Becoming Italian Word by Word

The Year of Italian Language and Culture: An Ancient "Sin City"

 

Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei

The Last Days of Pompeii

The exhibit with this name at the Cleveland Museum of Art, part of the year of Italian culture (l’anno della cultura italiana), is subtitled: “Decadence, Apocalypse, Resurrection” (Decadenza, Apocalisse, Resurrezione). Pompeii, a  World Heritage Site (patrimonio mondiale dell'umanità), is famous for all three.

The thriving Roman city of about 12,000 citizens was buried (sepolta) by an eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. Excavations, which began after the discovery of the lost city (la città perduta) in the eighteenth century, have yielded a fascinating glimpse of life in what seems to have been the Las Vegas of its day.

In this thoroughly pagan place (luogo completamente pagano), pleasures (piaceri)—of the bedroom, the table, the theater and the sports arena—were the true religion (la vera religione). Yet we owe a debt to Pompeii's freewheeling citizens: They had an incorrigible urge (irrefrenabile impulso) to write on walls. The sheer zest of the words in the 15,000 graffiti and inscriptions (iscrizioni) they left behind testifies to the potency of the Roman vernacular, or volgare.

"Vulgar" also applies to the graffiti on the walls of Pompeii's infamous brothels, where satisfied customers (clienti soddisfatti) scrawled crude testimonials to the skills of particular prostitutes. But not all of Pompeii's writings are so explicit (così espliciti).

In a simple red or black script with letters about six inches high, signs along the town's narrow streets (strade strette) endorsed political candidates, denounced deadbeats and issued no-nonsense directives, such as "If you must lean against a wall, lean against someone else's." Scrawled on the floor of a trading house were the words, "Welcome, money!" (Benvenuto, denaro!)

Inscriptions decorated the walls of many private residences in Pompeii. "Whoever loves, let him flourish” (Chi ama, lasciarlo fiorire), read one sign. "Let him perish who knows not love.” (Lascia che muoia chi non conosce amore.) And he who forbids love? Let him perish twice. (Lascia che muoia due volte.)

A notice in the dining room of a fashionable home asked visitors to refrain from casting lascivious looks at the serving women or making passes at the wives of other guests and, above all, to keep the conversation clean. "If you can't," the blunt last line exhorted, "please go home." (Se non vi è possibile, siete pregati di andarvene.)

Words and Expressions

un’eruzione –- an eruption

vulcanico –- volcanic

gli scavi –- the excavations

rosso pompeiano –- Pompeian red

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.

“The Last Days of Pompeii: Decadence, Apocalypse, Resurrection” runs from February 24 to July 7, 2013 at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

A Year of Italian Language and Culture: Michelangelo in D.C.

Il Divino

The Divine One

The first Italian “guest” to the United States in “l’anno della cultura italiana” (The Year of Italian Culture) is a statue: the David-Apollo (above), loaned by the Bargello Museum in Florence to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. No other artist has left a richer and more enduring legacy than its creator, Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564).

Born into a poor Florentine family, Michelangelo liked to say that he had imbibed an affinity for stone in the breast milk of his wet nurse, a mason’s wife. His father tried to beat artistic inclinations out of the boy, but his obvious talent won him an invitation to live and study in the home of Lorenzo Il Magnifico, his first and most beloved patron.

Michelangelo’s genius exploded in youth and blazed into robust old age. Through almost a century of tumults, he battled with popes, broke with the Medici, and after the fall of the Florentine Republic (for which he oversaw fortifications) railed against his fellow citizens. Yet he worked ceaselessly, producing unequalled masterpieces in painting, sculpture, and architecture and earning the accolade of Il Divino, the divine one.

The word most associated with the brusque artist is “La Terribilità.” Michelangelo’s temper was indeed so fierce that the Medici Pope Leo X, who knew the artist since boyhood, called him “troppo terribile,” too fearsome to deal with. But in the artistic language of the Renaissance, “terribilità” conveyed awesomeness, virtuosity, force, vehemence.

The terribilità of Michelangelo’s figura serpentinata, such as the anguished, writhing, tormented souls in his “The Last Judgment” over the altar of the Sistine Chapel, represented art at its most sublime. (Italians derided the artists who later added “corrections” to clothe these naked figures with the mocking word braghettoni, “big underpants makers.”)

