The Duecento (13th century)

The Duecento Italiano is one of the brightest periods in the history of arts and, like humanism in the 1400s, its studies and discoveries pave the way for the golden age of the following century, the Trecento Italiano. A Renaissance, however, is hardly the brainchild of a few mavericks - rather, it is built on the shoulders of giants: St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-7-1274), the greatest philosopher of this century reshapes Christian theology by reaffirming the primacy of Aristotle, and what seems to be a theoretical achievement has in fact profound implications in the history of western European thinking. Among the towering giants are, notably, the poets of the Sicilian School of Frederick II (1230-1250), mystic reformers like St. Francis (1181-1226), Gothic art although Giotto di Bondone (1277-1337), belongs to the following rather than the 13th century. Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) and Guido Cavalcanti (1255-1300 - the head of Dolce stil Novo) are already active in the last two decades. So many are the forces at play at this time that listing them here would scarcely do them justice.

Unlike the past century, the Duecento is creative - it innovates rather than consolidates: once the communes have shored up their power their efforts aim at creating a new world of arts and letters. Florence in particular is the point where all these forces converge, gaining momentum by the year until the close of the century, when the mighty titan of Dante emerges. It is said that we owe the Italian language to him - but it would be unfair stop at that - Dante is the demiurge of the Italian language, writes Migliorini, one of the greatest Italian philologists - Dante channels all the creative forces into an entirely new culture - one that we can truly feel ours and that is already that of the modern Europe .

The Gothic cathedrals, that appear in this century, are another visible product of the spirit of innovation that pervades the age, with sophisticated building techniques that allow architects to erect extraordinary high walls by using pointed arches, and buttresses to discharge their immense pressure on their sides. Once propped by extra support, walls become so resistant as to incorporate large glass windows. Their frames accomodate paintings whose beauty reminds one of the miniatures of illuminated manucripts.

Creativity is also religious: the century opens with the migration of the troubadours to Piedmont and Veneto as pope's cruisade against the "heretics" exiles many from France - where the crown seeks to subject Provence under its language and Catholic orthodoxy. Provence defends its autonomy by cultivating an original literature in its native language - the langue d'oc - and keeping the troubadours at its courts - these poets are, however, more than roving minstrels, they are skilled poets, musicians and actors all in one: even in the absence of a repertoire, they can improvise with incredible ease.

Not only does their talent charm princes, it draws crowds to the streets to listen to their stories of knight errants falling for enchanting princesses. To win a princess's love the knight must submit to her will - and prove his fidelity by undergoing a number of ordeals. The harder the test, the more worthy he will be in her eyes - the final reward being the consummation of love.

The ritual of submitting to the princess mimics the feudal relationship between vassal and prince, who grants lands to a knight in exchange for his services. Once this ritual is applied to love, it is used as a pretext to wave extraordinary tales into music. However, because the Occitan culture supports some of the zealous reformers - such as the Cathars - people who not only deny the power of the Catholic hierarchy but questions the resurrection of Christ, the troubadours are doomed.

The pope lauches into a "cruisade" to restore orthodoxy and the kings of France are only eager to help him crush the riotous aristocracy of the south - Cathar reformers, unfortunately, include known princes and troubadours, many of them are burned at the stake, while others are exiled to Italy, where their poetry is extremely popular, especially in the North - Ezzelino III da Romano (1194-1259), prince of the Marca Trevigiana (today's Veneto) has many of them at his court, while others settle in the Monferrato (Piedmont). Some win the admiration of crowds in central Italy, from Tuscany to Umbria, whose communes are tolerant and enjoy a greater independence from the Vatican thanks to their republican constitutions. The sirventois is another important heritage from France that the Tuscan troubadours will put to good use - for their own political satire - as much abundant in the propaganda wars between the communes as in the pages of the Commedia.

Courtly love also lands in Sicily, where the trobadour legacy passes on to the dignitaries of Frederick II (1194-1250) - they improvise their pieces in their own language while sticking to the troubadour model, yet writing their songs in literary Sicilian, which becomes a standard for Italian literature - arguably the first national language of Italy before Dante. The sonnet, the offspring of Giacomo da Lentini (active 1230-1250) plays an important role in early Italian poetry - Dante himself uses it copiously in his collection of songs - Vita Nuova.

From the Sicilians, particularly Giacomo, Dante inherits a rich repertoire of phrases and expressions that pass into the Florentine with only a few spelling variations. Only when we are aware of the diverse legacy that impacts on Dante we can truly acknowledge his genius - the ability of welding so many cultures into one great work. Dante is, Migliorini says, the demiurge of Italian language - it would, however, have been impossible to weave together so many cultural instances without his encyclopedic knowledge - one that hails from the teachings of Brunetto Latini (1220-1294 - Dante's mentor, author of the Tresor encyclopaedia) to the lessons of his law professors of Bologna and the poetic apprenticeship of Guido Cavalcanti.

