In a book on Twelfth Night, Dr. Leslie Hotson suggested that the play was written to compliment an Italian nobleman, Virginio Orsino, Duke of Bracciano, in a court entertainment given for him on Twelfth Night, 1601, and that it was after this gOrsinoh that one of the principle characters was named. However, I am not sure id this Italian Orsino would have feel complimented by seeing himself portrayed as a young, handsome and poetic duke but an inefficient lover.

The curtain of Twelfth Night rises with Duke Orsinofs very first speech: gIf music be the food of love, play on ch which shows his characteristics clearly. Orsino is restless, dissatisfied, vacillating between moods, with a mind full of romantic illusions, but without an object upon which his mind can rest and with which his desire can engage. Then we have the hunting metaphor that Orsino compares...