PIZZA IN THE FIRST DICTIONARY

John Florio (1535-1625) was Italian but lived in England for most of his life. He was a multi-talented intellectual: linguist, translator, writer, and court tutor to King James I. His translation of Michel de Montaigne's Essais was almost certainly read and used by Shakespeare in his own works. The Scottish-born king, highly cultured and erudite, was the patron of the King's Men, Shakespeare's company. So it would be surprising if Florio and Shakespeare did not know each other well.

It seems, however, that the cultured Italian had always considered English taste a little underdeveloped, unrefined. As a starting point and to enrich the English aesthetically, he wrote two volumes of Italian proverbs, called First Fruits, which yield Familiar Speech, Merry Proverbs, Witty Sentences, and Golden Sayings, and Second Fruits, to be gathered of Twelve Trees, of different

but delightsome Taster to the Tongues of Italian and English men.

Later, in 1598, he also wrote the first Italian-English dictionary, entitled A World of Words , which contains approximately 46,000 words. And it is in this first Italian-English dictionary that we find the English translation of the word "la pizza" for the first time . Florio translates pizza as "a small cake or wafer ," a mixture between a cake and a wafer.

John Florio was a linguist, translator, writer, and teacher. At the same time, he was also the first ambassador of Italian cuisine.

H.-S.- Merlin, 29/10/2019