Much Ado About Nothing: The Setting

Much Ado About Nothing is set in the Italian port city of Messina, in what was then the present day, or the turn of the 17th century. Messina is a real place on the island of Sicily. It is one of Italy's biggest cities, with a population today of more than 250,000. Its main exports are all of the traditional Italian fare: wine, olives, lemons, and oranges. Fun fact: it may have been the place at which the Black Death entered Europe. Fun!



There are three other locations mentioned in the play - the hometowns of the three main male characters. They are:

• Padua, Italy - hometown of Benedick

• Padua is a city in northern Italy (in Veneto), which today has about the same population as that of Messina
• It is claimed to be the oldest city in northern Italy
• Shakespeare set another of his plays there, The Taming of the Shrew
• It has the oldest botanical garden in the world, which opened in 1545, so it was around and operational when Much Ado was taking place
• Its university, The University of Padua, which was founded in 1222, is a very historically significant university, with such professors and students as Copernicus and Galileo
• It also boasts the first female college graduate in the world, Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia, in 1678. Appropriate, perhaps, that our most feminist character hails from this progressive city, don't you think?

• Florence, Italy - hometown of Claudio

• Florence is also located in northern Italy (in Tuscany), slightly southwest of Padua
• The city itself has a population of almost 400,000, and the metro area has a population of more than 1.5 million
• It's the birthplace of the Renaissance
• The Medici family, one of the most significant families in history, lived in Florence. They were ruling Tuscany while Much Ado was taking place.
• For a short time, it was the capital of the Kingdom of Italy
• Today, it's one of the fashion capitals of the world

• Aragon, Spain - hometown of Don Pedro

• Aragon is a region in northeast Spain
• At the time Much Ado was set, it was very powerful, and much of Italy (including Sicily) was under the crown of Aragon
• The biggest city in Aragon today is the region's capital, Zaragoza
• The region is very geologically diverse, including the Pyrenees mountains