Join us to experience Romeo and Juliet as you’ve never experienced it before…

By the time William Shakespeare penned the first words of the most famous romantic tragedy of our time, another storyteller, Matteo Bandello, had already written Romeo and Juliet. In fact, Bandello’s stories had been translated into multiple languages across Europe before the doomed lovers inspired Shakespeare to create his world-famous play.

In this edition, Bandello’s original tale has been translated and formatted for the modern reader. His beautiful writing has a clarity and directness through which we hear, as never before, the words a real Romeo and Juliet might have said to each other. The star-crossed lovers we know are there, just as in the play, but their troubles are set in a real Verona, that Bandello knew personally.

As the tragedy unfolds to its bitter end, Bandello's heartrending story offers readers a more intimate experience of the anguish and joys that captured Shakespeare and an entire continent. Hidden for years in the ivory towers of scholarly study, Bandello’s influential tale finds new life in Michael Curtotti’s translation for lovers of romance and literature alike.

Michael Curtotti is an author and translator. His most recent translation is "Cinthio's Desdemona: The story which inspired Othello," continuing his work on Italian novellas whose plots contributed to Shakespeare plays. His Italian translation of Luke Whitington's poetry about Italy has also recently appeared in Italy Unveiled: A Journey in Poetry.
Michael's other works include The Dragon, the Witch and the Daughters, by the Sicilian writer Luigi Capuana; a touching tale about two orphans who work a magical change in the life of an old man and Ten Lives Declaring Human Rights: From Bartolome de las Casas to Martin Luther King Jr, a series of short biographies of key figures in the history of human rights. Together, their lives tell the story and meaning of human rights.