Francis Bacon’s Hidden Hand in Shakespeare’s ‘The Merchant of Venice’

Sound Bite

Francis Bacon was linked to the play The Merchant of Venice in a book published in 1965. No one has ever challenged, or further explored, that assertion. Now Christina Waldman, JD, has utilized modern research tools to examine clues from within the play itself, the works of Francis Bacon, and legal history to explore the connections.She shows how the trial scene shifts from a "law court" to "chancery court," presaging an important evolution of the English legal system that Francis Bacon had long been quietly advocating, and she has turned up countless suggestive examples of word-play along with intriguing possible historical precedents for names and symbols used in the drama, adding layers of appreciation and pleasure to the reading.

About the Book

Could Bacon be Bellario in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice? This is the first book-length exploration of the mysterious Bellario, the old Italian jurist whose advice Portia seeks out. Because he is too ill to appear in court, he introduces Portia who appears in court his stead, taking the name of her male servant Balthazar. The play gives very few clues about Bellario's identity.

In a book published in 1965, Mark Edwin Andrews asserted that Francis Bacon was Bellario. Andrews argued not only that the author of the play The Merchant of Venice demonstrated vast knowledge of English jurisprudence and judicial systems, but that the play itself must have made legal history twenty years later, in 1616, in the case of Glanvill v. Courtney, by influencing two out of three of the top lawyers involved, a case with uncanny parallels to the play's courtroom drama with Shylock. Indeed, it was Francis Bacon who observed, "It partakes of a higher science to comprehend the force of equity that has suffused and penetrated the very nature of human society." Might he not have played a central role in bringing Equity into English jurisprudence?

As part of the Shakespeare authorship argument, this book explores whether Bellario was modelled on Francis Bacon - or whether Bacon, as the real author of the play, could have modelled Bellario on himself. Bacon was an innovator and reformer, an original thinker whose ideas helped pave the way for the modern world. Because Bacon took "all knowledge to be his province" and his genius touched upon many areas, this book explores a wide range of topics; for example, law, history, philosophy, linguistics, rhetoric, theology, and overlaps, such as the historical connections between law and literature. Countless "coincidences" or matches are found between words coined by Bacon and Shakespeare, and the characters' very names suggest a wealth of  punning, which the Elizabethans considered an art form. Further, she suggests the play should be understood as being set in 12th c. Venice, where Roman (civil) law was practiced - and that is what Bacon, who was tasked by the Queen to modernize the legal system, sought to introduce in London.

It is hoped this book will appeal to students of history, literature, law and pre-law, theatre, and legal historians, to students of Bacon and "Shakespeare" at a variety of levels, and to lawyers as well, who - as Daniel Kornstein predicted - all seem to eventually make their pilgrimage to The Merchant of Venice.

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Building on the work of Mark Edwin AndrewsMark Edwin Andrews produced a remarkable exploration of law and equity in The Merchant of Venice in which he argued two things: that Shakespeare had a vast and profound knowledge of the English judicial system, and that the play The Merchant of Venice actually influenced that system, by influencing the results in a court case twenty years later. In Glanvill v. Courtney, a centuries-long battle for jurisdiction between the courts of law and equity came to a head and was resolved ; for a time.He also pointed out the similarity between Portia's "quality of mercy" speech and the speech Sir Bacon drafted for King James for his 1616 decree resolving the dispute over jurisdiction. To this, Christina G. Waldman has added what appears to be an even parallel from a speech Bacon made before Parliament.Andrews was writing as a law student taking a summer Shakespeare course in 1935, a time when the authorship of "Shakespeare" by the Stratford actor was simply not contested by serious scholars. It was supposed to have been a two-week project. Waldman has picked up where Andrews left off, using his extensive, meticulous research as a jumping-off place.Entwined in Andrews;¢ arguments is his assertion, essentially ignored by scholars, that Bellario, the old Italian jurist who guides the action in the play by his pre-trial advice to Portia, is none other than Francis Bacon himself. Moreover, based on her own findings, Waldman persuasively suggests that someone more than an average English lawyer/playwright, apparently Francis Bacon himself, played an authorship role in The Merchant of Venice.Today, Shakespeare's knowledge of law is no longer contested, although where he obtained it has still not been explained under orthodox theories. Waldman has searched for clues within the play itself and within the works of Francis Bacon to explore connections between Bacon and Bellario.The relationship between Bacon and Bellario has apparently never before been explored, and Bacon's contributions to Anglo-American (if not the world's) jurisprudence have been largely been overlooked in recent times. Waldman found only one reference to a potential real-life model for Bellario, Keeton's remark that Karl Elze suggested Shakespeare may have had in mind Otto Discalzio, a 16th century Paduan jurist.Andrews argued the play was set in 16th century England, in a common law courtroom, and that the last half of the play seems to switch from common law jurisdiction ; as if it were being tried in the court of King's Bench ; to equity jurisdiction ; as it were being heard in Chancery, but it was all happening in the same courtroom. That would not have happened in 16th-century England.Waldman realized the setting should be understood as 12th-century Venice, not 16th-century England, although it's likely Shakespeare intended the comparison to be made, to write something that would be useful to his own day and age. Bacon was very much an advocate of practical knowledge, and he was a student of comparative law and legal history, history in general, pretty much taking all knowledge to be his province, as he said.Waldman was able to search the plays and the works of Bacon online in a way not available to Mark Edwin Andrews in 1935. Today, no one contests the abundance and accuracy of the law in Shakespeare, but no one can explain it if Bacon's authorship is ruled out. Waldman's book shows that the appreciation of law in The Merchant of Venice is deeper, of a higher order, than just common law or civilian procedure.The research Andrews did is amazing, finding cases in the old Year Books that bore relevance to Merchant. His work was praised by several Shakespeare scholars as well as by two United States Supreme Court judges. He posed the question but left it for someone of another generation to follow up and explore it in greater depth.Maybe now, 400 years after the play was written and 80 years after Mark Edwin Andrews wrote his book, we can decipher some of the most telling clues.