THE CHARACTER ASSASSINATION OF JOHN FLORIO BY SHAKESPEARE'S SCHOLARS | FLORIO CAFE

I think no one wants to go down, none of the Stratfordians wants to go down the Floreal Road because they're rather worried about what they may find. Hi everyone and welcome back to Floreal Café, a new format in which I interview and have a chat with friends, scholars and experts to talk about intriguing, interesting stories about Floreal, his friends, his enemies. Today I will talk about a shocking story that people need to know about Floreal and Shakespeare. You will understand today why Floreal has been forgotten, you will understand why so few people around the world know him and why, despite he was truly one of the most important humanists and writers of his time, he was soon deleted from the books of English history. So with my guest today we will uncover the whole truth about the vax questions of Floreal's relationship with Shakespeare. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Floreal Café with John Spinelli. Hi John. Hi Marianna. Thank you for having accepted my invitation. It's my pleasure. John knew Shakespeare, both as a student of literature and through acting in Shakespearean plays. When looking for a topic for a thesis, he had seriously considered examining the possible connection between Shakespeare and Floreal but he was advised against it because it was too controversial a subject. But from that moment, John Floreal, for John, began an obsession. Since his university days, John has founded language service centers, schools, created a small property company, working as independent consultant and taught English in Italian schools and among many things he's now working on an important project concerning Floreal, a book to discuss the truth about his troublesome relationship with Shakespeare. So, hello again John and today we will uncover some important truth surrounding Shakespeare and Floreal that I think people need to know. It is time that people know the truth about them. First of all, how did you discover Shakespeare and how did you discover Floreal? Well, Shakespeare obviously is a presence for anyone in the English-speaking world. So, I have no idea when I became aware of Shakespeare. I mean, maybe in my childhood, perhaps. Instead, Floreal was a discovery of my university years because I remember critics mentioning that Shakespeare had been influenced by Montaigne and this resulted rather, you know, unusual. It got me thinking, Shakespeare no French. How would he have had access to Montaigne's essays? And then I stumbled on this unknown translator of Montaigne, John Floreal, who translated the essays at the beginning of the 17th century. But some of the plays influenced by, you know, in the opinion of academics, influenced by Montaigne, Shakespeare could not have read the published work because they were antecedent. So, you know, they were... Which plays are you talking about that you think Hamlet, which everyone says was around 1600 and the publication of the translation of Floreal was 1603. This, for me, meant that there had to be, absolutely had to be, a connection because either we presume that Shakespeare knew Italian, French and was much-travelled or he had to have connections with people in London who had access to works of this kind. Yeah, to Montaigne before the English translation. So, you believe that either Shakespeare knew French, so he was able to read Montaigne by himself or that he had access to Floreal's translation before the work was published, right? Exactly, exactly. So, since John Floreal was, you know, in London at the time, I don't think there's any discussion or controversy about that. It seems the most likely solution to the Montaigne problem. And the fact that this has not been investigated is strange. I mean, if ever you see Stratfordians mentioning Floreal, they're forever belittling him. But even Stratfordians admit there was probably a connection between Floreal and Shakespeare. Even the most ardent Stratfordians will, at some point, for some reason, admit to this connection between Shakespeare and Floreal. Yeah, we will make many examples later in the interview, but just to connect the Montaigne topic that you were discussing, Jonathan Bate, who is one of the most important Shakespeare scholars, in one of his latest books about Shakespeare, titled Shakespeare and the Classics, when he mentioned Montaigne, he makes a reference to John Floreal by saying, yeah, there is an influence in Shakespeare's place before Floreal's translation was published, and it is possible that Shakespeare obtained this translation through a manuscript that Floreal gave him. Yes, other people instead have suggested animosity between the two. That just depends on, you know, their ideas, because there is no paper trail. There is nothing. There is no correspondence between Floreal and Shakespeare. There's actually no correspondence ever found between Shakespeare and anybody else, for that matter. The real question is either Shakespeare had, as