Finally, the other claim to fame for Emilia Bassano was that of having been, without a doubt, the mistress of William Shakespeare. We say “without a doubt,” though this theory, avanced in The Times by the historian A. L. Rowse, is subject to controversy. But all the evidence seems to suggest it. Emilia’s mother, as we know, was named Margaret Johnson: she was the aunt of Robert Johnson, lutenist and composer, musician for Shakespeare’s theater company. Another piece of evidence is the fact that the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Hunsdon, Emilia’s lover, became in 1594 the patron of Shakespeare’s company of actors. The scant facts which are known of Shakespeare’s biography will never allow absolute certainty. Shakespeare’s sonnets are made up of two parts: the first, dedicated to a young man he became very attached to, most probably the young Count of Southampton; the second has for its theme the love of the poet for a woman of easy virtue (“The bay where all men ride”), though married, with dark hair and eyes, known as the “Dark Lady.” We know that Emilia, Italian, was of Sephardic Jewish origin, thus of a very Mediterranean type. Another strange coincidence: the romantic character in the Merchant of Venice is a Venetian named... Bassanio. Where did Shakespeare hunt up this name, and where did he get his detailed knowledge of Italy? Moreover, actors and musicians mixed freely at the Court, and one knows that Shakespeare, as well as Ben Jonson, collaborated with Thomas Lupo, another relative of Emilia’s through marriage. Finally, Shakespeare, in one of these sonnets, calls his mistress “my music.” Who, more than Emilia—Bassano by birth, Lanier by marriage—was immersed in music, even if we do not know if she herself was a musician?

Emilia Bassano, poet, courtesan, mistress of Shakespeare? Whatever the truth may be, Emilia, as we see her, is a fascinating and mysterious woman who, today as yesterday, does not reveal herself completely and retains her independence. But she is worthy of being known, and above all serves as a guide to lead us into the musical life of England in the late-16th and 17th centuries.

In 1994, a musician named Peter Goodwin, born in 1945, a member of the Philharmonia Orchestra, professor of sackbut and trombone at the Royal College of Music in London, member of His Majesty’s Sagbutts and Cornetts, the English Baroque Soloists, and The English Concert, decided to change his name: from then on he would be called Peter Bassano. He was the distant descendant of one Giovanni Bassano. From henceforth, he consecrated himself to the repertoire of his forebears....