This books aims to demonstrate that John Florio, famous translator, teacher and lexicographer, was also a wizard in poetry, involved in the production of sonnets. Like an acrobat of words, jumping from the Italian Petrarchan sonnet to the English iambic pentameter, this book unveils a new, extraordinary side of Florio's multifaceted personality, a hint that his career as tutor, linguist, and translator was only a fragment of a much intriguing, gifted genius the world needs to recognise.

John Florio is best known to the present day for his great translation of Montaigne's Essays. To his contemporaries he was one of the most conspicuous figures of the literary and social cliques of the time. By her reconstruction of Florio's life and character, Frances Yates' 1934 text throws light upon the vexed question of his relations with Shakespeare.

This treatise investigates the emergence of the early modern law of nations, focusing on Alberico Gentili’s contribution to the same. A religious refugee and Regius Professor at the University of Oxford, Alberico Gentili (1552–1608) lived in difficult times of religious wars and political persecution. He discussed issues that were topical in his lifetime and remain so today, including the clash of civilizations, the conduct of war, and the maintenance of peace. His idealism and political pragmatism constitute the principal reasons for the continued interest in his work. Gentili’s work is important for historical record, but also for better analysing and critically assessing the origins of international law and its current developments, as well as for elaborating its future trajectories.

A Worlde of Wordes, the first-ever comprehensive Italian-English dictionary, was published in 1598 by John Florio. One of the most prominent linguists and educators in Elizabethan England, Florio was greatly responsible for the spreading of Italian letters and culture throughout educated English society. Especially important was Florio’s dictionary, which – thanks to its exuberant wealth of English definitions – made it initially possible for English readers to access Italy’s rich Renaissance literary and scientific culture. Award-winning author Hermann W. Haller has prepared the first critical edition of A Worlde of Wordes, which features 46,000 Italian entries – among them dialect forms, erotic terminology, colloquial phrases, and proverbs of the Italian language. Haller reveals Florio as a brilliant English translator and creative writer, as well as a grammarian and language teacher. His helpful critical commentary highlights Florio’s love of words and his life-long dedication to promoting Italian language and culture abroad.