Michelangelo Florio

Michelangelo Florio (1515–1572), born in Lucca, or Florence and died 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 Florio.

Michelangelo Florio was born in Tuscany. The precise city of his birth is unknown, though in his Apology he describes himself as a Florentine. Francis Yates however argued that his assertion could be simply a boast in order to acquire prestige, by associating his origins with a city of great cultural prestige, It is possible he may have been born in Lucca or Siena.

He was orphaned before his adolescence, and was thereafter raised by relatives in Trentino, before entering the Franciscan Order under the name of Paolo Antonio. In that capacity, he began to preach in a number of Italian towns.

The spread of Lutheranism began to influence his thinking, and from the 1540s onwards he expressed his newly acquired beliefs while preaching from the church's pulpits. In 1548 he was arrested for heresy, and subsequently imprisoned in Rome that same year. After two years of imprisonment, he was brought to trial and condemned to death. He managed to avoid execution by escaping from prison on 6 May 1550. Abandoning his Franciscan habit, he moved first to Abruzzo, then Naples and finally to Apulia, where he boarded a ship for Venice. He resided there, establishing contact with the English ambassador and with other Italian Protestants. In September 1550, he set out to roam throughout the whole of Lombardy where pious persons provided for his basic needs. Searching for a safe refuge, he finally left his native Italy and settled in France, travelling through Lyon. After arriving in Paris, he managed to get passage on a ship to reach the safety of England.

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