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Dennj Solera
The Merchant of Padua?
The Doctorate of
Roderigo Lopez and its Importance for the Shakespearean Shylock
(doi: 10.17396/102622)
Annali di Storia delle università italiane (ISSN 1127-8250)
Fascicolo 2, luglio-dicembre 2021
Ente di afferenza:
Università di Bologna (unibo)
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STUDI
Dennj Solera*
The Merchant of Padua? The Doctorate
of Roderigo Lopez and its Importance
for the Shakespearean Shylock
On 20th July 1559, on what was probably a sultry day, as are so many during the
summers in Padua, a number of students, professors and aristocrats decided to
put off their other commitments to meet in this city. That was an important
date, a date when an unmissable appointment had been scheduled. We would
have seen them appearing, hot, singly or in groups, some perhaps out of breath
hurrying not to be late, from the dense grid of narrow streets leading to the
cathedral before entering, one by one, the bishop’s palace. Assembling there
was a rather varied group of people, made up of scholars, men of the Church
and prominent figures of the local and Italian nobility. It would have been possible to pick out Gian Vincenzo Pinelli, scion of a noble family from Genoa
which had moved to Naples and a student of law at the University of Padova1;
Francesco da Ponte, a member of an important Venetian family as well as the
nephew of a future doge and of a well-known heterodox2; the Venetian aristocrat Giorgio Corner, bishop of Treviso3; another religious man, Giovanni
* Dennj Solera, Università di Bologna, Dipartimento di Storia Culture Civiltà, dennj.solera@unibo.it
1 See M. Callegari, Pinelli, Gian Vincenzo, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani (DBI), Roma, Istituto della
Enciclopedia italiana, 83, 2005, ad vocem; A.M. Raugei, Gian Vincenzo Pinelli e la sua biblioteca, Genève,
Droz, 2018. Many aspects of this eclectic nobleman still need specific research, for instance Pinelli’s
relationships with very influential men resident in Rome. I will be analysing Pinelli’s relations with the
papal court in a forthcoming study. I would like to thank Francesco Piovan and my colleagues at the
DISGEA Department in Padova for helping me with many aspects of this research.
2 Francesco (1537-1570) was the son of Alvise da Ponte (born in 1514) and of Anzola Bragadin di
Fantin. He taught some public courses of philosophy and Latin-Greek literature, Archivio di Stato di
Venezia, Miscellanea codici, Storia veneta (Genealogie Barbaro, vol. 6, P-S), b. 17, p. 204. His father was the
brother of Andrea da Ponte (1509-1585), who fled Venice in 1560 to Geneva because he was wanted by
the Roman Inquisition, cfr. F. Ambrosini, Storie di patrizi e di eresia nella Venezia del ’500, Milano, Franco
Angeli, 1999. Another brother of Alvise, Niccolò da Ponte (1491-1585), would become doge in 1578.
3 Giorgio (1524-1578) was the son of Giovanni Corner, procurator of San Marco, Venetian ambassador
to the Emperor, Count Palatine and nephew of the last Queen of Cyprus. He was consecrated as auxiliary
bishop of Treviso in 1538 by his uncle the cardinal Francesco Pisani. Giovanni would become papal
nuncio in Tuscany in 1561 and he participated in the last session of the Council of Trent (1562-1563),
Enrico Stumpo, Corner, Giorgio, in DBI, 29, 1982, ad vocem.
ANNALI DI STORIA DELLE UNIVERSITÀ ITALIANE • 2/2021
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12. The Merchant of Padua? The Doctorate of Roderigo Lopez and its Importance for the Shakespearean Shylock
12. Annali di Storia delle università italiane, 2021
The essay critically discusses the graduation report of Roderigo Lopez, a Portuguese student proclaimed artium et medicinae doctor at the Paduan Studium in 1559. The meticulous analysis of the document and the reconstruction of the social, political, scientific and academic context of the time, allows us to recognize a celebrity of the 16th century in the Lusitanian student Roger Lopez (1517/1525-1594). He was personal physician of Elizabeth I of England and an important intermediary between the last court of the Tudors, Portugal and Spain of Philip II; he was finally sentenced to death by quartering. Shakespearean scholars believe that the poet was inspired by Lopez personal tragedy to outline the figure of Shylock, the Jew of the Merchant of Venice (about 1596-1598). The article proposes the thesis according to which the Paduan student is the future Elizabethan doctor, as many biographical information and some aspects of the English literary masterpiece seem to confirm. This would finally explain what prompted the Portuguese to move to England, how he was able to make such a prestigious career and to enjoy such a vast credit at court, and why he was executed. That was a complex story in which Francis Walsingham’s stay in Padua and Lopez’s real adherence to Judaism could have played a decisive role. The true archetype of Shylock could therefore have been a «Paduan» doctor.
Keywords: Jews – William Shakespeare – Portugal – Elisabeth I – Francis Walsingham...Read more