The Catholic Church will manage to harness the less extreme reformers into new orders - like the franciscans and the dominicans who write, like St.Francis, extraordinary lyric poetry and, incidentally, give birth to the first Italian theatre - initially made of popular dramas enacting the Passion of Jesus. This new wave of mysticism penetrates artists like Dante and Giotto, whose work deeply affects the treatment of courtly love. In much of this religious poetry the relationship beween knight and princess is tranfigured into that between Jesus and the Virgin, as portrayed in the powerful scenes of love and pathos of Umbrian poestry.

Incidentally, the Laudes Creaturarum of Saint Francis of Assisi is considered the first work of Italian literature, although written in a regional Italian that is far from the language of Dante - but is quite original in content and is not, unlike previous work, dependent on, French models. The hand that pens it is that of Francis, but the poem echoes that of the psalms.

Dolce Stil Novo is not insensible to this poetry, and mediates between the subtle eroticism of Occitan aristocracy and popular mysticism of Umbria. Christian Neoplatonism, which elevates physical love to spirituality, becomes the means to embark on a metaphysical quest - from Cavalcanti's theory of spirits to Dante's christianism. For him, true love can only lead to eternal bliss, since it is inspired by God and must therefore have a redeeming value to it. The woman in the poem, then, becomes, like the Virgin (very popular in this age) the intermediary between man and God and like Beatrice, his ultimate guide to salvation.

First banking statements and war-bulletins

A list of the assets and liabilities from the Parish of Fondi (late 12th century) makes up another text most quoted in the annals of the Italian language. Unfortunately it is difficult to make out its exact meaning since father Antonio, son of Niccolò di fondi has no better grasp of its dialect than its latin, and the text appears to be a mish-mash of both:

Item vinale unu posto alla veterina a llatu Antoni de Trometa et a sancto Antoni a la via a longu la macera.

Item Pastena deve dare pro olo sanctu at pro cridima tometa de granum novem rase.

The first accounting books from a Florentine bank

This is the first text from a Florentine bank (called banco at the time, from the wooden desk on which transactions were first made), and in spite of its rather prosaic content it is considered of the greatest importance since it helped scholars understand the evolution of 12th century Florentine.

Luckily, the text is remarkably long, its spelling shows a certain linguistic maturity though many believe there may be more texts of the kind still awaiting discovery. The transaction dates to 1211, and was later used for binding a 14th century book, as happened with many more manuscripts called palimpsests (the lack of available parchment led writers to recycle, sometimes erasing valuable work).

MCCXII. Aldobrandino Petri e Buonessegna Falkoni no diono dare katuno in tuto libre lii per livre diciotto d'imperiali mezani, a rrascione di trenta e cinque meno terza, ke demmo loro tredici dì anzi kalende luglio, e diono pagare tredici dì anzi kalende luglio: se più stanno, a iiii denari libra il mese, quanto fosse nostra volontade. Testi Alberto Baldovini e Quitieri Alberti di Ponte del Duomo.

Carta di Montieri

The list of carte we spoke about in the last two posts include the Chart granted to the Men of Montieri (1219), in the Maremma Toscana, but its importance is more historical than literary, as this is pehaps the first document we have so far marking the emancipation of communal society (or city states) from feudal tutelage.

Although we know some documents must have first emerged in the early eleventh century, the most important charts usually date to much later than this period. The Carta di Montieri is also intriguing in that it contains a number of corrections by the parties who could not come to a quick settlement of the dispute.

The Pergamena volterrana

There are more court proceedigs resulting from occasional lawsuits over the property of a number of lands. Perhaps the most interesting is that contained in the Pergamena Volterrana ("The Parchment of Volterra, 1158"), and concerns the settling of a territorial dispute in Travale in the mid twelfth century, following a litigation between two brothers, Count Ranieri Pannachieschi and Galgano, bishop of Volterra. Ranieri claims that some properties (as houses) held by his brother belong to Travale, and are not under the bishop's jurisdiction, which his brother obviously denies.

At the audience, a number of witnesses are heard by judge Balduino, one of the most striking depositions being that of a guard, who was excused from his service in Travale after cracking a joke against the scarcity of his ration:

"Guaita, guaita male, non mangiai ma' mezo pane".

