<p> Richard Paul Roe spent more than twenty years traveling the length and breadth of Italy on a literary quest of unparalleled significance. </p> <p> Using the text from Shakespeare?s ten ?Italian Plays? as his only compass, Roe determined the exact locations of nearly every scene in <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>, <i>The Two Gentlemen of Verona</i>, <i>The Merchant of Venice</i>, <i>Much Ado about Nothing</i>, <i>The Tempest</i>, and the remaining dramas set in Italy. His chronicle of travel, analysis, and discovery paints with unprecedented clarity a picture of what the Bard must have experienced before penning his plays. </p> <p> Equal parts literary detective story and vivid travelogue?containing copious annotations and more than 150 maps, photographs, and paintings?<i>The Shakespeare Guide to Italy</i> is a unique, compelling, and deeply provocative journey that will forever change our understanding of how to read the Bard . . . and irrevocably alter our vision of who William Shakespeare really was. </p>