Was William Shakespeare really a Sicilian linguist called John Florio? That's what one team of specialist researchers believes, and their theory is now the basis for a new television show being made by Italian filmmaker Stefano Reali. The three historical researchers, Corrado Panzeri, Saul Gerevini and Giulia Harding, say Florio fled his howtown of Messina, Sicily, during the Inquisition, travelling to Verona and Venice before ending up in London.

There, they believe he stayed in a castle owned by Henry Wriothesley, the third Count of Southampon, and used the aristocrat's protection and his father's influence to work as an author and playwright. It might sound absurd to say that the master of the English language, who famously resided in (and is thought to have been born in) Stratford-upon Avon, England, was in fact an Italian all along. But these researchers are not the first to think so.