To the historian and poet Benedetto Varchi, Michelangelo’s works were “so new, so unusual, so unheard of (inaudite) in all cultures in all countries...that I for myself...not just admire, not just am stupified (sono stupefatto), not just am astonished and amazed, and almost reborn; but my pulse trembles, all my blood turns to ice; all my spirits are shocked, my scalp tingles with a most sacred and never before felt horror to think of him.”

Michelangelo’s most famous statue, his colossal David (sculpted from 1501 to 1504), embodied the defiant independence of the Florentine Republic. He was commissioned to carve another heroic figure in 1530, after the Republic’s fall. Giorgio Vasari, the father of art history, described the statue as “an Apollo who draws an arrow from his quiver,” while an inventory of the Medici calls it “an incomplete David.”

Is the unfinished David-Apollo a beautiful Greek god or a young biblical tyrant-slayer, hero of the lost Florentine Republic? If you’re in Washington D.C., before March 3, don’t miss the chance to stop by the National Gallery and see for yourself. Click below for a video from the opening of the exhibit.

Words and Expressions

Il Rinascimento –- The Renaissance

belle arti –- fine arts

scultore, scultrice –- sculptor, sculptress

la statua –- statue

marmo –- marble

DIanne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.

Touring the Great Gardens of Italy in the Italian Language

I grandi giardini d’Italia

The Great Gardens of Italy 

a guest post by Barbara Philip

A while ago I bought the book Edith Wharton’s Italian Gardens, by Vivian Russell, and fell in love with the Renaissance gardens (giardini rinascimentali) that she described with such enthusiasm. But way back in 1904 Wharton wrote and published her own definitive book: Italian Villas and their Gardens (Le ville italiane e i loro giardini).

Since then thousands of travelers have set off to Italy clutching this book in search of the hidden treasures (i tesori nascosti) she described. I too would love to follow in their footsteps and take a painting tour (fare un tour pittorico) of Italian gardens. 

In her book, Wharton spoke of her delight at the ordered symmetry (la simmetria ordinata) that she noticed throughout Italy -- in the olive groves (olivi), the avenues of cypresses (viali di cipressi) and in the architecture (nell’architectura). I also love the formal structure (la struttura formale) that pervades Italy's gardens -- in the clipped box hedges (siepi di bosso tagliate), the balustraded terraces (le terrazze balaustrate) and the fountains and statues (le fontane e le statue).

Wharton understood that Italian gardens had almost nothing to do with the art of gardening (l'arte del giardinaggio) and everything to do with the garden as a work of art (il giardino come opera d'arte). Renaissance gardens are seeped with the symbolism (simbolismo), allegory (allegoria) and vision (visione) of the poets, philosophers and writers of Italy’s history.

Asked to name one thing that symbolized the Italian garden for her, Wharton said that it would not be the splashing fountains (le fontane spruzzanti), the lines of boxwoods (le linee dei bossi), or the statuary (la statuaria) but a single lemon tree (un albero di limone) planted in a terracotta pot (piantato in un vaso di terracotta). These lemon trees, the pride (l’orgoglio) of Italian gardens, poignantly evoke the glory of Italy’s past (la gloria del passato in Italia).

Here are some of my paintings inspired by the Boboli Gardens, behind the Pitti Palace in Florence:

 

I also admire the gardens of Villa Pamphili and Villa D’Este in Tivoli, Valsanzibio south of Padua, and the Giusti Gardens near Verona. Here is an image of Cetinale near Siena,

I can only dream of visiting the magnificent flamboyant Baroque showpiece island garden (magnifico esempio di sgargiante giardino barocco), Isola Bella, named after Count Borromeo’s wife Isabella, in the tranquil and picturesque (tranquillo e pittoresco) Lake Maggiore. That would be heaven indeed! (Mi sentirei proprio in paradiso!)

Words and Expressions

giardino zoologico -- zoo

giardino botanico -- botanical garden

giardino d’inverno-- literally a winter garden, a glass-roofed and walled greenhouse

giardino pubblico / privato -– public / private garden

Giardino dell’Eden –- Garden of Eden

Barbara Philip is an accomplished artist from South Africa who paid me the lovely tribute of collecting all my blog posts in a handbound book (below). Click here to view a sampling of her wonderful paintings and designs.

The Gate to Paradise in the Italian Language

La Porta del Paradiso

The Gate of Paradise

“Eccola finalmente!”(Here it is at last!) boomed an Italian headline. The masterpiece (capolavoro) of Lorenzo Ghiberti “torna a rifulgere di spettacolare splendore” (returns to shine in spectacular splendor).

