Want to know the setting of Romeo and Juliet? See each setting Shakespeare used in the play on the map below. Shakespeare set Romeo and Juliet in two different Italian locations. Most of the action takes place in Verona and a small portion in Mantua. Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences had special prejudices about Italy, so when a dramatist of the time set a play in Italy it was a kind of shorthand that said, ‘this play is about blood feuds, sexual passion and violence.’ The audiences attending Romeo and Juliet were not disappointed. It is set in Verona, Italy, which is unbearably hot in summer. It is at midday on a very hot day that the central action, the death of Mercutio, takes place. We have already seen a lot of sexual passion by now but the violence we now see is the dramatic device that puts the tragedy into top gear. The Italian setting perfectly suits the action. The map below shows all the settings of Romeo and Juliet that Shakespeare used. You can zoom in on the map for a more detailed view of an area, and click the icons on the map for more information. Text in quotation marks are the specific locations Shakespeare references in his Romeo and Juliet text.
TL;DR (may contain spoilers): The classic story of boy meets girl; girl's family hates boy's family; boy's family hates girl's family; boy kills girl's cousin; boy and girl kill themselves. Romeo and Juliet SummaryAn age-old vendetta between two powerful families erupts into bloodshed. A group of masked Montagues risk further conflict by gatecrashing a Capulet party. A young lovesick Romeo Montague falls instantly in love with Juliet Capulet, who is due to marry her father’s choice, the County Paris. With the help of Juliet’s nurse, the women arrange for the couple to marry the next day, but Romeo’s attempt to halt a street fight leads to the death of Juliet’s own cousin, Tybalt, for which Romeo is banished. In a desperate attempt to be reunited with Romeo, Juliet follows the Friar’s plot and fakes her own death. The message fails to reach Romeo, and believing Juliet dead, he takes his life in her tomb. Juliet wakes to find Romeo’s corpse beside her and kills herself. The grieving family agree to end their feud.
More detail: 2 minute read Act IRomeo and Juliet begins as the Chorus introduces two feuding families of Verona: the Capulets and the Montagues. On a hot summer's day, the young men of each faction fight until the Prince of Verona intercedes and threatens to banish them. Soon after, the head of the Capulet family plans a feast. His goal is to introduce his daughter Juliet to a Count named Paris who seeks to marry Juliet. Montague's son Romeo and his friends (Benvolio and Mercutio) hear of the party and resolve to go in disguise. Romeo hopes to see his beloved Rosaline at the party. Instead, while there, he meets Juliet and falls instantly in love with her. Juliet's cousin Tybalt recognises the Montague boys and forces them to leave just as Romeo and Juliet discover one another.  Romeo lingers near the Capulet house to talk with Juliet when she appears in her window. The pair declare their love for one another and intend to marry the next day. With the help of Juliet's Nurse, the lovers arrange to marry when Juliet goes for confession at the cell of Friar Laurence. There, they are secretly married (talk about a short engagement).
Following the secret marriage, Juliet's cousin Tybalt sends a challenge to Romeo. Romeo refuses to fight, which angers his friend Mercutio who then fights with Tybalt. Mercutio is accidentally killed as Romeo intervenes to stop the fight. In anger, Romeo pursues Tybalt, kills him, and is banished by the Prince. Juliet is anxious when Romeo is late to meet her and learns of the brawl, Tybalt's death, and Romeo's banishment. Friar Laurence arranges for Romeo to spend the night with Juliet before he leaves for Mantua. Meanwhile, the Capulet family grieves for Tybalt, so Lord Capulet moves Juliet's marriage to Paris to the next day. Juliet’s parents are angry when Juliet doesn't want to marry Paris, but they don't know about her secret marriage to Romeo.
Friar Laurence helps Juliet by providing a sleeping draught that will make her seem dead. When the wedding party arrives to greet Juliet the next day, they believe she is dead. The Friar sends a messenger to warn Romeo of Juliet's plan and bids him to come to the Capulet family monument to rescue his sleeping wife. Ready to test your knowledge? Have a go at our multiple choice Romeo and Juliet Quiz The vital message to Romeo doesn't arrive in time because the plague is in town (so the messenger cannot leave Verona). Hearing from his servant that Juliet is dead, Romeo buys poison from an Apothecary in Mantua. He returns to Verona and goes to the tomb where he surprises and kills the mourning Paris. Romeo takes his poison and dies, while Juliet awakens from her drugged coma. She learns what has happened from Friar Laurence, but she refuses to leave the tomb and stabs herself. The Friar returns with the Prince, the Capulets, and Romeo's lately widowed father. The deaths of their children lead the families to make peace, and they promise to erect a monument in Romeo and Juliet's memory. For additional reading, see our blogs on Romeo and Juliet Discover more of Shakespeare's romantic lines: Shakespeare Quotes on Love
Verona is a city in northeastern Italy. In Shakespeare’s lifetime, it was part of the Venetian Republic, but until 1405 it had been an independent city-state. The Verona of Romeo and Juliet seems to be independent and with its own prince, who authorizes and enforces local laws. It seems likely, then, that the play takes place sometime in the fourteenth century. Curiously, audiences in Shakespeare’s own time would have already associated the city of Verona with a pair of ill-fated young lovers named Romeo Montecchi and Giulietta Cappelletti. These are the protagonists of a 1530 story by the Italian writer Luigi da Porto concerning two Veronese lovers caught on either side of a family feud. In the 1560s, Arthur Brooke penned a popular poem that translated da Porto’s story into English, and the translation quickly went through several editions. Thus, by the time Shakespeare adapted the popular story for the stage, Verona would already have been well-known in England as a site of tragedy. (On the other hand, Shakespeare often set his comedies in Italy, and the play at first seems like it might go in the direction of a comedy.) Even if Shakespeare’s audience hadn’t been familiar with da Porto’s story of Veronese lovers, Romeo and Juliet’s Italian setting would still have signaled that the play is about extreme passions. In Shakespeare’s day, many people shared the popular belief that hot climates induced passionate behaviors. Benvolio, for instance, worries about encountering the Capulets because “[F]or now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring” (III.i.4). But Italy was particularly associated with romantic passion, a fact Shakespeare alludes to when Mercutio teases Romeo for imitating the language of an Italian poet famous for his love sonnets: “Now is he for the numbers Petrarch flowed in” (II.iv.14). Shakespeare also reflects the popular belief that Italian women are more sexually passionate than English women when he gives Juliet explicitly erotic language. It’s therefore likely that English Renaissance audiences would have believed that Romeo and Juliet’s intense passion for one another resulted in part from the Italian climate and culture, and not solely from their individual choices. In this sense, the Italian setting reinforces the play’s overarching theme that the lovers cannot escape their fate. In addition to reflecting popular beliefs about Italy, Romeo and Juliet also emphasizes the division between two symbolic worlds that Romeo and Juliet inhabit within Verona. The first of these worlds is the dangerous, masculine world of the streets, where Romeo roves about with other rash and reckless youths. The second of these worlds is the secluded, feminine world of the Capulet house, where Juliet remains confined. The symbolic division between these two worlds reinforces the difficulty the two lovers face in their attempts to be together. In fact, the division remains so strict that the only reason the lovers even meet is that Romeo forces entry into the Capulet house on two occasions—first, to crash the ball, and later, to have a private meeting with Juliet. Aside from the strictly divided worlds of the street and the Capulet house, there also exists a third, neutral space—that is, the church where Friar Laurence presides over Romeo and Juliet’s secret wedding. Although the neutrality of the church officially enables their union, it ultimately cannot protect the lovers from the powers that otherwise seek to confine them to their own symbolic worlds.
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