Volto Barbaro (Barbarian Face Passage), Verona

The two rival families of the Montagues and the Capulets are forever immortalized in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. These families entered into constant bloody clashes.

The Volto Barbaro (Barbarian Face Passage) is located behind the Mazzanti Houses in the Market Square. This dark and narrow passage was the scene of many clashes between the Montagues and the Capulets.

The Volto Barbaro was the scene of the crime when Juliet's cousin, Tybalt, killed Romeo's best friend, Mercutio. There is a plaque on Palazzo Carlotti's facade memorializing this haunting event. The plaque features a bronze relief showing the duel between Tybalt and Mercutio.

The inscription on the plaque refers to text by author Matteo Bandello. This Lombard author told the tragic story of two doomed Veronese lovers thirty years before Shakespeare retold the story. The title of this novella was "The piteous death of two ill-fortuned lovers who died, the one of poison and the other of grief, with various circumstances thereunto appertaining."