After a restoration that lasted 27 years (un restauro durato 27 anni), the gate of bronze and gold (bronzo ed oro) of the Baptistery (Battistero) of Firenze once more is visible to the public (visibile al pubblico) in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo (Museum of the Works of the Cathedral).

It took Ghiberti 27 years—from 1425 to 1452 -- to create the door, cast in bronze in a single piece (gettata in bronzo in un unico pezzo) and weighing nearly nine tons (quasi nove tonnellate). Embedded in the casing are ten large panels (dieci grandi pannelli) with stories of the Bible (storie delle Bibbia), plus dozens of heads and figures of prophets and sibyls (profeti e sibille).

For centuries the door survived constant touching (continui toccamenti) and periodic drastic “cleanings”(drastiche “puliture” periodiche), including one that covered its gold surface with a “protective” dark paint (vernice scura “protettiva”) To safeguard the gate from the fury of the second World War (infuriare della seconda guerra mondiale), it was removed from its housing and sheltered under a railway tunnel (sotto una galleria ferroviaria). The gate was restored and replaced in 1946.

The greatest devastation came during the flood (alluvione) of November, 1966, when a terrible wave (una spaventosa ondata) slammed violently against the door several times. Five panels separated from the frame (si staccarono dal telaio) and fell into the mud (caddero nella melma).

By the end of the 1970s, the door had suffered the impact of a new, invisible enemy (nuovo, invisibile nemico): air pollution (l’inquinamento atmosferico).  In 1985 work began to remove and restore (staccare e restaurare) the door, and in 1990 city officials replaced the entrance to the the Baptistry with a copy.

Over more than a quarter-century, restorers at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure (which literally translates as the Workshop of Semi-precious Stones,) used many new technologies (molte nuove tecnologie) to bring the door  back to its original glory. Funding of an estimated 10 million euro came from the Ministry of Culture (Ministero dei Beni Culturali), the American-based Friends of Florence, and private donors from around the world.

Now once again visitors can understand what Michelangelo meant when he exclaimed at the sight of Ghiberti’s panels: “Sono tanto belle che starebbero bene alle porte del Paradiso!” (They are so beautiful that they would well be the gates of Paradise.)

A heavenly sight indeed (una visione davvero celestiale)!

Words and Expressions

restaurare un dipinto –- to restore a painting

restauratore –- restorer

mano d’opera –- labor

dare una pulita –- to clean

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language. 

You don't need to understand Italian to appreciate the beauty of the unveiling of the doors:  

Inside the Italian Renaissance: Money and the Beauty It Bought

Denaro e Bellezza

Money and Beauty

“Do you know the most beautiful thing Florence ever created?” a historian asked during my recent stay. As I began to list the obvious candidates, he interrupted. “No,” he said firmly. “Il fiorino.”

The city first coined “Messer Fiorino,” with the image of its patron saint, John the Baptist, on one side and the Florentine lily on the other, in 1252. Containing precisely 3.53 grams of 24-carat gold, the tiny coin quickly became the currency of Europe. The founding families of the Florentine banks, which loaned millions of florins to popes and princes, turned into medieval Midases.

Their fortunes funded the greatest flowering of art that Western Civilization has ever known. A dazzling exhibit at Palazzo Strozzi -- Denaro e Bellezza: I banchieri, Botticelli e il rogo della vanità (Money and Beauty: Bankers, Botticelli and the Bonfire of the Vanities) -- weaves together Florence’s financial and creative evolution.  The bottom line: No bankers, no Renaissance.

Items such as ledgers, strongboxes, coffers, keys, purses and an abacus (an ancestor of the computer) convey the history of commercial trade (la storia degli scambi commerciali) and the birth of the banking system (la nascita del sistema bancario). For money lenders and exchangers, money  provided luxury and pleasure for life on earth. However,  it also threatened their souls with eternal damnation for sins such as as avarice and usury (avarizia e usura).

“Wealth was seen as bringing with it immorality, greed and degeneration,” says art historian Ludovica Sebregondi, the exhibit’s co-curator (with author Tim Parks). No such stigma attached when money was transformed into beauty. And so rich Florentines invested in works of art (opere d’arte) by Botticelli, Beato Angelico and other masters of the Renaissance.

Assembled from major museums and private collections from around the world, the hundred or so paintings and sculptures provide a true picture of the life and of the European economy (una vera fotografia della vita e dell'economia europea) from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.

