign against his commander. His apparent obedience conceals the destruction of the trust on which command depends.

Lewkenor’s military experience gives the comparison historical substance. His writings help place Shakespeare’s soldiers within a professional world in which honour, preferment and loyalty carried practical consequences.

The Moroccan ambassador at Elizabeth’s court

In 1600 Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud arrived in England as ambassador of the Moroccan ruler Ahmad al-Mansur. His embassy brought North African diplomacy into the court of Elizabeth I.

England and Morocco shared interests in trade and opposition to Spanish power. The embassy explored cooperation within a Mediterranean world shaped by commerce, religious difference and competing political ambitions.

The ambassador’s surviving portrait is a remarkable record of that encounter. Its inscriptions identify the sitter and date the painting to 1600.

It represents an identifiable Moroccan diplomat who visited Elizabeth’s court. The painting gives the historical discussion a contemporary human presence.

The embassy preceded the earliest recorded performance of Othello, at court on 1 November 1604. Its possible relationship to the play is suggestive, although the date of composition and the extent of any influence remain matters of interpretation.

Lewkenor and the Spanish interpretation

Lewkenor’s command of continental languages and his experience abroad helped bring him into diplomatic employment. His involvement with the Moroccan embassy places him within the practical work of communication between the visiting delegation and the English court.

Accounts of the embassy identify him as a Spanish interpreter during its reception. Spanish could serve as a language of diplomatic communication between people whose native languages differed.

In 1600 he was Lewes Lewkenor: his knighthood followed in 1603. His later title of Master of the Ceremonies should not be applied retrospectively to the Elizabethan visit.

The connection brings several parts of his career together. The writer who described Venetian government and acknowledged service under a foreign commander also participated in the reception of a Moroccan ambassador.

These experiences help explain the historical interest of his relationship with Othello. They connect military service, the Venetian republic and Mediterranean diplomacy through one English translator’s career.

They do not establish that the ambassador was Othello’s sole model, or that the play was written for his visit. The embassy belongs to the contemporary context in which English audiences encountered representations of North African authority and identity.

Portrait: University of Birmingham, Research and Cultural Collections: An Introduction. The embassy and interpreting connection are also discussed in the author’s earlier Lewkenor research.

Trade and the proposal for an alliance

The Moroccan embassy arrived within an established commercial relationship. English cloth was exchanged for Moroccan commodities, including sugar and saltpetre; the Barbary Company was formed in 1585. Trade connected the two kingdoms even where religion and political ambition divided them.

Ahmad al-Mansur sought to turn this commercial relationship into military cooperation against Spain. Abd el-Ouahed’s mission therefore carried a purpose extending beyond the business of the merchants who accompanied him. The proposed alliance placed the embassy within the same Mediterranean contest of states, shipping and military power that forms the public background to Othello.

The delegation comprised sixteen people, travelling aboard The Eagle and arriving at Dover in August 1600. Nine released prisoners accompanied the visitors as a gesture of goodwill. Merchants subsequently met the delegation at Gravesend before its passage into London. The ambassador’s appearance at Elizabeth’s court was the culmination of a journey involving merchants, mariners, captives and royal officials.

Two interpreters and a private audience

Lewkenor’s role differed from that of the delegation’s own interpreter, Abd el-Dodar, an Andalusian who had served as a soldier in Italy and spoke Spanish as well as Italian. This was an embassy whose communication crossed several languages, rather than a single exchange conducted throughout through Lewkenor.

Rowland White’s account of the reception at Nonsuch sets the meeting within an elaborate royal display: rich furnishings brought from Hampton Court, armed guards, the Gentlemen Pensioners, and assembled lords and ladies. The ambassador passed through successive court spaces before reaching the gallery where Elizabeth received him.

Mr. Lewkner was interpreter for the Spanish tongue; but here they departed, the Interpreter of the Embassy spoke in Italian, and desired to deliver some thing in private, which her Majesty granted. On which Mr. Lewkner and the Lords removed further off.

Rowland White, account of the Moroccan ambassador’s audience at Nonsuch, 1600.

The passage makes Lewkenor’s participation concrete. It identifies the language for which he was employed and then records the point at which he withdrew. Elizabeth granted the embassy’s interpreter permission to speak privately in Italian; Lewkenor and the lords moved away. His presence at the reception therefore gives no warrant for assuming that he heard the confidential exchange.

The released captives also entered the ceremony. Elizabeth received them from the ambassador and handed them to the representative of the States. The audience brought together the display of royal authority, the management of diplomatic access, and the practical return of prisoners from the world of continental conflict that Lewkenor knew.

The embassy beyond the royal gallery

The visitors remained a subject of correspondence after their first reception. Letters record requests for another audience and a further meeting at Oatlands. English observers admitted how little they knew about the confidential negotiations. Secrecy was part of the embassy’s contemporary reputation.

