2022
Shakespeare in Sicily
Shakespeare knew so many things about Italy.
Many people think he knew Italy because he was Italian, indeed, Sicilian! But it's a theory...
The theory is not mine, of course, indeed dates back to 1902 but still raises many questions, doubts and curiosities.
The Sicilians, as usual in a "happy" way, want to take back William Shakespeare to Sicily.
The reasoning is this: one who was born in Stratford on Avon why set 15 of his 37 dramas in Italy?
The same title "Much ado abuout Nothing" would recall the short story "Tantu trafficu ppi nenti" (the title is the exact translation) written by Michelangelo Florio in 1579, while the small volume "The second fruits", again written by Florio and published in 1583, would contain many quotes from proverbs in Hamlet, written many years later.
Many years ago Giuseppe Previti, the president of the sicilian Messina City Council, sent some letters to important British people: a letter to Queen Elizabeth II, one to the Italian Embassy in London, one to the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and finally one to Foreign Office, in order to to affirm the Sicilian origins of the great Writer.
Exaggerating (in my opinion), the Messina City Council granted honorary post mortem citizenship to Shakespeare on August 8 and the inclusion of its name in the list of illustrious citizens.
The discovery
The story starts at the beginning of the twentieth century, when the Italian journalist Santi Paladino (1902-1981), finds by chance in the paternal library an ancient book, entitled "The second fruits", signed by Michel Agnolo Florio. Reading it, Paladino discovered that many phrases in that book were identical to those contained in Shakespeare's works. A case of plagiarism? Impossible: that book had been printed in 1549, about 50 years before the appearance of Shakespearean works, indeed even before the birth of the poet (1564). How could this be explained?
Somebody argue that William Shakespeare is the same Michelangelo Florio himself, born in Messina on April 23, 1564 (same date as the playwright) by Giovanni Florio and Guglielma Crollalanza. Escaped to England to escape the Inquisition, Michelangelo took his mother's name and surname, transforming it into the literal English translation, William Shake (scrolla) -Speare (lanza).
Paladino discovered that Michelangelo Florio was the son of the physician Giovanni Florio and the noblewoman Guglielma Crollalanza, born in Messina and then fled to Treviso with his family, of Jewish origin and Calvinist religion, to escape the religious persecution of the Inquisition (Sicily was then under Spain).
Paladino take out from the birth files that Michelangelo was born in Messina on April 23, 1564, the same date of birth of William Shakespeare, that the surname Skahespeare was obtained by translating the maternal surname and that William was the name of a cousin of his mother, living in Stratford and died prematurely. The young Michelangelo Florio studied in Venice, Padua and Mantua; he traveled extensively, visiting Denmark, Greece, Spain and Austria, and became a humanist of great culture, sought after as a tutor by the richest families in Europe.
Thanks to his friendship with Giordano Bruno, who had good relations with the counts of Pembroke and Southampton, in 1588 Michelangelo Florio reached London, where he was hired as an Italian and Latin tutor for the future Queen Elizabeth I.
In England the theory of Paladin was unagreable, and they immediately ran for cover.
After a visit to Rome by Winston Churchill, the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini ordered the immediate closure of the Shakespearean National Academy, born in Reggio Calabria on the initiative of the lovers of the Paladin thesis.
And on Shakespeare's Italic origin, silence fell.
In 2002 a retired literature professor Martino Iuvara, further deepened his research on Florio-alias-Shakespeare, highlighting some other interesting and almost incontrovertible data.
Hoaxes
I have read so much about this interesting story but there is in the air the smell of fake or, at least, there are people who enjoyed putting on some salt.
For example, I read that two fellow students of Michelangelo Florio, during his stay in Denmark, were called Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, like the two ambassadors in Hamlet.- Why, did they go to find the names in the school register of Denmark in the fifteen hundred?
- Let's stop. Aha!
I also read that "Antonio e Cleopatra" was set in Messina ...
- But when ever ?!
They also wrote: Why should he include some typically Sicilian "mizzica" expressions in his comedy "Much ado abuout Nothing"?
- I didn't find this word in the text ...
John Florio (AKA Michael Angelo Florio)
All that at this point is rendered as a hypothesis in this research, however, is a historical fact for the English people, attributed to John Florio, a great friend of Shakespeare, humanist, translator and tutor of pupils of Royal Families, in the existing portrait, John is indeed very much similar to William Shakespeare.
The texts are attributed to him: "Primi Frutti", "Secondi Frutti" and many other works.
Some think there may be an air of conspiracy and that John was not a friend of Shakespeare but his alias, that is, that John wrote under the pseudonym of Skakespeare. Maybe.
I found some portrait of John Florio on the web and the resemblance to Shakespeare is remarkable ...
In fact, what changes? “Much ado for nothing!", I say!
What takes away or adds to the Author's literary greatness? Nothing. Perhaps the fact of knowing that Shakespeare could know Sicily and Italy will push us to read it once more again or for the first time.
