Lecture by prof. Hermann Halller
A Worlde of Wordes, the first-ever comprehensive Italian-English dictionary, waspublished 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.
Hermann W. Haller is a professor of italian at Queens College and in the PhD Program
of Comparative literature at the Graduate Center, City University of new York. he was
the recipient of the inaugural Modern language Association Scaglione Publication
Award for his book The Other Italy: The Literary Canon in Dialect.
In the framework of Italian Language Week under the high patronage of the President of the Italian Republic.