John Florio

William M. Hamlin (Washington State University)

Ed. by J A Roe, University of York
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.03: English Writing and Culture: Renaissance (Elizabethan and Jacobean periods) , 1485-1625.
Vol. editors: William M. Hamlin (Washington State University), J A Roe (University of York), Virginia Mason Vaughan (Clark University), Ema Vyroubalova (Trinity College Dublin)

Dates

Born 1553
Died 1625
Activity 1573-1625

Places

Born in England
Active in England

Activities

Primary

Lexicographer
Linguist
Teacher/ Professor
Translator

Resources

John Florio, whose long life coincided with the literary careers of William Shakespeare, Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, and Ben Jonson, is best known today for his exuberant English translation of the Essays of Michel de Montaigne. In the eyes of his contemporaries, however, he was familiar primarily as a talented language teacher and an indefatigable compiler of dictionaries and linguistic guides. Ambitious, versatile, hugely industrious and occasionally belligerent, Florio was a conspicuous figure in the London of his day: an English native whose first language was Italian; a dedicated scholar who inspired mockery as well as praise; a man patronized by the rich and powerful who nonetheless died in poverty.

Florio was born in London in 1553, shortly before the death of King Edward VI and the accession of Queen...

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

3636 words

Citation: Hamlin, William M.. "John Florio". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 November 2008; last revised 10 July 2025. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1571, accessed 09 June 2026.]

View recommended reading for this article