John Florio

How were languages taught, negotiated, and mediated across cultures in Renaissance Europe? John Florio: Bilingualism, Style, and Cultural Mediation explores these questions through the work of one of early modern England’s most accomplished bilingual intellectuals. Bringing together insights from Historical Stylistics, Historical Pragmatics, Dialogue Analysis, and Translation Studies, the volume examines Florio’s language manuals, bilingual dictionaries, and translations as interconnected expressions of a broader practice of linguistic and cultural mediation, while providing the first sustained reassessment of his corpus since Frances A. Yates’s landmark biography (1934). Language teaching, lexicography, self-translation, indirect translation, and Florio’s connection with Shakespeare are examined in order to illuminate the circulation of languages, texts, and ideas between Italy and England in the Renaissance.

The study offers new perspectives on Renaissance bilingualism and cultural exchange, making it essential reading for scholars of early modern literature, translation history, language pedagogy, and Anglo-Italian relations.