Its public presence had a material cost. A letter from the Lord Mayor to Cecil concerns payments towards the delegation’s expenses and the claims of the householder who lodged it. Provision was also made for the visitors to watch the Queen’s Day celebrations at Whitehall. Diplomatic hospitality required rooms, money, food, transport and a place within public ceremony.

Alongside this hospitality, John Chamberlain’s letters and John Stow’s account express religious suspicion. These reports reveal the attitudes of their English writers as well as the visitors’ circumstances. Stow’s hostile interpretation of the delegation’s conduct, and his report of the interpreter’s alleged poisoning after the return journey, require that distinction between an observer’s allegation and an established event.

For the reading of Othello, this combination is especially relevant. A distinguished foreign visitor could be received with splendour and still be described through suspicion and prejudice. The embassy offers a contemporary setting in which honour, public usefulness, religious difference and exclusion could coexist.

Correspondence of Rowland White and John Chamberlain; the Lord Mayor’s letter to Robert Cecil; John Stow’s account of the Moroccan embassy, 1600.

The ambassador, the commander and Othello

The embassy, the Venetian translation and Lewkenor’s military service bring three strands of his career together: Lewkenor interpreted at the ambassador’s reception, translated the government of Venice, and had served under Baptista del Monte.

The possibility that the embassy helped shape the character of Othello is a literary interpretation. Read in that light, the ambassador’s portrait gives a face to one strand of the investigation, while Lewkenor’s acknowledgement of del Monte supplies another: the experience of a professional commander employed by the Venetian republic. The proposed connection depends on the conjunction of these experiences rather than on a claim that the ambassador and the general were the same kind of historical figure.

Access to Lewkenor’s writing before publication, or direct conversation with him, offers another possible explanation for the Venetian connections. Neither route is established by the reception record. The publication of the Venetian translation in 1599 and the Moroccan embassy in 1600 establish the sequence of the sources discussed here; the precise composition history of the plays and the route by which particular information reached the dramatist require their own evidence.

Lewkenor was present as a working interpreter at a reception whose ceremonial splendour, multilingual exchanges and confidential business are described in contemporary correspondence. The literary, military and diplomatic connections already explored above thus acquire a specific scene in the royal gallery.

Mountebanks and the language of Venice

Brabantio’s accusation against Othello joins the language of medicine to the language of deception. He claims that Desdemona has been corrupted by unnatural means:

By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks

Shakespeare, Othello, I.iii.

Lewkenor’s Venetian translation includes an account of the city’s health magistracy. It describes measures against infection, the removal of affected households, quarantine and the supervision of unwholesome goods.

This places health within the same elaborate civic organisation that governs other aspects of the republic. Medicine and public welfare belong to the institutional world described for English readers.

Brabantio’s reference to mountebanks can be considered within that wider urban context. The word itself, however, is not sufficient evidence that Shakespeare borrowed this accusation from Lewkenor.

Its dramatic function is clear: Brabantio turns his refusal to accept Desdemona’s choice into an allegation of manipulation. The Duke’s demand for proof exposes the distance between suspicion and evidence.

Lewkenor, The Commonwealth and Government of Venice (1599), pp. 117–119.

From the Venetian republic to the English stage

With the accession of James I, Lewkenor’s diplomatic employment acquired a more formal place within the royal household. He was knighted in 1603 and became Master of the Ceremonies in the early Stuart court; his office was confirmed for life in 1605.

His duties involved receiving foreign dignitaries, arranging access to the monarch and managing the practical and ceremonial questions surrounding diplomatic visits.

Such visits could include theatrical entertainment. Plays and masques formed part of the cultural life through which the court received and honoured its guests.

Lewkenor’s later career therefore intersects with theatre through identifiable events, as well as through the literary influence proposed for his books.

The Goldsmiths’ garden-house: a play for Lewkenor

In 1609 the Goldsmiths’ Company agreed to let Sir Lewes Lewkenor use its garden-house for a play. The published extract from the Company’s records states:

The Court agree that the use of the garden-house shall be granted to Sir Lewis Lewkenor, to have a play there for the solace of himself and friends.

Walter Sherburne Prideaux, Memorials of the Goldsmiths’ Company, extract from the Company’s records for 1609.

The entry places Lewkenor personally within the arrangements for theatrical entertainment. It records permission to use a particular venue for himself and his friends.

It does not name the play, identify its author or establish which company performed it. Its value lies in the direct evidence of Lewkenor’s interest in arranging a theatrical occasion.

The Globe: the Moor of Venice before a foreign prince

In 1610 Louis Frederick of Württemberg visited England on a diplomatic mission. The account associated with his secretary, Hans Jacob Wurmser von Vendenheim, connects the visit with both Lewkenor and Shakespeare’s theatre.

The itinerary records Sir Lewes Lewkenor receiving the visiting prince at Gravesend. During the same visit, the prince went to the Globe.