I said before, had a personal knowledge of French and Italian, or he had access to people who knew these two languages. And you mentioned that you wanted to do, to write a thesis upon this connection, Floreal and Shakespeare, which was the subject about? Why did you? Well, it never got, it never got as far as a title, but it was going to centre around Floreal, Shakespeare, Montaigne and Hamlet. Oh, beautiful. So the topic we were discussing before, this influence of Montaigne in Hamlet before the publication of Floreal's Montaigne, right? Yes, that, because I thought that was the strongest case for direct influence by Floreal of Shakespeare. But as I said, I never, it never got off the ground. It never got off the ground. And in the end, I translated a minor work of Swift that up to that day had been untranslated. It was the Battle of the Books. And in a strange, in an ironic way, it pushed me even closer to Floreal because that work of translation made me understand his mindset even better because Floreal was first and foremost a translator. What happened when you proposed a thesis about Shakespeare and Floreal? Well, there was legitimate reasons for advising me not to do it because at the time, I was a working student. So taking time off to go to England to do original research would have been expensive, time consuming and impractical. So although it was a controversial subject, I think the practical difficulties also had some bearing on the advice that was given me. But yes, even then, it wasn't exactly a subject that you could propose for serious academic work. I will say now a thing that I never said publicly. A couple of years ago, I was proposed a PhD. I won't name the university nor the popular Shakespearean scholar. And I proposed Shakespeare and Floreal. In which way? I wanted to analyse the sources that Shakespeare used that connected him to the Italian books that certainly Shakespeare had to read. I'm talking about those plays that he borrowed from Italian authors like Bandello, like Da Porto or Boccaccio, in which usually Floreal is used as an intermediator, as a source, as someone who helped Shakespeare translate or having the plot that Shakespeare translated, reused for his play. And I also wanted to do a connection in terms of language, because we know that both were lexicographers, both were working on the English language. But they kindly told me, no, you can't do it because there is no connection whatsoever between Shakespeare and Floreal. And I told them, I don't think there is no connection. I saw PhD and thesis on Shakespeare Marlowe, Shakespeare Spencer, on Shakespeare and Johnson, on Shakespeare and Thomas Kidd. There is, of course, a connection between Shakespeare and Floreal. So I answered again, I asked other questions, and in the end they told me you can't do a thesis upon Shakespeare, you can't do a thesis upon John Floreal, but you can do a thesis about Shakespeare and Floreal. You either choose one or the other. Because it will be way too, they told me, it will be way too difficult to discuss them together. So I think that, to me, the happiness is something quite, a situation quite similar to yours. There's another story that's directly related to this. At the beginning of the century, an Australian woman, Vivianne Robertson, had a very interesting idea for her master's or PhD, I don't remember which. And because she'd been an au pair in Italy in her youth, and she was a teacher of Italian and also English, and she'd noticed similarities between Shakespeare, the language of Dante and the language of Shakespeare. And so she set about to prove that the author of the works of Shakespeare must have known not only Italian, but read the works of Dante in the original. And she did this by looking at every single partial translation of Dante that existed in English literature up to the time of Shakespeare, and discovered the echoes of Dante in Shakespeare did not come from any of those translations. One of the most famous is the term incelato, which appears in Shakespeare as enscyed. Now, there was some controversy, because out of the three academics, two gave her the highest marks and one just failed her. Because, you know, he simply said, the work is well executed, but the premise is completely wrong. You know, it's impossible for Shakespeare to have known Italian, two people giving the highest mark, one person failing her, they got a third academic who instead, you know, agreed with the other two. So, again, confirmation that either Shakespeare, the man of Stratford-on-Avon knew Italian and French, or he had access to someone who did. Yeah, I have made many videos of my YouTube channel, which I describe, I try to discuss this relationship between Florio and Shakespeare. And I have also made a video in which I have described how Shakespeare scholars have described John Florio throughout the centuries. Here is a list of some of the ways Shakespeare scholars have described Florio in the past. They have compared him to the pedant Paul