There were several translations of Shakespeare into Italian in the 19th century, but those by Carlo Rusconi, first published in 1838, were the first to use the English originals as their base. His translations were comparatively faithful, and popular with Italian actors who used them to introduce Shakespeare to their audiences. This is a copy of the 6th edition of his prose translation of Othello and features a parallel text of the original English alongside the Italian translation. The preface explains thtat he used the 1622 quarto text for his translation, with occasional reference to the Folio text.