White Devil

The White Devil (full original title: The White Divel; or, The Tragedy of Paulo Giordano Ursini, Duke of Brachiano. With The Life and Death of Vittoria Corombona the famous Venetian Curtizan) is a tragedy by English playwright John Webster (c. 1580 - c. 1634). The story is loosely based on an event in Italy thirty years prior to the play's composition: the murder of Vittoria Accoramboni in Padua on 22 December 1585. Webster's dramatisation of this event turned Italian corruption into a vehicle for depicting "e;the political and moral state of England in his own day"e;, particularly the corruption in the royal court. The play explores the differences between the reality of people and the way they depict themselves as good, "e;white"e;, or pure.