This is one of the oldest Italian proverbs ever recorded. To this time date the first political tracts describing how communes acquired their independence: that includes bulletins of war written in Italian for the first time, full of cavalier remarks on enemies conduct - the result of feuds between cities and the first war propaganda in the new language - in a few years energies will find their way into satiric poetry, in the genre of "sirventese", with Tuscan troubadour poets modeling their work on the French sirventois.

If today we talk of left and right, once it was all about pope and empire, guelf and ghibellin, with bloody feuds that reached deep inside the city with families, their members pitted against one another by one faction or another, with the pope supporting the French against the group of cities backed by the emperor. Even without the gulfs and the ghibelins these rivalries escalate in the Renaissance - when the strife between regional states leads to numerous plots to assassinate eminent politicians.

The ambition for political unity, unchecked by political wisdom and a strong national leader - which Machiavell noted in his Prince - will divide rather than unify the peninsula, putting it at the mercy of foreign powers like France, by then grown into modern European nations and capable of manipulating Italian politics.

Ritmo bellunese

One of the earliest 'bulletins' of war in Italian consists of a fragment of four verses on the battle of Belluno (a city in northern Veneto) against the fortress of Casteldardo. The story contains a quote in Italian from a knight who took part in the fight written by the an historian who is also the author another quote on a battle between a faction from Lucca and rivals from the neighboring towns, 1213) in his Latin chronicle. (N.B. "Tarvisio" is an old variant of Treviso):

De Casteldard avì li nostri bon part

i lo getà tutto intra lo flumo d'Ard

e sex cavalier de Tarvis li plui fer

con se duse li nostri cavaler.

transl.:

Over Castel d'Ardo our men had the upper hand

They threw them all (=the enemy) into the river Ardo

And the six most valiant knights from Treviso

Led our knights to victory.

minor edits on typos - Oct. 27 2008

The Carta Fabrianese (1186)

Three of these carte come from the region of Marche, in central Italy: the Carta osimana (1151), the Carta fabrianese (1186), and the Carta picena (1193) which Breschi ("Le Marche" in: L'Italiano nelle regioni ed. F. Bruni vol.1, UTET, 1997, p.466) rates as the most remarkable in that the separation between Latin and Italian is clearly perceived by the writer. Further, the definitive transition to Italian was accelerated by the scarce command of Latin by Marche notaries - that is why central Italy is a trove of early Italian documents and paves the way to the literary fervor that will pervade it in the following century.

The first two documents are related to the activity of the abbeys of Santa Maria di Chiaravalle (Fiastra), San Vittore delle Chiuse (Fabriano), the third is a confirmation of a prior settlement between Blandineo di Arduvino and Giovanni Ofridi about some properties near Ascoli - the agreement is penned by one Firmus (it. Fermo?), the notary.

Fabriano's carta is partly printed in Migliorini's History - as such I report it below - and is a financial transaction between the party of count Attolino and Berta, wife of Ruggeri, and the prior of San Vittore delle Chiuse and Rolando di Bernardo. Significantly, it opens in Latin, but a very bad one at that, and as count Attolino continues to dictate to the notary, at some point he can no longer keep up with him and switches to the Italian in which he is more fluent, passing from the noi ("we") to the less formal io (I)- the count's own words are then jotted down verbatim - in his own vernacular:

de la quale consortia nui avemo plu de vui, nui partimo e vui tollete, et o advemo de paradegu, de paradegu parterimu...

et set ce fosse impedementu varcante, lu 'mpedementu sia complitu et pignu vet mecto per X livere de inforzati...

I will attempt to translate that proximately as:

"of such properties where we have more than you, we shall divide and you shall take and where we possess in equal parts, in equal parts we shall divide"

"and should we encounter obstacles in this matter, may such obstacles be overcome with my pledge of 10 pounds' inforzati [inforzato, pl. -i is a currency then used in nothern Italy]..."

Fabriano has probably one of the finest paper mills in Italy, its foundation dating to about 1230 - it will be widely known all over Italy when Aldus Manutius chooses its paper for his books in the Renaissance.

The 12th century

The cathedral of San Zeno, in Verona (1178)

Although this century brings widespread prosperity to the peninsula, and sees the coming of age of the commune (city-state) with the flourishing banking industry of Pisa and Florence, intellectual effort is focused on the crafts rather than the arts - the bourgeoisie is busy building palazzi and basiliche (churches in the romasesque style modeled on Roman basilicas) to make room for the blooming political and religious institutions of the new republics. The Vatican consolidates its political influence in the center and in the North, where the Guelf party defeats Emperor Frederick I in Legnano (Milan, 1176) . Meanwhile the South is unified by the Normans under the Crown of Sicily, later inherited by the Hohenstaufen (Frederick II is named King of Sicily in 1198). In this turnmoil so little time is left to literature and the fine arts that even writers of Latin literature hush for a hundrerd years. The previous century had seen a number of works in this language, if not yet in Italian.

