The Duchess of Padua Book download in PDF, ePub & Mobi

The Duchess of Padua is a tragedy written by Oscar Wilde and first published in 1908.

Set in Renaissance Italy, the play follows a young man who arrives in Padua to right a family wrong and instead becomes entangled with the city’s duchess. What begins as a quest for justice turns into a collision between revenge and forbidden love, where private vows undermine public duty.

As plots tighten and loyalties shift, the court’s cruelty forces desperate acts: a clandestine murder, a public trial, and sacrifices made to shield the innocent. The lovers find themselves trapped by moral choices with fatal consequences, their hopes crushed by the very code of honor they try to uphold.

Written in lyrical blank verse with clear echoes of Elizabethan drama, Wilde’s early play offers a dark meditation on power, passion, and the price of desire. Though less performed than his later comedies, it showcases his flair for heightened language and the tragic cost of pursuing virtue in a corrupt world.

"The Market Place of Padua at noon; in the background is the great Cathedral of Padua; the architecture is Romanesque, and wrought in black and white marbles; a flight of marble steps leads up to the Cathedral door; at the foot of the steps are two large stone lions; the houses on each aide of the stage have coloured awnings from their windows, and are flanked by stone arcades; on the right of the stage is the public fountain, with a triton in green bronze blowing from a conch..."