Compare and contrast Venice and Belmont. What is the significance of these distinct settings in the play?

In the sixteenth century, Venice was a robust and independent city-state with its own laws and statutes. Its location allowed commercial routes to Asia and Africa. Consequently, with its unusual geography and traders and merchants from various places in the world, Venice became a cosmopolitan location that bustled with people from many walks of life. In Venice, the Jewish population was required to live in a ghetto. The meaning of this word has been disputed,...

In the sixteenth century, Venice was a robust and independent city-state with its own laws and statutes. Its location allowed commercial routes to Asia and Africa. Consequently, with its unusual geography and traders and merchants from various places in the world, Venice became a cosmopolitan location that bustled with people from many walks of life. In Venice, the Jewish population was required to live in a ghetto. The meaning of this word has been disputed, but one explanation of its etymology claims that ghetto is derived from the Italian word borghetto, which is a diminutive of the word borgo, meaning "little town."

In contrast to Venice with its many levels of society and foreigners coming in and out, Belmont is an imagined place that Shakespeare created to contrast with the crass commercial city of Venice. Reportedly, he based Belmont (the name suggests two French words, bel (beautiful) and mont (mountain)) on a literary work he read since he supposedly never left England:

Il Pecorone is a novella composed around 1380 and printed in Italian in 1558, wherein the character Gianetto travels a long distance from Venice to see the Lady of Belmont.

Belmont, in Shakespeare's play, is a place inhabited by the nobility, and its only body of water is a tranquil river. Before the trial in Venice, Portia tells Nerissa that they must go ten miles. She also mentions a monastery as being two miles away. There is a famous grand mansion on the bank of the River Brenta—the Villa Foscari-Malcontenta—that is in this location. Thus, it is in a somewhat pastoral setting, calm and peaceful. The area is one that is refined and secure. There is also a privacy to Belmont that contrasts with the bustling streets of Venice and its ports.