Juliet never existed. And yet, in Verona, she has a house, a balcony, a tomb, a statue — and even a postal address. In this month’s first episode, I go to Verona to explore the extraordinary afterlife of Shakespeare’s most famous heroine, and to ask how a fictional character became so firmly embedded in the physical fabric of a real city. We follow Juliet’s journey from the Italian stories that preceded Shakespeare through centuries of literary tourism, theatrical performance, art, cinema and heritage-making. Along the way, we visit Juliet’s supposed tomb, encounter nineteenth-century travellers searching for traces of Shakespeare’s lovers, and discover how the balcony we now think of as inseparable from Romeo and Juliet became part of the story. We also meet Antonio Avena, whose twentieth-century transformation of Casa di Giulietta helped turn Shakespeare’s imagined Verona into architecture visitors could actually enter. But Juliet’s afterlife doesn’t stop with houses, tombs and balconies. Every year, people from around the world write letters to Juliet about love, heartbreak, loneliness and hope — and in Verona, the Secretaries of Juliet write back. So when does a fictional character begin to feel real? And what happens when readers love a story so much that the real world starts reshaping itself around it? In this episode: • The stories of Romeo and Juliet before Shakespeare• Dante, the Montecchi and Cappelletti, and Verona’s medieval past• The curious history of Juliet’s tomb and literary pilgrimage• Why Shakespeare’s famous “balcony scene” didn’t originally require a balcony• Antonio Avena and the reinvention of Casa di Giulietta• Verona’s wells, legends and other stories of tragic lovers• The Juliet Club and the Secretaries who answer letters addressed to Juliet• Why Juliet — rather than Romeo — became the emotional centre of Verona’s Shakespearean identity• Tourism, souvenirs, pilgrimage and our desire to make fictional worlds tangible Because perhaps Verona didn’t simply turn Juliet into a tourist attraction. Perhaps generations of readers, travellers, artists, actors, filmmakers and visitors collectively helped to bring her into being. Readers asked for Juliet. Verona answered.