Furniss, he loves love is lost, described as the spy in Southampton household. So, Florio was the tutor of Henry Rosely, but they weren't in good terms, because Florio is described as a spy, not as a Earl, ridiculed by Shakespeare. This one is interesting. He is described as a man beset with tempers and oddities, which expose him more perhaps than any man of his time to the ridicule of his contemporaries. Florio was in his literary career, jealous, vain, irritable, pedantic, bombastical, petulant, quarrelsome, ever on the watch for an affront, always in the attitude of a fretful porcupine. This is a Shakespearean scholar. And another description, Florio is described as John Falstaff. For Shakespeare scholars, Florio is compared to John Falstaff because he was full staff. So, in this character, Shakespeare made a wordplay. So, using John Falstaff as full staff, because they saw Florio as, again, a misleader of the young Henry Rosely, quarrelsome, cuckold. This one was suggested by Jonathan Bate, because Bate suggests that Florio's wife had a secret relationship with Shakespeare. Here is just a small list of the way Florio was and is still today described by Shakespeare scholars. I'd like to have your opinion on this. I describe it mud-slinging. There is a problem about Florio in Shakespeare scholars. What do you think is this problem? Why they can't describe him as he really was? Why they have to, every time, to create these fake stories about him? Again, just making any statement about this topic is bound to be controversial. But, quite honestly, if you have no concrete, solid arguments to counter or reduce the importance of someone that is, in some way, making any academic position you hold untenable, then the only weapon you have left is character assassination. I think no one wants to go down, none of the Stratfordians want to go down the Florio road, because they are rather worried about what they may find. The admission that there was a close relationship between Florio and Shakespeare opens a whole can of worms on the reasonable doubt theory held by Oxfordians and others. Because Florio is quite obviously connected to Shakespeare, as we said, the even a Stratfordian like Saul Frampton thinks that Florio may have had a hand in editing the first folio. So, at that point, you have Montaigne, you have the first folio, you have a serious problem in measuring the importance of John Florio. And if you don't want to do that, if you don't want to make the effort to arrive at a serious and balanced appraisal of the value of someone like John Florio in Renaissance England and the works of Shakespeare in particular, then one of your best weapons is to demean the character and undermine their standing, so that no one will take this figure seriously. I remember once Shakespeare's codas wrote that Florio had published a small dictionary. This is quite funny, because just the way to put these two words together, small and dictionary, which, you know, just a dictionary suggests that it cannot be something small. And Florio published the very first Italian-English dictionary. In the second edition, he brought like 150,000 English words, which is such a big number if we consider English at the early stage of its career in Renaissance England. But don't you think that they had the reverse effect? Like, I see it as the Streisand effect, the more you try to hide something, the more attention it gets. This is how I see, this is how I perceive it. Don't you think that it's a negative approach? Yeah, you try to diminish his importance, to not describe him as he really was. But at the same time, I think that you also attract attention toward this character, don't you think, or not? Obviously, but you only attract attention to the people, the attention of the people who are knowledgeable enough to know that you're lying. Whereas the general public will take you, because of your status, at face value. You know, one of the effects, I mean, you mentioned yourself, but the reason why someone like Saul Gervini wrote his quite famous book now in these circles, in Floryo circles, was because of the character assassination accomplished by Jonathan Bait. And so, if it's exaggerated, it can be counterproductive. Yeah, yeah, this is what I think. And certainly, let me put it this way. I didn't expect to retire, have a little more free time than I had while I was working, and basically discover that Floryo scholarship is fundamentally, more or less, where I left it, you know, after 40 years. And that surprised me when I got back to reading, doing a little research and compiling various facets. Every time there's a genuine step forward, in general, either in Floryo scholarship, or Shakespeare research, you know, or Shakespearean studies, these tend to be ignored. I mean, there is an authorship problem. There is. And I can demonstrate this fact, because you can even enroll in a master's degree that studies the authorship question at a London university. So, yes, that was not possible 40 years