Fact check: No evidence that Aemilia Bassano wrote all of Shakespeare’s plays

The claim: Amelia Bassano wrote all of Shakespeare’s plays and because she was Black, her work was not published

From late Supreme Court Justices John Paul Stevens and Antonin Scalia to Mark Twain and Walt Whitman, people for centuries have challenged the idea that William Shakespeare was not the true author behind the works attributed to him.

Now, the theory has made its way to social media.

“Amelia (SIC) Bassano is the lady who wrote all of Shakespeare’s plays. Because she was black they would not publish her work,” reads a Sept. 22 Facebook post. “She died in poverty because she never received a dime for her work. Shakespeare was illiterate and could barely write his own name.”

The user behind the post did not return USA TODAY’s request for comment.

The claim also made the rounds in 2015 and was later debunked by Snopes and again in 2019 by Africa Check.

Fact check: Origin stories for popular phrases are nothing more than urban legends

Who is Aemilia Bassano?

Aemilia Bassano, who later went by the last name Lanyer, was the daughter of Baptist Bassano, a court musician, and Margaret Johnson, according to the Poetry Foundation. She lived from 1569-1645.

“Aemilia Lanyer was the first woman writing in English to produce a substantial volume of poetry designed to be printed and to attract patronage,” the foundation writes.

Bassano also ran a school in a wealthy London suburb from 1617-19, where she wanted “to teach and educate the children of diverse persons of worth and understanding,” however, she later lost the lease to the building and reportedly did not attempt to teach again.

According to the Shakespearean Authorship Trust, “she was one of the first women to own and operate a school and the first woman to publish a book of original poetry Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (1611).” She died in poverty.

Woman in the photo is not Bassano

The woman in the post that users claim to be Bassano is actually a painting called "Portrait of a Moorish woman" by Italian painter Paolo Veronese.

Snopes found that Bassano was not Black, and that biographies of her write she “was part of a family of Italian court musicians of Moroccan/Semitic ancestry who lived as clandestine Jews.”

The Shakespeare’s Conspirator notes that because no verified paintings of Bassano exist, “nobody knows with certainty what she looked like.”

Historians often speculated that a portrait by Nicholas Hillard in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London could be Bassano. Others also believe the portrait of the woman could be Mary Fitton, a maid of honor to Queen Elizabeth I.

No evidence Bassano wrote plays

Michael Dobson, a professor of Shakespeare studies and director of the Shakespeare Institute, said Bassano, Elizabeth I, James I and the Earl of Rutland are just some of the many celebrities people claim as the author of Shakespeare's plays.

"An enormous range of documentary evidence of all kinds, including eyewitness reports from Shakespeare's colleagues, patrons, fans, employers, neighbours and printers, confirms that the plays and poems published as William Shakespeare's were written by William Shakespeare, one of the least illiterate people in world history," Dobson told USA TODAY in an email.

He said conspiracy theories denying Shakespeare's authorship only started up during the mid-19th century, 250 years after Shakespeare's death.

The Shakespearean Authorship Trust writes that Bassano was introduced as one of 66 candidates of writing Shakespeare's plays in 2007, during a lecture at the Smithsonian Institution in part of the Washington Shakespeare Festival by John Hudson.

Many candidates have been proposed as the author of Shakespeare's work, but no evidence exists to prove it.

Parlia reports that while Bassano's name occurs in a number of Shakespeare's plays, her writing style has no resemblance to Shakespeare's and her poetry is a more "conventional and religious writing style more closely associated with her time."

"There is nothing to definitively suggest that Bassano was anything more than a friend or mistress who inspired Shakespeare and conferred experiences of foreign lands and literature which would later feature in his plays," reads the Parlia article.

History.com reports that Shakespeare supporters, known as Stratfordians, emphasize that the body of evidence that does exist leads back to Shakespeare as the author, and no one else.

Shakespeare professor Stephen Marche wrote in the New York Times that among Shakespeare scholars, "the idea has roughly the same currency as the faked moon landing does among astronauts."

Our ruling: False

We rate this claim as FALSE, based on our research. The woman in the photo is not Bassano, and there is no definitive evidence that suggests she was the author behind Shakespeare's plays.

Our fact-check sources:

• Poetry Foundation, Æmilia Lanyer

• Shakespearean Authorship Trust, Amelia Bassano Lanyer

• Artnet, Portrait of a Moorish woman

• Shakespeare's Conspirator, EMILIA BASSANO LANYER:A WOMAN OF COLOR OF NORTH AFRICAN DESCENT

• Parlia, The case for Emilia Bassan

• Snopes, Aug. 20, 2015, Amelia Bassano: The True Shakespeare?

• Africa Check, Aug. 29, 2019, No evidence shows that Aemilia Bassano was the ‘real Shakespeare’

• History.com, May 11, Did Shakespeare Really Write His Own Plays?

• Michael Dobson, USA TODAY email interview

• New York Times, Oct. 21, 2011, Wouldn’t It Be Cool if Shakespeare Wasn’t Shakespeare?

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: No evidence Aemilia Bassano wrote Shakespeare’s plays