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The Duke of Milan is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragedy written by Philip Massinger. First published in 1623, the play is generally considered among the author's finest achievements in drama. ^[1]

The play is loosely based on historical events in northern Italy in the 1525-30 period, during the Italian wars of Francis I of France versus Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain—though Massinger makes no attempt at, and maintains no pretense of, strict historical accuracy. His protagonist, the "supposed Duke of Milan," is called Ludovico Sforza, though the historical figure of that name predeceased the events of the play by a generation; Massinger conflates him with his son and successor, Francesco Sforza. Massinger's sources for Italian history in the relevant era were William Thomas's The History of Italy (1561) and Francesco Guicciardini's Historia d'Italia, most probably in Geoffrey Fenton's translation (third edition, 1618). The plot of the play actually derives from ancient history, specifically the story of Herod the Great as recorded in The Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities by the historian Josephus (which Massinger most likely knew in Thomas Lodge's 1602 translations).^[2]

The Duke of Milan also shows a strong debt to Shakespeare's Othello, for its general plot of a man betrayed by unreasoning jealousy into suspecting his innocent wife and so destroying himself. The concluding plot device of the corpse's poisoned kiss^[3] derives from two earlier plays, The Revenger's Tragedy (1606) and The Second Maiden's Tragedy (1611), both probably the work of Thomas Middleton.

Massinger's play was performed by the King's Men, most likely in 1621 or 1622; an apparent allusion to the imprisonment of the poet George Wither in Act III, scene ii makes sense at that point in time. (Othello, interestingly, was first printed in 1622.) It was first printed in quarto in 1623 by the stationer Edward Blackmore, who issued a second quarto in 1638. Massinger furnished Q1 with a dedication to Katherine Stanhope (ca. 1595–1636), the wife of Philip Lord Stanhope, Baron of Shelford; Massinger also dedicated his poem A New Year's Gift to her.^[4]

There is no record of a revival of The Duke of Milan during the Restoration era. A heavily adapted version by Richard Cumberland was staged at Covent Garden in 1779, but lasted only three performances. Massinger's original was revived by Edmund Kean at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1816; Kean hoped to repeat his sensational success as Sir Giles Overreach in A New Way to Pay Old Debts is another Massinger play. Kean, however, was not able to achieve the same breakthrough with The Duke of Milan.^[5]

1. ^ Logan And Smith, p. 101; Gibson, p. xi.
2. ^ Gibson, p. 3.
3. ^ Pollard, pp. 21, 82, 101-2.
4. ^ Gibson, p. 386. Katherine Stanhope was a cousin of Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke and a sister of Henry Hastings, 5th Earl of Huntingdon, the primary patron of John Fletcher, Massinger's longtime collaborator; Clark, p. 36.
5. ^ Gibson, pp. 3-4.

• Clark, Ira. Professional Playwrights: Massinger, Ford, Shirley & Brome. Lexington, KY, University Press of Kentucky, 1992.
• Gibson, Colin, ed. The Selected Plays of Philip Massinger. Cambridge, Camdribge University Press, 1978.
• Logan, Terence P., and Denzell S. Smith, eds. The Later Jacobean and Caroline Dramatists: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama. Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1978.
• Pollard, Tanya. Drugs and Theatre in Early Modern England. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005.