ago. That I'll admit. Do you describe yourself as anti-Stratfordian or not? I would actually like to stay out of that fight. Because I'm convinced that whatever Shakespeare's contributions were, they were essential to the cultural project of forming the English language through theatre. If you ask me, am I absolutely certain of Shakespeare's contributions, and exactly what they were, I would say no. But that is reasonable doubt. It is not saying Shakespeare had nothing to do with the Shakespearean opus, the works of Shakespeare. One of the most useful ways to seriously examine this whole area without falling into the Stratfordian, anti-Stratfordian quarrel, would be to seriously evaluate various things about Floryo. For example, the extent of his library. We know he had more books than the Bodleian Library at Oxford at the beginning of the 17th century. He also contributed some books to that library. And one person mentions the fact that Floryo had 1,500 volumes. Now, these are important numbers. He was a translator, so for example, we're pretty sure that he must have had a volume of either access to or possessing, actually, a volume of Montaigne's Essay. And discovering exactly what is in this library would give a very clear idea of Shakespearean sources, because we already know that there had been cross-fertilization and feedback between Floryo and Shakespeare. I mean, even a Stratfordian would admit that. Did you have the same attitude that some Shakespeare scholars had towards Floryo when teaching? What I mean is, do you think that this Floryo problem, this is how I define it, a Floryo problem, is like an open secret among scholars, that they know that in some way he had a connection with Shakespeare, but they prefer not to mention him, or to ignore him? Yes. Well, scholars, yes. But many teachers, no. I would say there are many teachers of English Lit that do not actually know exactly the extent of the possible connections between Floryo and Shakespeare. There are some works that mention Montaigne in Shakespeare, but fail to mention Floryo's translation. So, you know, they are doing their best. Many scholars, I don't know whether out of malice or out of ignorance, but they're doing their best to ignore Floryo. Personally, I see that things are slowly changing. In the last 10, 20 years, scholars are beginning to rediscover Floryo, to write about him in a positive light, to discuss about his connection with Shakespeare in a positive attitude. I see also young early modernists who write about Floryo in a totally different way, and I'm very happy about it. But still, there is a lot of work to do about Floryo and about Shakespeare. But do you think that, what is the most important topics that connect Shakespeare and Floryo, that scholars need to teach, that people need to know? Just give some of the most important points that you think people tomorrow should know about them, and that in academics, in school, students should learn, should be able to read about Floryo and Shakespeare, to better understand Shakespeare's plays. Well, the presence of Italy and Italian culture in Shakespeare's plays. So, the fact that Floryo was one of the translators of Italian literature, and probably the most important translator of Italian literature in Renaissance England. And the fact that he had an extensive and eclectic library, and a very high social position. I mean, he was a courtier. He is mentioned in letters of Venetian diplomats. He's mentioned as someone who has access to the ear of Queen Anna of Denmark. And so, his social position was completely different to that of Shakespeare. And he had access to many of the royal and aristocratic circles that Shakespeare wrote about. But because there is already evidence of a connection of mutual stimulation, I mean, inspirations, sourcing, and so on, between Shakespeare and Floryo, it makes him a better candidate than others for research into discovering more links, because we already know that some exist. At a level of secondary school, let's put it this way, I think his translation of Montaigne should be mentioned, and that this influenced Shakespeare, because we're on solid ground there. This could be mentioned even at secondary school level. And it should be. It should be, quite honestly. I think that, in my personal opinion, Floryo possibly collaborated for some plays. I don't think that I'm not one of those who believe that Shakespeare, that Floryo was the author of Shakespeare's plays. Because I see, when I analyze the historical period in which plays were essentially the result of either collaboration or were rewritten, where all plays were rewritten, I see Floryo as one of the most talented and creative writers, at the center of the most interesting literary circle, and someone who collaborated extensively. We see it, for example, with Ben Jonson. We know that Floryo collaborated with Jonson, who was the most important dramatist after Shakespeare. That dedication in Volpone, we talked about it yesterday, when we did the