John Florio
Giovanni Florio, known as John Florio, was an English linguist, poet, writer, translator, lexicographer, and royal language tutor at the Court of James I. He is recognised as the most important Renaissance humanist in England. Florio contributed 1,149 words to the English language, placing third after Chaucer and Shakespeare, in the linguistic analysis conducted by Stanford professor John Willinsky.
Florio was the first translator of Montaigne into English, possibly the first translator of Boccaccio into English and he wrote the first comprehensive Italian–English dictionary.
Playwright and poet Ben Jonson was a personal friend, and Jonson hailed Florio as "loving father" and "ayde of his muses". Philosopher Giordano Bruno was also a personal friend; Florio met the Italian philosopher in London, while both of them were residing at the French embassy. Bruno wrote and published in London his six most celebrated moral dialogues, including La cena de le ceneri, in which Florio is mentioned as Bruno's companion.
John Florio worked as tutor to Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton; from 1604 he became Groom of the Privy Chamber to Queen Anne, until her death in 1619. Later in his life, Florio was patronised by William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, to whom the former bequeathed some of his personal library.
Many of the intertextual borrowings by Shakespeare from Florio's works have been long attested, and assumptions have been made to claim secret connections between Florio and Shakespeare, even asserting a putative identity of Florio with the author of Shakespeare's works.
Early life
John Florio was born in London in 1552 or 1553 but he grew up and lived in continental Europe until the age of 19. The only portrait of Florio, the frontispiece to the New World of Words of 1611, presents him as "Italus ore, Anglus pector" ; glosses this as, "in his native language an Italian, in his heart an Englishman," and interprets Florio's declaration that "I am an Englishman in Italian" to mean that he was "an Englishman with an Italian inflection or streak".His father Michelangelo
John's father, Michelangelo Florio, born in Tuscany, had been a Franciscan friar before converting to the Protestant faith. He was a fervent Protestant with Jewish ancestors. He got into trouble with the Inquisition in Italy, after preaching in Naples, Padua, and Venice. Seeking refuge in England during the reign of Edward VI, he was appointed pastor of the Italian Protestant congregation in London in 1550. He was also a member of the household of William Cecil. He was dismissed from both on a charge of immorality, but William Cecil later fully forgave him. Little is known of Florio's mother, she was a servant in the house of Cecil and John Aubrey confirms she was Italian, writing in his Brief Lives that Florio's Italian "father and mother flew from the Valtolin to London for religion" reasons and Aubrey says "the information was from Florio's grandson, Mr. Molins". Furthermore, in First Fruits, John Florio asserted that when he arrived in London, he did not know the language and asked in Italian or French "where the Post dwelt". He later explained that he learnt the language by reading books.Michelangelo Florio then became Italian tutor to Lady Jane Grey and in the family of William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke, father of Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke who would become the husband of Mary Sidney, sister of Philip Sidney. He dedicated a book to Henry Herbert and Jane Grey, his highest-ranking pupils: Regole de la lingua thoscana. Lady Jane Grey's youth, faith, and death affected him deeply and later, in seclusion, in Soglio, in Italian-speaking Switzerland, he wrote a book about her life, titled Historia de la vita e de la morte de L'Illlustriss. Signora Giovanna Graia, published later in 1607. In the preface of the book, the anonymous publisher explained that the original book was written "by his own hand by the author" and it was found "after his death, in the home of an honored and great benefactor." It is also explained that Michelangelo "would certainly have had this book published in that he had not been prevented from very cruel persecutions. He in fact deposed it for fifty years in safe hands". He describes Lady Jane Grey as a martyr and innocent "saint". It is possible that he had witnessed some of the events surrounding her or had told her about the persecutions in Italy.
Exile
When Mary Tudor ascended to the throne in 1554, she re-established Catholicism in England and Ireland. In February 1554, a royal edict proclaimed that all foreigners had to depart the realm within twenty-four days. Consequently, on 4 March 1554, Michelangelo and his family, which included infant John, left England. In Strasbourg, the generous citizens offered themselves to give a first temporary refuge to the exiles for twenty days. Here, Michelangelo had a first meeting with the noble Frederik von Salis, coming from Soglio, who invited him to become pastor of the Reformed Evangelical Church of Graubünden in Soglio. Soglio was remote from the Inquisition and was situated near Chiavenna, a centre of Reformed preaching. In the first years of John's infancy, Michelangelo worked as pastor and notary, educating his son in an environment rich in religious and theological ferment. In addition, he taught John Italian, as well as Latin, Hebrew and Greek. Michelangelo Florio died in 1566, after this date his name is no longer mentioned and in the synod of 1571 he is mentioned as a deceased person. When he was ten, John Florio was sent to live with and to be schooled in a Paedagogium in Tübingen by the Reformed Protestant theologian, Pier Paolo Vergerio, a native of Venetian Capodistria. Under these circumstances, John was formed in the humanist cultural circle of Tübingen, in a strong Italianate atmosphere. Unfortunately, he never completed his studies. Vergerio, in fact, died in 1566. Without any financial support, and orphan at 14 years old, he left Tübingen. He came back to Soglio, and later departed for England in the early 1570s, in possession of a Christian Reformed and humanist education.London: ''First Fruits'' & Leicester's Men (1571–1578)
First marriage
At about 19 years old, after his formative years in Soglio and in Tübingen, John Florio came back to London. Ascribed to the Italian church, John worked for some years as silk dyer and servant of Michel Baynard. In addition, he worked for the Venetian merchant Gaspare Gatti, living in the wool-dyers' district of London. At 21 years old he married an Italian woman, Anna Soresollo in 1574; they had six children: Annabelle, Anne, Aurelia, Joane, Edward and Elizabeth. It has been wrongly suggested by Anthony Wood that John married Samuel Daniel's sister. No record of their marriage has so far been discovered, and Wood's suggestion was probably mainly due to Daniel's dedication lines in the 1613 second edition of Florio's translation of Montaigne's Essays in which he referred to him as his "brother", suggesting a long-time friendship, more than an actual kinship between them. However, it is possible that it was John's sister, Justina, who married Samuel Daniel. Robert Anderson, in The Works of the British Poets, states that Daniel "left no issue by his wife Justina, sister of John Florio."''First Fruits''
At 25 years old John Florio published Firste Fruites which yeelde familiar speech, merie prouerbes, wittie sentences, and golden sayings. Also a perfect induction to the Italian, and English tongues, as in the table appeareth. The like heretofore, neuer by any man published. This collection of dramatic dialogues contains translated passages from literature and philosophy. Moreover, it is designed for novices in both the Italian and English language. Florio inscribed the manual to "All Italian gentlemen and merchants who delight in the English tongue". He dedicated his first work to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. In the dedication, John reminded Dudley of his father's faithful service, successfully entering his social circle.In the manual, John Florio refers to himself as "povero artigiano". His insistence upon the fact that teaching was not his profession indicates that this was the very first time he approached the languages as a profession. In addition, the commendatory verses that precede Firste Fruites show that John Florio got in contact with the Dudley's theatre company: The Leicester's Men. The first pages of the First Fruits, in fact, contain various commendatory verses written by the company actors: Richard Tarlton, Robert Wilson, Thomas Clarke, and John Bentley. They thank him for having contributed to bring the Italian novelist to the English theatre.
With Firste Fruites, John Florio began a new career in London in language instruction while having contacts with the theatre.