Filippo Orlando was born in 1850 at Adernò (nowadays Adrano), in the Province of Catania, and had moved to Florence as an employee of the Ministry of Postal Services. As well as “Letture di famiglia” he was director of the “Giornale di erudizione”, and together with Giuseppe Baccini and Enrico Montazio he edited a series of learned curiosities that was called at first “Bibliotechina grassoccia” and later on “Bibliotechina rarissima”. For the publishers Fratelli Bocca he assembled and annotated five volumes of Carteggi italiani inediti o rari, antichi e moderni, as well as publishing the poetry of Giuseppe Regaldi and a translation of Edgar Allan Poe, entitled Racconti straordinari.

He was a friend of Raffaello Caverni and he gave strong support to the completion of the publication of his Storia del metodo sperimentale in Italia and to the sale of Caverni’s archive to the Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze, both without success. Between 1895 and 1898, when Caverni was still alive, he had published in the “Giornale di erudizione” the first biographical profile of Caverni in the section Valentuomini dimenticati dai dizionari e dalle enciclopedie. He died in Florence in 1913.