Abstract
This article locates Shakespeare's Padua, a prestigious site of humanistic learning and eloquence, amidst allusions by his contemporaries. Emphasis is placed on the pleasure and profit derived from travel for pedagogic purposes, yet Shakespeare appears to give equal weight to commonplace fears about the potentially deforming distractions that alluring Italian cities offer unwary English travellers, and about the rival, licentious pleasures that might ensnare and corrupt unsuspecting youth. The final section offers an alternative portrait from the period, hinted at by Shakespeare: travel is recuperated as a readerly activity, and Italy is reconceived of as a text to read, quote, and imitate.
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