Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)/Florio, John

FLORIO, JOHN, an English lexicographer, and the translator of Montaigne; born in London, England, about 1553. His father was a Protestant exile and Italian preacher in London. Florio appears as a private tutor in foreign languages at Oxford about 1576, and two years later published his “First Fruits, which yield Familiar Speech, Merry Proverbs, Witty Sentences and Golden Sayings,” accompanied by “A Perfect Induction to the Italian and English Tongues.” In 1581 Florio was admitted a member of Magdalen College, and became a teacher of French and Italian. He enjoyed the patronage successively of Leicester, the Earl of Southampton, and other noble persons. His next work was “Second Fruits, to be gathered of Twelve Trees, of divers but delightsome Tastes to the Tongues of Italian and English men,” with, annexed to it, the “Garden of Recreation,” yielding 6,000 Italian proverbs (1591). His Italian and English dictionary, entitled “A World of Words,” was published in 1598. Florio was appointed reader in Italian to Queen Anne, and afterward groom of the privy chamber. In 1603 he published in folio his famous translation of Montaigne. It was long believed that the pedantic Holofernes in “Love's Labor's Lost” was a study after Florio. He died in Fulham, in 1625.