Shakespeare may or may not have read da Porto's novella,
but in any case it initiated a tradition which culminates in Shake-
speare's direct source. In addition to naming the lovers Romeo
and Giulietta and setting them against a background of civil
strife, da Porto names the Friar Lorenzo; invents the characters
of Marcuccio, Tebaldo, and the Conte di Lodrone ( Shakespeare's
Mercutio, Tybalt, and Paris); develops the characters of Giu-
lietta's mother and father; introduces the meeting of the lovers
at a Cappelletti ball which Romeo attends in disguise; con-
siderably develops the psychology, dialogue, and actions of the
lovers beyond Masuccio; and, possibly under the influence of
Ovid's story of Pyramus and Thisbe ( Metamorphoses, IV. 55-166),
substitutes for Masuccio's ending substantially Shakespeare's,
except that Giulietta's suitor does not appear at the tomb and
that Giulietta awakens before Romeo dies of poison and herself
commits suicide by holding her breath.

Da Porto's novella is in turn the source of one of Matteo Bandello
's Novelle ( 1554), 'La Sfortunata Morte di due infelicissimi
amanti, che l'uno di veleno e l'altro di dolore morirono.' ⁴ Ban-
dello's story is essentially da Porto's, but he adds to the tra-
dition many details which occur in Shakespeare: the name Paris
di Lodrone; an unnamed character corresponding to Benvolio; the
character of the Nurse, who takes over the plot functions of
Giulietta's maid and her servant Pietro in da Porto; the window
scene and the rope ladder; and the character of Fra Anselmo
( Shakespeare's Friar John) who, being quarantined for plague,
fails to inform Romeo of the potion plot. Bandello also makes
the Cappelletti the aggressors in the fight in which Romeo kills
Tebaldo, and he amplifies the love scenes, probably under the
influence of an earlier Italian version by Gerardo Boldieri ( 1553).

In 1559 Bandello's novella was translated into French with a
few significant variations by Pierre Boisteau as the third of his
Histoires Tragiques, 'L'Histoire de deux amants, dont l'un mourut
de venin, l'autre de tristesse.' Boisteau derives the character
of the apothecary from an earlier French version by Adrien
Sevin ( 1542), and he changes Bandello's ending by causing
Rhomeo to die before Juliette awakens and Juliette to kill
herself with Rhomeo's knife. In 1562 Boisteau's histoire was

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