Energies are no longer put into painting or poetry - and when we look at the sobriety romanesque architecture we see how these massive white stone buildings catch the eye without appealing to our sense of beauty - the first cathedrals and their huge bell towers rather point to the economic prosperity and power of their patrons, not to renenewed artistic sensibility.

Such sobriety impresses us with the craftmanship of those who strove to built these basiliche but not with their art when we compare them to the maturity diplayed in the age of Dante and Giotto. The mysticism of romanesque is accounts for its simplicity, not unlike the one of the paupers and mystics that anticipate St. Francis - decoration is minimal, space in paintings two-dimentional, human bodies and faces gazing at us from from arches and spires without really detaching from the white body of the cathedral.

Until Florence becomes known for its poetry the economy's economic boom in the north is unmatched by any other achievement in the arts. When we see how much language draws on literature to evolve we understand Migliorini's disappointment. In this context it should not appear remarkable that the most important documents in the Italian language are fragments, not works, phrases, not pages and come as they do from accounting books and deeds by notaries and bankers.

We can roughly divide these documents into carte and scritte. Only the latter interest us linguistically since the scritte (en. "writings") are jotted down informally, often parenthetically to comment on or clarify what is being stated in Latin. While only Latin statements in the carte (en. "papers") have legal status, they stick to protocols and have little of the spoken language. Conversely, the informal tone of scritte frees them from the constraints of Latin formulas - because do not longer pretend to imitate the Latin spelling their Italian stands off more clearly.

However, the transition to Italian is not sudden and scritte steal themselves into the uncertain fabric of middle Latin in the course of two centuries eventually eroding it. At this point as more and more people get to speak the vernacular, even on official occasions, given the growing demand for financial transaction: merchants and bankers, the rising upper class that replaces nobility is no longer raised in convents but is trained in the shops and travels quite a bit around Europe, most often to France with whom Tuscany and Umbria have strong business relationships: the name "Francesco" ("Francis") was likely coined by Italian merchants and personalities like "Francesco" d'Assisi and Francesco Petrarch were the sons of merchants who had spent most of their lives beyond the Alps.

The influence of Latin on 11th-century writing had produced calques on early attempts at Italian, producing a latinised Italian mingled without much distinction to the italianised Latin. Until then it is not easy to draw the line between middle Latin and the first scribblings in Italian. In the 12th century, however, a line is drawn - at some point we can tell when one language begins and the other ends by just reading - writers now must have a clear perception of Italian as a language and do no longer see it as a "lower" form of Latin. We are going to see much the same thing in the Renaissance when vernacular, or regional literature takes on a life of its own as it separates from the italian language - and dialect can be really said to exist only when its perception among the people is consolidated. After that the standard Italian can rightly secede from regional languages.

Dialect and Latin in Rome

Migliorini, the famous scholar (Storia della lingua italiana, 84-85) remarks that having a Roman patrician like Sisinnius speak dialect adds fun to the scene especially since the saint lectures him in Latin after failing to tie him up. Setting the two characters apart: Sininnius evil is set off by his crude dialect while Latin is used to underline the saint's wisdom.

The contrast between Sisinnius and Saint Clement is even starker with the phrase 'fili de pute' put in Sisinius' mouth. Using Italian at holy functions was forbidden by the Church, but the doctrine enforced by Pope Gregory V in 999 A.D. allowed for exceptions with audiences unable to speak or read Latin.

That non-Latin speakers were the great majority at mass obviously tells us something important about the state of Italian in the 11th century, and the necessity to instruct audiences that are no longer faniliar with Latin.

St. Clement's Inscription in Rome

Iscrizione di San Clemente

Much more important is the Iscrizione di San Clemente (St Clemensts inscription, late 11th century), which can still be read in the Church with same name in Rome. It is a dialogue from the Passio Sancti Clementis (6th c. A.D.) added to a fresco in the old underground church and portrays a miracle performed by Saint Clement.

The pagan patrician Sisinnius, after his wife converts to Christianism accuses the saint of using sorcery on his wife. When he has him tied and laid on the floor he orders two of his servants to drag him with a rope, and a third to lift him from behind with a pole:

Fàlite dereto colo palo Carvoncelle ('Push him from behind with the pole, Carvoncelle')

Gosmari, Albertel, traite. ('Gosmari, Albertel, pull!')

Fili de le pute, traite. ('Pull, son of a b*****s!')

And a miracle happens : the saint is suddenly standing up in front of them, untied, while the servants are dragging a column in his stead. At this point the saint exclaims sternly:

Duritia[m] cordis vestri[s] saxa traere meruisti

('You deserved to drag stones because of your cold-heartness!')