chat. I think it's the proof, the evidence, that Floryo collaborated as a gossip writer. The main reason is the fact that there were a lot of writers at the time. It was not something new. But Floryo had also the problem of being perceived as half Italian. And I think this was also a major problem, I think, for him, given that he also received death threats, that there was a lot of xenophobia at the time, despite the aristocracy who loved everything about Italy, about Italian culture, about Italian language. But if you walk the streets of London, the citizens hated foreigners and hated Italians. So I think that Floryo worked on eggs. You always had to be very careful about what he had to do and how to do it. This is, I think, one of the main reasons why he decided to work as a gossip writer. There are just a couple of scholars, I think, that have suggested that, for example, Floryo possibly collaborated for Love's Love's Lost. Well, definitely the title of the play comes from an essay that Floryo translated. The phrase, a similar phrase to Love's Love's Lost, appears in Floryo's translation of the Montagne essay of The Force of Imagination. And so at the very least, Shakespeare got his title from Floryo. And you are working on a project, a book about Floryo and Shakespeare. What is this book about and why do you want to publish this book about them? What do you want to give as new to the readers? It's actually not just Floryo and Shakespeare. It's basically a presentation of reasonable doubt as a first introduction to the problem, and then an evaluation of a number we really haven't decided yet of the best candidates for cooperation with Shakespeare. But the basic idea is starting to question the simple fact of a solitary genius writing everything. And that is easily questioned. To stop all controversy, we strenuously believe Shakespeare existed. You know, Shakespeare is a real, Shakespeare is a real person. He did Marianne Hathaway. He was a rich man, bought the first or second biggest house in Stratford-on-Avon, bullied for him. He had a successful life and he was an entrepreneur of the theatre. So he is as important as anyone else in the presentation of this project, this cultural project of refining the English language and through the English language, refining English culture, using the theatre as an instrument. I mean, hats off. But the problem is, could he have done it on his own? There are various points on that. And one of the most important for me is the fact that there is no mention of books in Shakespeare's will. I mean, at the very least, a man like him should have had some hundreds of books. And since they were very expensive at that time, and he mentioned every single thing that was of value in his house, including his second best bed, I feel if he had had books, he would have mentioned it. So no books. Just to prove that I'm not being snobbish, I had a look at the library of William Blake, who was probably of a slightly lower social status and definitely much poorer proportionately to Shakespeare in his time. And of course, he had an extensive library, going from Wordsworth to Dante, obviously, the Bible, and Pilgrim's Progress, and the list can go on. Well, Florian himself was not aristocratic. Florian was a self-made man. I mean, he also had spent a childhood in which he was basically poor. But let's put it this way. But Florian's position in society was not that of Shakespeare. I mean, Shakespeare was an actor. So this is why he tried to distance himself from acting in the theatre, because nowadays we hold actors maybe in exaggeratedly high repute. But then there were four classes of people that could not be buried in consecrated ground, and they were criminals, atheists, suicides, and actors. Notice there were no actresses, because the idea of an actress on the stage in Shakespeare's time was so indecent, so immoral, and so scandalous that little boys, that boys whose voices hadn't broken yet, played the parts of women. I would like to end this beautiful interview that I had with you with just the last thing. How would you describe Florian to people who don't know him, and why they should, Shakespeare scholars or Shakespeare students, or just people who are curious about Shakespeare, why they should read about Florian, why they should be interested in Florian? Quite simply, because either we basically just read the plays and so misunderstand their context, and the intricacies of the writing, or if we want to try to understand the Shakespearean opus, all of the Shakespearean works in context, Florian becomes very important in making a start in understanding, because otherwise we have this image of practically magical genius that can conjure up everything from nothing, and even artificial intelligence today can't do that. Thank you so much, John, for this lovely interview about Shakespeare and Florian. Good luck for your upcoming book, and I can't wait to read it. Thank you very much, and well, keep up the good work with Florian Café. Thank you.