The traveller on the motorway between Milan and Venice will see, as he approaches Vicenza, two castles high up on his left. Overlooking the town of Montecchio Maggiore, they belonged to the family that Shakespeare called the Montagues: nobles who owed their loyalty to the ruling Scaligeri, or della Scala, of Verona. So the Montecchi did exist, as did the Capuleti: but the story of Romeo and Juliet seems to have been invented by Luigi da Porto, whose Istoria Novellamente Ritrovata di due Nobili Amanti was published in 1535, and it is from him and his Italian successors, rather than from Shakespeare, that I Capuleti e I Montecchi is derived.