The show spans the period from the mid-thirteenth century, when the florin was first coined, to the emergence of Savonarola, the monk who denounced those with “homes full of vanities, dishonest images and wicked books.” His influence on the artist Sandro Botticelli is seen in a series of works that range from radiant Madonnas to an alluring nude Venus to the stunning allegorical painting “The Calumny of Apelles” (In the poster above). Sebregondi describes it as “somewhat of a farewell to the Florence of Lorenzo the Magnificent.”

With Italy in the midst of an economic crisis that threatens the future of the euro, created to unite European currencies as the florin once did, the timely topic has attracted a great deal of international attention and acclaim.  The  exhibit continues until January 22, 2012.  Click here for information on times and tickets.

If you can’t get to Florence, the video below provides a wonderful overview—whether or not you can understand the Italian commentary.

 

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language. 

Florence's Crowning Glory

Il Duomo

From my temporary home in Florence, the first thing I see in the morning and the last at night is its splendid cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore, one of the most recognizable churches in the world. People often assume that “Il Duomo”—as it’s called—translates as “the dome.” But “duomo,” from the Latin domus for home, means house of God.

Florence’s town fathers decided to build a new cathedral in the last decades of the 13th century to accommodate the city’s surging population — and to surpass in size and grandeur the churches of rival city-states Siena and Pisa. It took the Florentines several centuries, a sizeable fortune and strokes of architectural genius to build this heavenly home--"a structure so immense,” a historian wrote in the 15th century, “so steeply rising toward the sky, that it covers all Tuscans with its shadow.”

Visible from miles away, Il Duomo stands out at the ultimate masterpiece in a city of masterpieces. Upon completion of its crowning cupola, the townspeople proudly began introducing themselves with the phrase, “Io son fiorentino del Cupolone” (“I am a Florentine of the Big Dome”). However, the basilica of “St. Mary of the Flower” (symbol of Florence) is grand in ways that go beyond sheer immensity.

The original façade was the collective design of several 16th-century artists, but the unfinished work was eventually dismantled. The exterior remained bare until the 1870s, when the current façade was constructed primarily of white marble from Carrara, green from Prato and pinkish red from Siena in a design that harmonized with the existing patterns of the Baptistery and Campanile.

The most striking impression upon entering the cathedral, the largest in Europe at the time of its completion, is its vastness. The two-aisled nave measures 502 feet in length and 295 feet in width. Designed to hold congregations as large as 20,000 people, the basilica can feel empty even with tour groups congregating at different meeting places. Many of the decorations, including works by Michelangelo and Donatello, are on display at the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo behind the cathedral.

The original design called for a cupola bigger than any the world had seen. But no one could figure out how to build it. For more than half a century rain and snow fell through a 143-foot hole in the ceiling. Finally Filippo Brunelleschi came up with a dome-within-a-dome plan based on the design of the Pantheon, the architectural wonder of ancient Rome.

Construction of Brunelleschi’s dome began in 1418 and continued until 1436. Time and again, faced with a seemingly insurmountable difficulty, Brunelleschi invented something entirely new: a hoist, a crane, even a way of installing stoves on the dome so his workers could eat well without wasting valuable time descending to the street. (He reportedly watered their wine to keep them sober.)

The dome, which weighs 37,000 tons, required some 4 million bricks. Built without a supporting wooden framework—unthinkable at the time—the construction inspired awe among the Florentines, who quoted a line from Dante’s Divine Comedy—de giro in giro, circle by circle—as they beheld its soul-stirring ascent into the Tuscan sky.

To appreciate just how big the dome is -- 142 feet in diameter, 300 feet high -- climb the 463 steps between its two vaults to the narrow gallery above the cathedral. Just avoid the dizzying mistake I made: Don’t look down.

Celebrating the "Treasure of Europe" in the Italian Language

Italia, Tesoro d’Europa

For months Italy has been reeling from bad news and bad press, particularly from other members of the European Union. But this weekend 50 European nations are dedicating their annual European Heritage Days to “L’Italia tesoro d’Europa.”

The title is well-deserved. For centuries “Italy” has been synonymous with art (arte). An estimated 60 percent of the world’s designated art treasures reside within its borders, and Italian paintings and sculptures grace museums and collections around the globe. But Italy did more than inspire masterpieces: it developed the visual language of Western culture and changed forever our concepts of beauty and its creators.

