16 Facts About Santi Paladino

Santi Paladino was an Italian journalist, politician and writer, who is best known for his theory that Michelangelo Florio was the real author of the works of Shakespeare, a view he propounded in several publications from 1927 on.

Santi Paladino was the founder of the Italian Unionist Movement, a short-lived anti-Communist political party that existed from 1944 to 1948.

Originally from Scilla, Calabria, in 1926 Paladino founded Sirena, a literary journal and magazine concentrating on Sicilian and Calabrian culture.

Santi Paladino wrote on miscellaneous topics, including a manual entitled How to write and co-write a film script: Theoretical and practical guide.

Santi Paladino first suggested that Michelangelo Florio was the author of Shakespeare's works in 1927.

Santi Paladino's arguments were presented in full in the booklet Shakespeare sarebbe lo pseudonimo di un poeta italiano.

Santi Paladino's documents were confiscated and the sale of his book banned.

Santi Paladino's theory is linked to the argument put forward by other "anti-Stratfordians" that Shakespeare's work shows an intimate knowledge of Italian culture and geography.

Santi Paladino argued that Florio was a Sicilian Calvinist who had been forced to move to England to avoid persecution by the Catholic church.

Santi Paladino invented the name Shakespeare by translating his mother's maiden name, Crollalanza, into English.

Much of Santi Paladino's argument rests on the similarity of verses in the book Second Fruits to lines from Hamlet.

Variations on Santi Paladino's views have been developed by other, mostly Italian, writers, including Martino Iuvara, Lamberto Tassinari and Roberta Romani.

On October 12,1944, while Allied armies occupied Italy, Santi Paladino joined with the former fascist sociologist Corrado Gini and statistician Ugo Damiani to found the anti-Communist Italian Unionist Movement.

Santi Paladino wanted Italy to remain internally unified in a federal union with America.

Santi Paladino became a leading Italian advocate of federal world government, attending the Montreux Congress of the World Movement in 1947.

Santi Paladino wrote L'avventura di Mary in 1958 and L'invasione della Terra in 1960.