John Florio

John Florio
Engraving by William Hole, 1611
Born1552
London, England
DiedOctober 1625
Fulham, London
Occupations
  • Linguist
  • poet
  • translator
Era
MovementEnglish Renaissance
Spouses
  • Anna Soresollo (m. ?)
  • Rose Spicer (m. 1617)
Children5 by first wife

Giovanni Florio (1552[1] or 1553[2][3][4] – 1625[5][6]), known as John Florio, was an English linguist, poet,[7] writer, translator, lexicographer, and royal language tutor at the Court of James I. He is recognised as the most important Renaissance humanist in England.[8] Florio contributed 1,149 words to the English language, placing third after Chaucer (with 2,012 words) and Shakespeare (with 1,969 words), in the linguistic analysis conducted by Stanford professor John Willinsky.[9][10]

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 (surpassing the only previous modest Italian–English dictionary by William Thomas published in 1550).[11]

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 (The Ash Wednesday Supper, 1584), in which Florio is mentioned as Bruno's companion.[12]

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, whom he bequeathed his library.[13]

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,[14] even asserting a putative identity of Florio with the author of Shakespeare's works.[15]

  1. ^ Rossi 2018, p. 125
  2. ^ Yates 1934, p. 14
  3. ^ O'Connor 2008, p. 165
  4. ^ Florio, Resolute John (19 September 2019). "MICHELANGELO AND JOHN FLORIO: LONDON & SOGLIO". JOHN FLORIO. Retrieved 12 April 2024.
  5. ^ Yates 1934, p. 317
  6. ^ O'Connor 2008, p. 165
  7. ^ Pfister, Manfred (31 December 2005), "Inglese Italianato – Italiano Anglizzato: John Florio", Renaissance Go-Betweens, De Gruyter, pp. 32–54, doi:10.1515/9783110919516.32, ISBN 9783110919516, retrieved 28 October 2021
  8. ^ Simonini, R. C. (1952). Italian Scholarship in Renaissance England. University of North Carolina Studies in Comparative Literature. Vol. 3. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina. p. 68.
  9. ^ Willinsky, John (1994). Empire of Words: The Reign of the OED. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691037191.
  10. ^ According to S. Frampton, the number is different: "In all, the OED ascribes 1,224 first usages to Florio – words such as "judicious", "management" and "transcription", but also "masturbation" and "fucker". In this, he is matched only by Chaucer and Shakespeare". Frampton, Saul (12 July 2013). "Who edited Shakespeare?". TheGuardian.com.
  11. ^ O'Connor 2008
  12. ^ O'Connor 2008.
  13. ^ Brian O'farrell, Shakespeare's Patron: William Herbert, Third Earl Of Pembroke 1580-1630: Politics Patronage And Power, Bloomsbury USA Academic, 2011
  14. ^ Jonathan Bate, The genius of Shakespeare, 1988, Oxford University Press
  15. ^ Sergio Costola, Michael Saenger,, 'Shylock's Venice and the Grammar of the Modern City,' in Michele Marrapodi (ed.,)Shakespeare and the Italian Renaissance: Appropriation, Transformation, Opposition, Routledge 2016 ISBN 978-1-317-05644-7 pp.147-162 p.152.