Crollalanza theory of Shakespeare authorship Crollalanza theory of Shakespeare authorship The Crollalanza theory of Shakespeare's identity posits that Shakespeare was an Italian called Michelangelo Florio a.k.a. "Crollalanza", whose mother's family name is variously given as Crollalanza or Scrollalanza ("shake-speare"). He is said to have emigrated to England where he became (or at least was responsible for the works attributed to) William Shakespeare supposedly of Stratford-upon-Avon. First proposed in the 1920s, at which time it was associated confusingly with the idea that the Elizabethan linguistic scholar John Florio or his father (another Michelangelo Florio) was involved in creating Shakespeare's works, the Crollalanza hypothesis has gone through
The Plays of William Shakespeare to Johnson's "Preface to Shakespeare": a discussion of Shakespeare's "greatness" especially in his "portrayal of human nature"; the "faults or weakness" of Shakespeare; Shakespeare's plays in relationship to contemporary poetry and drama; and a history of "Shakespearean criticism and editing down to the mid-1700's" and what his work intends to do. Johnson begins: That praises are without reason lavished on the dead, and that the honours due only to excellence are paid to antiquity, is a complaint likely to be always continued by those, who, being able to add nothing to truth, hope for eminence from the heresies of paradox;