John Florio returned to London in the early 1570s, a century and a half into the history of Italo-English exchanges outlined in the preceding chapters. Florio's return to England came at an auspicious moment, for the first three decades of the Elizabethan period, the 1560s through the early 1590s, were marked by considerable Italian influence in the English cultural arena, the time in which Florio saw his two language-learning dialogue books, Firste Fruites (1578) and Second Frutes (1591), published in London. But as conspicuous as was the circulation of Italian culture in this period, its effects were – at least in terms of its native-dress linguistic and literary character – to be rapidly eclipsed as the Elizabethan era drew to an end. The maturation of the English nation, its language and emerging culture, were forces that Italians had to a high degree enabled but were never, as outsiders, in a position to control.

I argue throughout this study that the power of Italian culture in England is mediated during the Tudor era most consistently though textual means, and this is at no time more evident than in the period – little more than one generation – that Firste Fruites and Second Frutes demarcate.