You walk along via Cappello and wonder: did Shakespeare ever come here? The answer is almost certainly no. And yet Verona has become the city of Romeo and Juliet in a way so deeply rooted it feels inevitable. The reason is no whim of the English playwright — it is a literary story sixty years in the making, crossing three countries and at least five authors before reaching the stage of the Globe Theatre.
Who Really Wrote Romeo and Juliet? The True Veronese Origin
The short answer: the story was first written by a Vicentine captain wounded in battle, not by Shakespeare. It was Luigi da Porto, in his Historia novellamente ritrovata di due nobili amanti, published around 1530, who gave the story its modern form: he renamed the protagonists Romeo and Juliet and moved the action to Verona. The choice of a Veronese setting was most likely inspired by Dante's Commedia.
The connection to Dante is far from decorative. The rivalry between the Montecchi and the Capuleti ran so deep that Dante Alighieri, a guest of the Scaligeri between 1303 and 1304, mentions it in Canto VI of the Purgatorio: "Vieni a veder Montecchi e Cappelletti… color già tristi, e questi con sospetti." Da Porto drew on that Dantesque reference and built an entire narrative architecture around it.
There is, however, an even more intimate detail. Before he was wounded in battle, Luigi da Porto had lived through a bitter heartbreak: at a ball in Venice he had fallen in love with Lucina Savorgnan, only to meet the unyielding opposition of her father, driven by rivalry between their families. The tragedy of the two Veronese lovers was, at its core, also a personal confession.
Da Porto set the story in Verona, a city of strategic importance to Venice, during the rule of Bartolomeo I della Scala. It was he who invented the names Romeo and Juliet and created the characters of Mercuzio, Tebaldo, Frate Lorenzo, and Paride.
How the Story of Verona Reached London: The Journey of a Legend
The story of Romeo and Juliet began to circulate immediately, was reprinted and rewritten many times. In 1553 two versions appeared: a prose version by the storyteller Matteo Bandello, and a verse version by the Veronese nobleman Gherardo Boldieri. It was Veronese writers themselves, then, who consolidated the story's geographical identity — fixing even the physical locations of the Scaligeri city into the plot.
The story quickly gained great fame across Europe, with versions written by the Englishman Arthur Brooke in 1562 and William Painter in 1569. Shakespeare had to make do with Arthur Brooke's version — a translation that scholars describe as verbose and clumsy compared to the quality of the original Italian source.
It is often said that Shakespeare set many of his works in Italy. The truth is that Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Othello, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona all revolve around situations rooted not in the Italian peninsula in general, but in the Veneto of the Republic of Venice. In Shakespeare's England, tales set in Italy were enormously popular and drew large, enthusiastic audiences.
Verona, moreover, offered Shakespeare a politically eloquent backdrop. The internal struggles of the Italian states against the Papal State, and the increasingly sharp schism between English sovereigns and the Catholic Church, were topics felt with great intensity. Verona thus became the perfect setting for a private tragedy playing out against the wider backdrop of national catastrophe.
It is thanks to Shakespeare, however, that this story became a myth and brings millions of visitors to Verona every year. The Bard took existing material and condensed it: the timeframe of the action shrinks from several months to four days and four nights, making the tension and emotions of the work all the more intense.
La Casa di Giulietta in 2026: What to Know Before You Go
La Casa di Giulietta, at via Cappello 23, is a medieval tower-house documented as far back as 1351. It is associated with Luigi da Porto's novella and immortalised by Shakespeare in 1596. The building originally housed an inn and was identified as the home of the Capulets in the 18th century.
2026 update: from 1 April 2026, entry to the Courtyard and Casa di Giulietta is exclusively through the Teatro Nuovo in Piazzetta Navona. Admission: courtyard and Teatro Nuovo only €5.00; courtyard + Casa di Giulietta €12.00. Online booking is mandatory even for those entitled to free admission, including VeronaCard holders. Book at verona.midaticket.it — there are no on-site ticket offices.
Opening hours: Monday 14:00–19:00; Tuesday–Sunday 9:00–19:00. A local tip: arrive between 9:00–10:30 or after 17:30 — the courtyard is far less crowded and the late-afternoon light on the balcony is just right for photographs.
It is well worth also visiting the Tomba di Giulietta, in the Museo degli Affreschi G.B. Cavalcaselle at via Luigi da Porto 5. Around 1560, it was Gherardo Boldieri who suggested that a medieval sarcophagus in the garden of the church of San Francesco al Corso was the tomb of the young heroine — and so the Veronese "myth" of Romeo and Juliet was born. The underground crypt, quiet and almost always less crowded than La Casa di Giulietta, holds an atmosphere that the historic centre of Verona offers in very few other places.
For your stay in Verona, the apartments of The Verona Stay are located in the heart of the historic centre: The Verona Stay Arena at via Roma 21, a few steps from Piazza Bra, and The Verona Stay Ristori near the Teatro Ristori. From both properties, Casa di Giulietta is reachable on foot in under ten minutes — no taxi, no bus, and not a single alleyway missed.