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  • D U C H E S S O F  M A L F I
    • John Webster (c. 1580 – c. 1634) was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, which are often regarded as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. His life and career overlapped William Shakespeare's.
      •  Most of what is otherwise known of him relates to his theatrical activities. Webster was still writing plays as late as the mid-1620s, but Thomas Heywood's Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels (licensed 7 November 1634) speaks of him in the past tense, implying he was then dead.
    • Webster's life is obscure, and the dates of his birth and death are not known. His father, a carriage maker also named John Webster, married a blacksmith's daughter named Elizabeth Coates on 4 November 1577, and it is likely that Webster was born not long after in or near London. 
      • The family lived in St. Sepulchre's parish. Father John, and Uncle, Edward Webster, were Freemen of the Merchant Taylors' Company and Webster attended Merchant Taylors' School in Suffolk Lane, London.
        • Their first child, John, was baptised at the parish of St Dunstan-in-the-West on 8 March 1605 or 1606. Bequests in the will of a neighbour who died in 1617, indicate that other children were born to him.
      • On 1 August 1598, "John Webster, lately of the New Inn" was admitted to the Middle Temple, one of the Inns of Court; in view of the legal interests evident in his dramatic work, this is possibly the playwright.
      • Webster married the 17-year-old Sara Peniall on 18 March 1606 at St Mary's Church, Islington. A special licence had to be obtained to permit a wedding in Lent, which was necessary as at the date of their marriage, Sara was seven months pregnant. 
    • The Duchess of Malfi was first performed in 1613 or 1614 by the King’s Men, the acting company to which Shakespeare belonged. 
      • The play was not printed until around ten years later in 1623, in quarto, a smaller and less expensive edition than the larger folio size used for the first edition of Shakespeare’s complete works.
      • The title page of this edition (shown in Figure 1) tells us that the play ‘was presented privatly, at the Blackfriers and publicly at the Globe’; that is, the play opened at the Blackfriars, the company’s indoor theatre, and then played at the open-air Globe.
    • The Renaissance was a rebirth of the human spirit, a rebirth of creativity. While taking the classical past as its model, the Renaissance was one of the most creative periods in human history, comparable only to the Golden Age of Hellenic Athens in the fifth century before Christ.
    • The Duchess of Malfi is based on the true story of Giovanna d’Aragona and her brothers Lodovico d’Aragona, Cardinal of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, and Carlo d’Aragona, Marquis of Gerace. Gionvanna was married in 1490 when she was about twelve years old. Her husband became Duke of Amalfi in 1493 and died in 1498.
      • Giovanna ruled as Duchess and at some point secretly married Antonio Bologna, the master of her household. They had three children and managed to keep this secret from her brothers until at least 1509, and probably until closer to November 1510, when she took a sudden pilgrimage to Loreto. It became clear that this was only a pretext for escape when she continued to Ancona to meet Antonio.
      • In 1513, Duchess and her two youngest children were probably murdered in Malfi, and soon afterwards, Antonio was killed in Milan. Their oldest child survived.
        • There is no historical evidence that the Duchess’s brothers were involved in these killings, but there is evidence the Duchess had long feared their retribution. Lodovico d’Aragona continued to enjoy power and success as cardinal, and died in Rome in 1519.
  • The Duchess of Malfi was first performed in 1613 or 1614 by the King’s Men, the acting company to which Shakespeare belonged. 
    • The play was not printed until around ten years later in 1623, in quarto, a smaller and less expensive edition than the larger folio size used for the first edition of Shakespeare’s complete works.
    • The title page of this edition (shown in Figure 1) tells us that the play ‘was presented privatly, at the Blackfriers and publicly at the Globe’; that is, the play opened at the Blackfriars, the company’s indoor theatre, and then played at the open-air Globe.

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