[11] 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.
[20] Furthermore, in First Fruits, John Florio asserted that when he arrived in London (at 19 years old), he didn't know the language and asked in Italian or French "where the post dwelt.
He dedicated a book to Henry Herbert and Jane Grey, his highest-ranking pupils: Regole de la lingua thoscana (Rules of the Tuscan language).
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.
Robert Anderson, in The Works of the British Poets (1795), states that Daniel "left no issue by his wife Justina, sister of John Florio.
"[30] At 25 years old John Florio published Firste Fruites which yeelde familiar speech, merie prouerbes, wittie sentences, and golden sayings.
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.
[citation needed] With Firste Fruites, John Florio began a new career in London in language instruction while having contacts with the theatre.
As the author considered to be the first English prose stylist to leave an enduring impression upon the language, Lyly was a key figure of Euphuism.
Later, in 1580, Florio published his translation under the name A Shorte and briefe narration of the two navigations and discoveries to the northweast partes called Newe Fraunce: first translated out of French into Italian by that famous learned man Gio : Bapt : Ramutius, and now turned into English by John Florio; worthy the reading of all venturers, travellers, and discoverers.
Florio quickly developed an awareness of the potential of the 'New World', he advocates "planting" the "New-found land" four years before Hakluyt and Raleigh, the pioneers of colonisation.
The resulting pamphlet was published in 1585 entitled A letter lately written from Rome, by an Italian gentleman to a freende of his in Lyons in Fraunce, and signed I.F.
John Florio embraced Bruno's philosophy, and above all, the thesis upon the infinite universe and the possibility of life on other planets, theories which went well beyond the Copernican limited heliocentric world.
Bruno described the event in a philosophical pamphlet written in Italian the same year: La cena de le ceneri (The Ash Wednesday Supper, London, 1584).
Florio in fact appears in The Ash Wednesday Supper as one of the messengers that brings to Bruno the invitation to dinner by Fulke Greville.
In De l'infinito, universo e mondi (On The Infinite Universe and Worlds, London, 1584), fifth dialogue, Bruno adds Florio as "Elpino" and Alberico Gentili as "Albertino".
Entitled Second Frutes to be gathered of twelve trees, of diverse but delightful tastes to the tongues of Italian and English (1591), it appeared thirteen years after the publication of the First Fruits, and is a product of perhaps the most interesting period of his life.
The title itself is interesting: Giardino di ricreatione, nel quel crescono fronde, fiori e frutti, vaghe, leggiadri e soavi; sotto nome di auree sentenze, belli proverbii, et piacevoli riboboli, tutti Italiani, colti, scelti, e scritti, per Giovanni Florio, non solo utili ma dilettevoli per ogni spirito vago della Nobil lingua Italiana.
[41] For Frances Yates too, this identification meets with some support from the fact that in the dialogue John quotes the proverb "Chi si contenta gode", which is the motto on Florio's portrait.
The cited sources that follow the "Epistle Dedicatorie" of 1598 include a corpus that is made up mostly of contemporary literary texts, ranging from Sannazaro's Arcadia and Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata to Castiglione's Cortegiano, Della Casa's Galateo, and Caro's Lettere famigliari, as well as wide range of Dialoghi such as those written by Sperone Speroni and Stefano Guazzo.
In a document dated March 1619 there is a list of Queen Anne's "Grooms of the Privy Chamber" with the length of their service and the amounts of their yearly salary.
It is well-attested by an inscription written in Ben's own hand upon the fly-leaf of a copy of Volpone which is now in the British Museum: "To his louing Father, & worthy Freind, Mr John Florio: The ayde of his Muses.
[62] Florio's translation of Michel de Montaigne's Essays was licensed for publication to Edward Blount on 4 June 1600, and eventually published three years later, in 1603.
[63] In the letter addressed to the courteous reader, Florio champions translation as the most useful route for advancing knowledge and developing the language and culture of a nation.
He cites a number of such words he created, which he says some critics may object to: "entraine, conscientious, endeare, tarnish, comporte, efface, facilitate, ammusing, debauching, regret, effort, emotion."
In his search for words, Florio had also studied in Italian translations classical authors such as Tacitus, Cicero, Plato, Plutarch, Ovid, Pliny.
Florio, in fact, still possessed her presents when he made his will, including her writing desk set with pearls and fitted with silver ink wells and sand box.
His translation omits the Proemio and Conclusione dell'autore, while replacing Tale III.x with an innocuous story taken from Francois de Belleforest's Histoires tragiques, concluding that it "was commended by all the company...because it was free from all folly and obscoeneness."
He also gave him "an unbound volume of divers written collections and rapsodies",[70] asking him to place his books in his library "eyther at Wilton or els at Baynards Castle at London."
Anthony Wood suggested that Florio's sepulture was either in the church or in the graveyard of All Saints' Church, Fulham, but so far no stone marks of the resting place has been found and Frances Yates suggested a grimmer alternative: for those victims of the plague, Hurlingham Field was the site of a plague pit and Florio's bones could "lie in the bed of the lake at Hurlingham".