Remarkably, this inscription is a dialogue in vernacular in a church - where the lines are a sort of caption to the painted figures much like a comic book. It stands in a public place of a certain importance where it can be easily read and by everyone - to be sure an Italian-speaking audience.

Southern Italy

Meantime the South pursues a different political course: the Normans found the Kingdom of Sicily (1059), paving the way for the linguistic koinè of Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor who will inherit the throne of Sicily (by his mother's side) two centuries later.

By the 11th century North and South have developed two economic systems - one largely based on commerce, the latter on agriculture, one run by the middle-class merchants, the other based on feudalism. The Guelfs (pro-pope) and Ghibelins (pro-emperors) divide Italy's city-states, but the Guelfs are particularly powerful in the North. Such cultural differencies will create a gap that will survive Italy's unification (1861) and that will only widen with the industrial revolution around Milan and Turin (ca 1900).

The only Italian documents dating to the 11th century are the Carta Amiatina (1087), a Tuscan will by one Miciarello (nicknamed "capocotto") who bequeaths his property to the Abbey of San Salvatore (Mount Amiata, Tuscany). The deed contains a footnote in dialect , one of the first documents in Tuscan:

Ista carta est de caput coctu ille adiuvet de illu rebottu qui mal consiliu li mise in corpu

"This paper belongs to "capocotto", may it help him against the evil one who ill-advised him"

Note the archaic traits (left, old Tuscan, center, present-day Italian, right, English :

Ista = questa = ("this", feminine)

Ille, illu = lo (the, masculine)

Mal consiliu = mal consiglio ("bad advice")

li =gli ("to him")

corpu=corpo ("body")

And - how different this is from Dante's Italian which is, conversely, quite free from Latinisms. However, it must also be noted that the notary applied a Latin spelling to Italian words, so some of the words look Latin, but in fact they do not sound like that.

For example, est sounded like modern Italian è (is), illu must be considered an early article and no longer a demonstrative (it will become 'lo' a couple of centuries later), "caput coctu" is an "elegant" rendering of capucottu, "qui" sounded 'ki', as Ital. chi ('who'). Mal consiliu = mal consiglio ("ill advice"), "li" = gli ('to him'), mise ('filled') is modern Italian as well, in corpu is also modern except for the -u ending for -o.

The 11th Century: the First City-States

For most of this century, the vernacular seems to have disappeared from documents, though it continues to evolve as a spoken language. It is still fragmented in different regional languages (dialects), none of these actually prevailing upon the others.

If some poet had devoted part of their effort to writing in his own dialect , the Italian language would be marching toward a unified, however primitive, standard. But in the eyes of the intellectuals the new language is seen as a corruption, or worse a degeneration of Latin, the offpring of the moral decay that had brought about the fall of the Roman Empire.

With the fear that dialect may eventually erode what is left of Latin, every subject is taught in the old language. Rhetoric, the cornerstone of medieval learning is taught after the examples of Cicero and Seneca, therefore in their language although few would use it outside their classroom.

Because Italian states do not provide public education, only a few well-off can hire a private tutor to raise their sons as they please. The only schools are ecclesiastical, and here the vernacular is not only discouraged - but considered morally reprehensible. Latin is after all the language of theology, the language of the Fathers of the Church such as St. Augustin and the St. Gerome, the translator (and patron saint of translators) who produced the Vulgate Bible (in Latin) from the Greek.

The 11th century also sees the birth of the communes (it. comuni) or city-states in the center-north such as Florence, Lucca, Pisa, Milan. Cities and towns, the "città" are still listed with that name today: Comune di Lucca, Comune di Padova.

Unfortunately, the communes are more focused on consolidating their economic and military power than in refining their language. It appears that more practical interests are going to prevail for the next two centuries: Genoa, Pisa, Amalfi and Venice ("repubbliche marinare") vie for supremacy in the Mediterranean and even found colonies outside Italy, while Florence develops the new art of banking.

Without a unified language, Italians would be dependent on French literary models for a long time (La Chanson de Roland and the Arthurian legends on the one hand, the courtly love of Occitan poetry on the other, including the Roman de la Rose and the Fabliaux which enjoy an enormous success). Jokers use a repertoire in corrupt French or Occitan to entertain their patrons.

Looking closer at the texts of Placiti

The formulas from Sessa Aurunca (March 963) and Teano (October, 963) are similar in kind, only concerning different lands, though still within the Lombard duchy of Capua. These documents are invaluable in that their formulas are similar to the Placito, confirming that that is the language spoken around 960 A.D.

