David Prashker's Book Of Days: The Merely Mentioneds: F

Gentile Da Fabriano (circa 1370-1427): his “The Adoration of the Magi” is the illustration on Jan 6 – bio here

Gaucelm Faidit: one of the Troubadours who came under the matronage of Maria de Ventadorn on Jan 13

Mary Fairfax (Somerville), 26 Dec 1780-29 Nov 1872: “started her education in the family library. In 1804 she married her cousin, Samuel Greig, son of Sir Samuel Greig, of the Russian Navy. They lived in London until his death in 1807. Mary's second husband, William Somerville, encouraged her studies in science and mathematics...” [follow up the John Percival connection but also Lady Margaret Hall] - Somerville Hall website here – entertaining Ada Lovelace on June 5

Farinace, though I think it should be spelled Farinacci, as in Prospero Farinacci (born November 1 1554; died December 31 1618), or Farinaccius in the Latin pen-name on his “Praxis et Theorica Criminalis” of 1616”, the work that made him famous. The recently rediscovered portrait of him by Caravaggio can be found here [which means Caravaggio now needs an MM listing]. The letter from Victor Hugo can be found here. He goes with Beccaria on Oct 18

Yaakov Farkash, or Ze’ev on his cartoons: born in Hungary in 1923, he survived the Holocaust in Europe, arriving in Israel in 1947 - full bio here - Sept 27, though there are other uses of him or refs elsewhere on the blog

Alessandro Farnese (Pope Paul III), (born Feb 29 1468; died November 10 1549) - Britannica reckons he was a good ‘un

John Chipman Farrar: publishing in partnership with Roger Straus Jr on Dec 23; apparently they are now owned by Macmillan (click here - or am I misreading because it then takes you to the FS&G website, which doesn’t open); for Farrar click here

Thomas Faryner: owned the bakery on Pudding Lane where the Great Fire of London started on Sept 2. Faryner, or Farriner, from the French “farine” = “flour”. More here, but ignore the last paragraph. As noted elsewhere on this blog, Henry I required all people to choose their family’s trade, and stay with it, so people acquired the name of their trade (Cooper, Smith, Mason etc), and therefore Thomas was a Farriner

Gabriel Urbain Fauré (born May 12 1845; died November 4 1924): teaching the Boulanger sisters on Aug 21: more here

Itzik Feffer (איציק פֿעפֿער in Yiddish; Исаàк Соломòнович Фèфер in Russian): (born September 10 1900; executed Aug 12 1952): one of twenty-six ruined on “The Night of the Murdered Poets”, or the “Yiddish writers plot” if you take the other view. My favourite quote from him (in translation, obviously) here

Leo Fender: counterpointing Les Paul on June 9.

Geoffrey Fenton: supplying Burglar Bill with fenced goods on Jan 30. His bio here.

Georges Feydeau (born December 8 1862; died June 5 1921): a complete farce on Dec 5 – bio here

Sinibaldo Fieschi (Pope Innocent IV), 1195-1254: his words on July 14 should be inscribed on a plaque, and mounted very prominently in every church in Christendom

Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, who was really Bill Fisher (William August Fisher 1903-1971) of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He had been sentenced to 45 years and a $3,000 fine but had only served four years when he was swapped: May 1

Edward FitzGerald (born March 31 1809; died June 14 1883) translated the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám on March 6, though he invented the title; “Rubáiyát” in Arabic simply mean “quatrains”. He also invented his last name - most unusually, his dad used his wife’s name, and Edward kept it: on his birth certificate he was a Purcell.

Robert fitz Walter: leader of the barons on June 15; the full list of the barons and witnesses is on the blogpage; ditto here; or otherwise here for his leadership of the English “Brotherhood of Assassins”, which tells you what the real purpose of Magna Carta was! Power!

Ian Fleming: May 11, but also see the James Bond listing

Phileas Fogg: Sept 28 and Dec 21

Jane Fonda: playing Lillian Hellman on June 20

Robert Ford: killed his former idol Jesse James on April 3 – click here

George Foreman: with Joe Frazier, bashing in, or out, or both, but however you adverb it the verb is the right one, the brains of Muhammad Ali on Jan 17 (and I would only include the winner on this list, with the loser “merely mentioned among the merely mentioneds”, but sadly, in the end, because that is what boxing does to you, all three lost)

Paul-Michel Foucault is not mentioned on Sept 18, but needs to be to avoid confusion: he can be found here

Liam Fox: unleashing daggers on Oct 13

Fragonard - click here for its own website; whoops, sorry, that’s the parfumier. Try here for Jean-Honoré (born April 5 1732; died August 22 1806): on show at the Wallace Collection on April 16

Margot Frank: sister of diarist Annelies Marie (Anne): dead of typhus at Bergen-Belsen on June 12. Numerous other MMs in that piece, not including those who are already on the main Index (e.g. dad Otto Frank and failed shopkeeper Rowland Hussey Macy - see Dec 23 for his story). The other MMs are Joan Adler, who runs the Straus Historical Society; Lina Straus and Helen Sachs Straus; Carol Ann Lee, who wrote Otto Frank’s biography; Helene (Leni) Frank (Otto’s younger sister); Eugenie Blum, New York debutante; Edith Holländer (her née-name before she became Otto’s wife), her brothers Julius and Walter, and their mother Rosa; English cousin Millie Stanfield; Augusta Mayerson, Acting Director of the Migration Department of the National Refugee Service, and her colleagues G. V. Saxl and Ann S. Petluck; Joseph Schildkraut, the actor who portrayed Otto Frank in the first Broadway adaptation of the diary (I have given its author Meyer Levin his own listing, below), and finally President and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who get two mentions.

Knut Franke: exegising the FAE Sonata on Oct 27 - the piece can be heard here

Joseph William (“Smokin’ Joe”) Frazier: with George Foreman on Jan 17, and how glad they both were that it wasn’t Muhammad Ali again

Daniel Chester French: faking John Harvard on Nov 26 - try here

Anna Freud (3 December 1895 – 9 October 1982), daughter, and Lucian Michael Freud (8 December 1922 – 20 July 2011), grandson: the more famous of the offspring on Dec 3; her bio here and here; his here and here.

Rudolf (“Rudy”, “Baštík”) Freudenfeld, though he is also known as Franěk, the former German, the latter Czech, the former his birth-name, the latter his survivor’s statement after the war: smuggled the piano reduction of the opera Brundibár into the camp at Terezin on April 1, and took chare of preparing the children for its first performance: bio here

Man Friday: no sign of him in the Selkirk version on Feb 1, but very much in charge in my piece in “The Captive Bride” (page 122)

Carl Friedberg: taught Erwin Schulhoff in Cologne on April 1

Martin Frobisher (born circa 1535; died November 22 1594): an English “sailor and privateer” who made three voyages to the New World looking for the North-West Passage... English view of him here, Canadian here - also interesting to note that Frobisher is Middle Aenglish for “Furbisher”, “one who furbishes; especially, a sword cutler, who finishes sword blades and similar weapons” – so maybe “sailor and privateer” is really just a euphemism for “pirate” - May 28

Jack Freitag (John Fry) (1922-1994): honoured at Guy’s Hospital on Feb 23 – plaque here (apparently there’s another plaque in Bromley, presumably by his surgery in Beckenham, though the link doesn’t make that clear), obituary here; bio here