Lamberto Tassinari (born 1945) is a writer and editor best known for his book ''John Florio: The Man Who Was Shakespeare''. He is one of the founders of the transcultural magazine ViceVersa (not to be confused with a 1948 magazine of the same name), which he directed until its last issue in December 1996. Tassinari is one of the four writers to propose

John Florio Giovanni Florio (1552 or 1553 – 1625), known as John Florio, was an English linguist, poet, writer, translator, lexicographer, and royal language tutor at the Court of James I. He is recognised as the most important Renaissance humanist in ...

Michelangelo Florio Michelangelo Florio (1515–1566), possibly born in Florence, dead in Soglio, was the son of a Franciscan friar, before converting to Protestantism. He was a pastor in both England and Switzerland, and father of the renaissance humanist John Flori ...

, among those who contested the paternity of Shakespeare's work.

Biography

Lamberto Tassinari was born in

Castelfiorentino Castelfiorentino is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Florence, Tuscany, central-northern Italy, located between Florence (distance 30 km), Pisa (45 km) and Siena (55 km). The population numbers approxi ...

, Italy on February 28, 1945. He spent his childhood on the island of

Elba Elba (, ; ) is a Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean island in Tuscany, Italy, from the coastal town of Piombino on the Italian mainland, and the largest island of the Tuscan Archipelago. It is also part of the Arcipelago Toscano National Park, a ...

. After obtaining a degree in Philosophy from the

University of Florence The University of Florence ( Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Firenze'') (in acronym UNIFI) is an Italian public research university located in Florence, Italy. It comprises 12 schools and has around 50,000 students enrolled. History The f ...

, he lived in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

and

Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

where he worked as a teacher and in several publishing companies. He moved to

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

and became a resident in 1981. Two years later he founded, along with three other writers, the transcultural magazine ViceVersa which he directed until its last issue in December 1996. ViceVersa was a quarterly which published articles in the original language (French, English, Italian and Spanish) without any translation in the Eighties and Nineties. Tassinari participated, as editor-in-chief, to many symposiums and international events: the forum ''L'État des Revues'' at the

Pompidou Centre The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, 1987; the symposium ''Città Nuova, Nuova Città'' at the 31st Festival dei Popoli in

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

, 1990; and the symposium ''Pluralism and Literature'' at

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public university, public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to se ...

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

, in 1990. He took part in the CISQ International Seminar Le Projet transculturel de ViceVersa in Rome and the

Concordia University Concordia University () is a Public university, public English-language research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College (Montreal), Loyola College and Sir George Williams Universit ...

’s Conference La Transculture et ViceVersa, Montreal, 2007. Between 1982 and 2007, he taught Italian language and literature at the

University of Montreal A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

Shakespeare authorship theory

In 2008 Lamberto Tassinari published a 378 page book ''Shakespeare? È il nome d'arte di John Florio'' (Shakespeare? It is John Florio's pen name) which makes a case that both Shakespeare's fondness for Italian settings and his knowledge of Italy exceed what is credible for the historical William Shakespeare from Stratford. However, in a public discussion in 2011 Tassinari insisted that the Michelangelo or Michel Agnolo icFlorio who features in his scenarios is always

, the well attested North-Italian-born father of the Elizabethan humanist

, and must not be equated with the Sicilian "Crollalanza", whom he calls an ill-documented "fantomatico cugino" (phantom/elusive cousin) of

(whom he considers to be the real Shakespeare).

Bibliography

* 1985: ''Durante la Partenza'' * 1999: ''Utopies par le Hublot'' * 2008 (original Italian edition): ''John Florio: The Man Who Was Shakespeare'', Giano Books, Montreal (translated in 2009)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tassinari, Lamberto 1945 births Living people People from Castelfiorentino Shakespeare authorship question Writers from Montreal