The fact this early Italian is used in a court proceeding seems to confirm that it Italian had been spoken (if not written) for a while and that Latin as we know it was unknown by the general public.

To sum it up, the importance of the Placito lies in that:

1. we know for certain that from 960 A.D. Italian is the language of government and

2. it is proof it was spoken and understood by all classes of society,

3. That people felt it to be a language apart from the Latin used in the courts and at mass.

Apart from the formula 'Parte Sancti Benedicti', a fossil genitive like 'Piazza San Marco' (St. Mark's Square) or Via Giuseppe Mazzini that appears in many Italian addresses today, and Tebe and bobe in the last three proceedings (the fossil datives of Lat. tibi and vobis), scholars have acknowledged that the Placito is linguistically emancipated from Latin: it also shows a certain resemblance to modern dialect of Campania (kelle, possette etc).

While it is not difficult to explain such spelling variants as ko, cco (c would be read as en. 'cho'), que and ke (ke being a phonetic trascription of Lat. que, 'that') as pronounced in middle Latin, 'sao' has been disputed.

'Sao', probably modeled on the Campanian 'ao' (it. ho, "I have"), dao (it. do, "I give"), stao (it. sto, "I stay") on analogy with Lat. sapis (it. sai, "you know") and sapit (it. sa, old Campanian sae) poses a bigger problem.

Although we are pretty sure about the spelling (it is the same in all of the four documents), its origin is still disputed since modern Capuan has "saccio" with palatal c (en. ch), while 'sazzo' is the only southern variant.

When we know that dialects are extremely conservative we are at pains to explain why there is no trace of 'sao' in today's Capuan. In the next chapter we will try to solve this puzzle with the aid of some educated guesses.

The quarrel between Rodelgrimo and the monks

One day, a small army of Saracens (883 A.D.) landed on the coasts of Southern Italy. They pillaged and destroyed everything and everyone on their path, finally heading for the mountains where a group of Benedectine monasteries were rumored to be full of gold and money. Most of the clergy were killed, the monasteries burned to the ground, anything valuable was carried away. What remained was a heap of smoking ruins surrounded by the deepest silence, dead bodies on the smoking ground.

Those who survived to tell the story would never set foot on those lands until the next century. But when the monks returned to rebuild their property they found that many natives had occupied their lands in their absence. Winning back the smaller lots of lands was easily done, but they eventually met with the stubborn opposition of a local squire, Rodelgrimo d'Aquino.

He, not unlike others, had annexed to his estate two lots that aparently belonged to the Catholic Church. In response Don Aligerno, the abbot of Montecassino, sent his lawyer (Pietro) to plead the monks' case in court which would settle the dispute under judge Arechisi from Capua. In his defense, Rodelgrimo produced a detailed map of his lands, insisting that his annexation had been lawful.

On their part, the Benedectines insisted that those lots belonged to them since they had lived there for a long time when the Saracens forced them to leave. The pleading was in Latin as this was still the language of the courts at the time.

When Judge Arechisi finally reached a verdict (the Placito), it stated that the lands held at the time by Rodelgrimo did actually belong to the monks, since they had been in their possession for at least 30 years (usucapione, still in use today) prior to Rodelgrimo's occupation.

After his deliberation, however, judge Arechisi wrote down the Placito in Italian, its form based on similar formulas in use in Latin, their existence documented at least since 882 A.D. (Lucca), in San Vincenzo al Volturno, not far from Capua (936, 954 and then 976 A.D.

As the judge entered the courtroom, he read out the formula in front of the public. Then, he asked three witnesses (Teomondo, Gariberto, two monks, and Mari, a notary) to repeat that same sentence in vernacular to make absolutely sure that everyone had understood it. In sum, the same sentence was recited four times (by judge and witnesses), and Mari the notary duly testified to the fact by writing down emphatically "toti tres quasi ex uno ore; quasi uno ore". (all three [witnesses] did swear as if with one voice).

The witnesses had more than a passing knowledge of Latin and could have used it as easily as their local dialect but much of the listening audience in the courtroom were did not speak Latin, hence the use of Italian. That they had to say the words in the new language was the telling sign that Latin, was no longer used or understood by the general public as a spoken language. This courtroom formula, marks the moment when Italian was officially recognized as a language.

Birth of a language

The 10th century: early Italian

The closeness of Italian to Latin helped scholars enrich the newly-born language with many Latin terms with relative ease. Earlier, we remarked that similarities between these languages can be explained with the late emergence of the Italian language. The Placito Capuano, probably the first document extant in the Italian language bears witness to that, dating as it does to the second half of the 10th century. Similar documents had appeared in other romance languages around the 9th century.

