Thomas Okey

Thomas Okey (1852–1935) was an English scholar of Italian and a writer on cities. Born in Spitalfields to a family of basket-makers, he worked at the trade for most of his life while educating himself at evening classes and at Toynbee Hall, where he met the Italianists who encouraged him. He translated Dante's Purgatorio for the Temple Classics and The Little Flowers of St. Francis, wrote The Story of Venice, The Story of Paris and The Story of Avignon for the Mediaeval Towns series, and in 1919 was appointed the first Serena Professor of Italian at Cambridge. His autobiography, A Basketful of Memories, appeared in 1930.