Did Romeo and Juliet really exist? They did, according to popular tradition which, to this day¹, has preserved the sites where the final tragedy took place (Juliet’s tomb) and where the two lovers exchanged their vows² of love (Juliet’s house and balcony).
Yet old Veronese chroniclers do not mention the sad story, except Girolamo dalla Corte who, in his Storia di Verona, 1594, mentions the fact as really happened in 1303. His report was based on two novelle, one by Luigi Da Porto (1535) and the other by Matteo Bandello (1554), which had made the tragedy known even outside Italy.
It seems quite strange that Dante (1265-1321), who twice found protection in Verona during his exile, should not refer such a dramatic episode. It not only offered good material for a love story full of pathos (remember Paolo and Francesca), but also an example of the bad effects of civil discord.
In Canto VI of Purgatorio, Dante records the names of two real families, Montecchi and Capelletti, but only the Montecchi lived in Verona, the Capelletti came from Cremona.
The story of the two ill-fated³ lovers was published in England by Arthur Brooke, in 1562; his long poem, called The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet, became the main source⁴ of Shakespeare’s play, where the only historically founded element is the setting, Verona.