The diary identifies the entertainment there as the history of the Moor of Venice: a description recognised as Shakespeare’s Othello.

This is a particularly engaging convergence. Lewkenor had published the Venetian account later identified as a source for the tragedy. His own military experience connected him with a foreign commander serving Venice. His diplomatic employment now brought him into the reception of a visitor who saw the play.

The record establishes the reception and the theatrical visit. It does not establish that Lewkenor attended that performance, selected the play or accompanied the prince to the Globe.

The distinction preserves the strength of the documented connection: the translator’s diplomatic career and the performance history of Othello meet within the itinerary of the same foreign visitor.

Wurmser’s travel diary, 1610, discussed and excerpted in Albert Cohn, Shakespeare in Germany in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1865); manuscript cited there as British Museum, Additional MS 20001.

Why the evidence must be read together

The relationship between Lewes Lewkenor and Shakespeare’s Othello brings together a printed source, personal military experience, diplomatic service and theatrical records.

The literary connection begins with The Commonwealth and Government of Venice, published in 1599. Lewkenor made an extensive account of the republic’s institutions, magistrates, military arrangements and geography available in English.

Malone identified the officers of night as a particular point of contact between the book and the tragedy. Other comparisons invite examination, although their evidential strength varies. A distinctive institutional reference carries more weight than a general resemblance in subject or vocabulary.

Lewkenor’s biography adds a further dimension. His acknowledgement of service under Giovanni Battista del Monte connects the translator personally with a foreign commander employed by Venice.

The Estate of English Fugitives opens another view of professional military life: its patronage, disappointments, divided allegiances and betrayals. These concerns offer a historical context for the relationships among Othello, Cassio and Iago.

The Moroccan embassy of 1600 adds a diplomatic connection. Lewkenor’s involvement in its reception places his career within an encounter between Elizabethan England and a distinguished North African visitor.

The later theatrical records extend the investigation. The Goldsmiths’ garden-house entry associates him with arrangements for a private play. The Württemberg itinerary connects his reception of a foreign prince with that visitor’s attendance at Othello at the Globe.

These connections deserve to be considered together while retaining the distinctions between them. Literary influence, biographical parallels and participation in diplomatic arrangements answer different historical questions.

Their convergence makes Lewkenor a valuable figure through whom to investigate the world of Othello. His career crossed continental warfare, political translation, Mediterranean diplomacy and the entertainment of foreign visitors at the English court.

The resulting picture is richer than a single proposed source: it brings the tragedy into conversation with the documented experience of a soldier, translator and court officer.

Continue: The Merchant of Venice →

Sources and further reading

Primary texts. Gasparo Contarini, translated and supplemented by Lewes Lewkenor, The Commonwealth and Government of Venice (1599); The Estate of English Fugitives (1595), published under the initials L. L. and generally attributed to Lewes Lewkenor; William Shakespeare, Othello. References to acts and scenes accompany the quotations. Modernised spelling is identified where used for Lewkenor.

Historical records. Walter Sherburne Prideaux, ed., Memorials of the Goldsmiths’ Company, vol. I (1896), including the garden-house entry for 1609; Hans Jacob Wurmser von Vendenheim’s travel diary (1610), discussed and excerpted in Albert Cohn, Shakespeare in Germany in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1865).

Source scholarship. Edmond Malone’s note on the officers of night, reproduced in later collected editions; H. C. Hart and Kenneth Muir on Shakespeare’s use of Lewkenor; T. Sipahigil, “Lewkenor and Othello: An Addendum,” Notes and Queries, new series 19 (1972), p. 127. Andrew Hadfield and B. J. Sokol provide further contexts for travel, strangers and Shakespeare’s Venetian world.

Illustrations and acknowledgements

Books and Venice. Lewkenor’s Commonwealth and Government of Venice (1599) and Estate of English Fugitives (1595): public-domain title pages via Wikimedia Commons. Othello, first quarto (1622): Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 22305, copy 1, via Wikimedia Commons. Jacopo de’ Barbari, View of Venice (1500): Minneapolis Institute of Art, 2010.88, The John R. Van Derlip Fund; public-domain reproduction via Google Arts & Culture and Wikimedia Commons.

Cyprus, ambassador and Globe. Map of Cyprus and Lemnos, after Abraham Ortelius, from the London Theatrum Orbis Terrarum dated 1606, possibly issued circa 1608: Folger Shakespeare Library, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Portrait of Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun (1600), unknown artist: University of Birmingham, Research and Cultural Collections, A0427; public-domain reproduction via Wikimedia Commons. Hollar’s drawing detail depicts the second Globe, a later building than the theatre visited in 1610. Individual captions link to the image records and applicable licensing information.

Opening illustration. The banner uses the image URL supplied from this website’s own collection.

The Master of the Ceremonies
Sir Lewes Lewkenor and Shakespeare’s World