The Placito Capuano

The Placito Capuano or Placito di Capua is the first in a number of acts, also known as Placiti Cassinesi. They were written in early Italian between 960 and 963 A.D. : court proceedings allowing the Benedectines from four abbacies to reclaim their lands from squatters that had occupied them after a Saracen attack had dispersed the local chapter.

Two such proceedings come from Teano and one from Sessa Aurunca (two small towns near Caserta), from three local chapters of the Monastery of Montecassino. They contain legal formulas similar to the Placito.

The discovery of the Placiti is relatively recent: the Carta Capuana (960 A.D.) was found by abbot Gattola in the archives of the Monastery of Montecassino in 1734. All the texts show linguistic features typical of the area of Capua, many of their traits are still in today's southern dialects:

Sao ko kelle terre, per kelle fini que ki contene,
trenta anni le possette parte sancti Benedicti.

("I know that those lands, within the borders that enclose them, were owned for thirty years by the party of St. Benedict's") (Capua, March 960 - Placito Capuano)

Sao cco kelle terre, per kelle fini que tebe monstrai,
Pergoaldi foro, que ki contene, et trenta anni le possette.

(I know that those lands, within the borders that I showed to you, were owned for thirty years by the party of Pergoaldus.) (Sessa Aurunca, March 963)

Kella terra, per kelle fini que bobe mostrai,
sancte Marie è, et trenta anni la posset parte sancte Marie.

(The land within the borders that I showed to you belong to Santa Maria, and thirty years was owned by the party of Saint Mary's) (Teano, July 963)

Sao cco kelle terre, per kelle fini que tebe mostrai, trenta anni le possette parte sancte Marie.

(I know that those lands within the borders that I showed to you, were owned for for thirty years by the party of Saint Mary's) (Teano, October 963)

These are the first phrases in our possession written in Italian, although a only few decades later the frequence of such deeds increases up to the time when the use of Italian becomes common and widespread throughout the peninsula.


Visualizzazione ingrandita della mappa

Language in the twilight zone

It was probably around the turn of the 9th century that one monk from Verona, taking a break from his copying chores, wrote a riddle on the margin of a parchment:

Se pareba boves

alba pratalia araba

albo versorio teneba

negro semen seminaba

The Indovinello dates to the late 8th- early 9th century, A.D. and is followed by a small thanksgiving prayer in Latin: gratias tibi agimus omnip(oten)s sempiterne d(eu)s.

Riddles were a popular pastime in the middle ages, but the Indovinello Veronese (lit. 'Veronese riddle') is one of a kind in that it is the first in our possession in a language that contains Italian words. But what does the riddle hint to?

We are referred to "somebody" who plows "white fields" ('alba pratalia') with a pair of cows ('boves'), holds a white plow ('albo versorio') and sows a black seed ('negro semen'). A tentative translation might be

He led two cows / plowed white fields / drew a white plow / sowed a black seed.

The person is none but the writer himself, the monk, and the story is a metaphor for the act of writing. The two cows are his fingers which draw a white pen (the white plow) across the white pages (the white fields), marking the paper with ink (negro semen) as it passes. An act which, beyond the penning of a poem, marks the transition between Latin and Italian.

These lines were written in codex LXXXIX (84) of the Biblioteca Capitolare in Verona, Italy. The parchment, a palimpsest discovered by Schiapparelli in 1924 contains a Mozarabic oration by the Spanish Christian Church (a document in a romance language developed in Spain by contact with the Moorish culture, probably from Toledo). It was then brought to Cagliari and thence to Pisa before reaching Northern Italy, where it was re-used once again by our monk. It dates between 801-3 and 845 A.D., when the Chapter of Verona was under Archdeacon Pacificus.

Similar documents emerge at about the same time abroad, but many of those outside Italy written at this time are already emancipated from Latin syntax and grammar (France's Serments de Strasburg dates to 842). The later development of Italian has been indicated as one of the causes for the linguistic immaturity of the Indovinello, which seems to stand in a gray area between Latin and Italian, although at the time of discovery, in 1924, it was hailed as the first document in the Italian language. Since then, Schiapparelli's finding has been taken much more conservatively.

It is undoubted, hiwever, that these few lines are a milestone in the history of the language since they seem to have frozen the time when vulgar Latin was turning into something entirely new and how this was coming about.

Though some words still stick to the Latin grammar ('boves' with an -es for the plural masculine, 'alba' with -a for plural neutral) most are indeed distinctly Italian, with no cases and the endings of Italian verbs: 'pareba', 'araba', 'teneba', 'seminaba' (for Lat. parebat, arabat, tenebat, seminabat and It. pareva, arava, teneva) show the falling of final -T, while 'albo versorio' and 'negro semen' (notice -o for the Italian masculine) instead of singular neuter "album versorium" and "nigrum semen".

