The entirety of The Revenger’s Tragedy is set in an unnamed court in Italy. In the drama and poetry of Jacobean England, Italy was often used as an exotic and distant location, seemingly far-removed from the political struggles and controversies of England. One advantage to using Italy as a setting was that it offered playwrights greater liberties regarding satire and political expression in a period in which any perceived critique of the English crown could be met with harsh punishment.
In this play, the Italian setting serves as a dark and morally decadent backdrop in which vice can be magnified for satirical purposes. The Italian court in particular serves as a microcosm of this wider decadence. There, treachery, lust, and violence are not only tolerated but seem to thrive, and the boundaries between right and wrong have eroded entirely. Further, this foreign setting allows the audience to witness a society where corruption has saturated even the highest echelons of society, without the risk of offense to Britain’s own ruling nobility. The courtly setting in Italy is crucial to the play’s biting satire of the immorality often associated with European courts at the time.
One of the most memorable scenes in the play takes place during a masquerade, a quintessential Italian setting in works of the period. This masquerade becomes a symbol of the pervasive deceit that characterizes the world of The Revenger's Tragedy, helping characters conceal their shocking moral transgressions, including incest and rape. Antonio, whose wife is raped at a masque, notes that the event allows courtiers to wear "better faces" than their own. Those attending the masquerade wear masks to hide their true identities and intentions, reflecting the duplicitous nature of the Italian court and the society it governs.