It is remarkable that 'versorio' is still the word for "plow" in today's Veronese dialect. Cortellazzo and Paccagnella say that the pl. -es of boves might well be considered Ladino (a minority language of Veneto, Trentino, Friuli) and therefore romance rather than Latin, but the etymology is still disputed. It is not typical of eastern romance languages (as modern Italian) which favors -i/e over the -es ending for the plural.

'Albo' is already vernacular, since it. blanco > bianco is a later German import (Latin would have "album" anyway). At any rate, the -um is already gone, and the -o stands in its place.

'Pareba' and 'teneba' seem to hint to old Venetian rather than Latin (today's dialect has further sonorized the "b" in a vocalic environment, as in Italian: pareva, teneva). However, the telling signs of linguistic change are the suppression of Latin cases and endings.

This is the most visible sign of the deep mutation from a synthetic (where the role of a word, whether subject or object is marked by a suffix attached to its root) to an analytical language (where such function is given by a specific place in the sentence, or word order, as S-V-O).

Albo versorio, ending in -o as it does should be ablative, but it is accusative, negro should be accorded to the neuter "semen", but it does not, and i > e - very important, as Italian language changes short I > E. To see the full changes, however, we have to wait until the late 10th century.

Flirting with Cicero

Prolonged use of Latin, a slower unification process, the erudite and Tuscan influence account for the archaic traits of the language and its resistance to change as compared to other romance languages.

However, Italian enjoys a flexibility in word order unseen in most of its sister tongues, comparable only to a that of a flexive language. Not surprisingly, Italian grammarians strove to model Italian prose on Classical Latin. Looser word-order with frequent subject-verb inversions is even more noticeable in Southern Italian. A few examples of O-V-S order:

“Bella era quella cantante!” (lit. “beautiful was that singer!”) “Che, l’hai incontrata, tu?” (lit. “What, her meet did you?”) ”Sì, alla Scala di Milano cantava!” (lit. “Yes, at the Scala di Milano sang she”). Northern (non-standard) Italian has always S-V-O, perhaps because of its proximity to France. On the contrary, the Florentine dialect can rephrase sentences more loosely.

Italian is modeled on literary Florentine, whose poets had a long love-affair with Cicero (see right column: Trencento and Renaissance) : when we see this, flexibility in word-order will appear less capricious. Word order tend to be (O-) V-S in the south ( "questo ha fatto lui!"), where S-V-O is favored by northern speakers even in cases when emphasis requires O-V-S.

In questions as "Va via subito Marco?" the accent is certainly on Marco, but not so in "Marco va via subito?". However, the growing importance of northern media today seems to be affecting such liberty in spoken usage.

Is Latin Really Dead?

The assertion that the romance languages are just a modern version of Latin may sound exaggerated, but it is nonetheless one that is shared by most scholars today. Among them Italian comes even closer: most Latin words, even when spoken are intelligible by Italian speakers. The Florentine dialect, on which Italian is largely based, "has preserved with good accuracy the morphological and phonetic traits [and] (...) such closeness to Latin has historical roots: the fact that Tuscan emerged relatively late and the pre-humanistic environment in which it flourished" (Segre 1978).


A few facts that may account for its archaic traits:

1. most linguistic traits of Latin are also shared by the Tuscan dialect: the domination by Etrurian Kings and the political influence of their families in Rome’s earlier times. The Etrurian substratum is a feature of both Latium and Tuscany's dialects.

2. Italian scholars and writers long held the Italian language to be inferior to Latin and drew heavily on Latin sources to coin words. Only in the 13th century did middle-class Florence impose Tuscan as the language for commerce and banking. The intellectual elites, the clergy and the nobility insisted on using Latin, and the Renaissance studies largely encouraged it.

3. As a result of this attitude and a lack of political unity the Italian language developed a few centuries later than most romance languages: though the Indovinello Veronese (9th c. A.D.), a riddle found in Verona shows traces of Italian, scholars still place it in that gray area of (late) vulgar Latin.

The earliest documents in the Italian language date back to about 960 A.D. and come from a deed signed by a Capuan notary at Montecassino. The fact that a notary must use Italian to be understood by his audience is proof that the Italian language, though its standard, is widely spoken. Its development is linked closely to the history of Italy and the Renaissance - then a national standard was created - and the consciousness of Italy's national identilty set Italians on the long road to political unification.

In the following days we're going to explore the birth and development of Italian from vulgar latin to today's standard and touch a bit on Italian dialects and foreign language minorities that account for its rich cultural heritage.