For its part, Italy has announced, “Per due giorni lasciamo le porte aperte.” (For two days we leave the doors open.) On Saturday and Sunday, September 24 and 25, visitors will have entra gratis (free entrance) to all state luoghi della cultura (cultural places). Those of us lucky enough to be in Italy will have access to 5,105  museums, theatres, concerts, performances, meetings, exhibitions and educational workshops. You can find the complete program here.

The Italian minister for cultural arts and activities has declared that this weekend is “una preziosa occasione” (a precious occasion) to re-affirm with other nations their “radici culturali e storiche comuni” (common cultural and historical roots), even in these momenti di crisi (moments of crisis). This awareness may, he noted, help the European community trovare le risposte necessarie ad affrontare le sfide del presente”  (find the necessary responses to confront the present challenges).

Art has always had a powerful impact on the individual and on society. When they were created, the works of the Renaissance artists inspired reactions such as meraviglia, a sense of marvel or extraordinary delight, and stupore, which David Summers defines in Michelangelo and the Language of Art as “the state resulting from the perception of a thing that exceeded the limits of the senses.” Perhaps these are just what a weary and woeful world needs now.

Words and Expressions

le belle arti -– the fine arts

arti figurative –- figurative arts

artefice -– craftsman or woman

pittore/pittrice –- painter (masculine/feminine)

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World’s Most Enchanting Language.

Here is another tesoro, Stanford University's stunning recreation of Michelangelo's David:

Angry Young Artists in Florence

 

Angry Young Men

Giovani e Arrabbiati

Visitors don’t usually come to Florence, jewel of the Renaissance, in search of modern art. But an exhibit called “Giovani e Arrabbiati: La Nascita della Modernità” (Angry Young Men: The Birth of Modernity), at the Palazzo Strozzi until July 17, offers a fascinating perspective on three of the twentieth-century’s great masters: Picasso, Miró and Dalí.

All three of these artists grew up (cresciuti) in Catalonia, Spain, but came to fame in France. Picasso and Miró lived and built their careers there, while Salvador Dalí remained largely in Spain. The Florentine exhibit brings together more than sixty works (più di sessanta opere) produced by the artists at the beginning of their careers in the first decades (nei primi decenni) of the last century.

Structured like a film in a series of “flashbacks,” the exhibition (la mostra) takes visitors back in time (indietro nel tempo) to the very birth of modernity. Beginning with Dalí’s meeting with Picasso in 1926, it traces the origins (le origini) of modern art through Dalí’s responses to Miró and Miró’s relationship with Picasso and ends just before the young Picasso’s arrival in Paris in 1900. 

The exhibition explores the common roots (le radici comuni) of a style that was to bring renown to these three great artists, underscoring the eagerness they shared to rebel against the conventions of the time (ribellarsi alle convenzioni dell’epoca). Each was an “emerging talent” (talento emergente) in his day. Each sought to develop an artistic vocabulary of his own (un proprio linguaggio artistico). And each looked back to the past in order to invent the future.

In addition to masterpieces such as Picasso’s “The Weeping Woman” (Donna Che Piange), Miró’s geometric “Composition” (La Composizione), and Dalí’s “Harlequin” (L’Arlecchino), the exhibit presents for the first time outside of Spain eighty Picasso sketches (ottanta schizzi di Picasso), including the very first for his revolutionary painting (il rivoluzionario dipinto), "Les Demoiselles d’Avignon."  

As much as I enjoyed the exhibit, I also delighted in the contrast between the relatively recent masterpieces and their setting in a splendid Renaissance palazzo. To my initial surprise, they looked right at home. Then I realized that they should. After all, Florentines invented the Renaissance—which, as author Mary McCarthy observed in The Stones of Florence, “is the same as saying that they invented the modern world.”

Despite the passage of five hundred years, I could see, particularly in Picasso’s powerful sketches of his “demoiselles,” echoes of another artist whose rebellious approach (approccio ribelle) blazed the trail from all that had been in the past to all that could be in the future: the prototypical angry young artist, Michelangelo.

The Medici pope Leo X, who had known the fierce-tempered genius since boyhood, called him “troppo terribile” (too terrible) to deal with. In the artistic language of the Renaissance, terribilità took on new meaning as a term that captured the awesomeness, virtuosity, force and vehemence of Michelangelo's works. Could we say anything less about those of Picasso and the rebels he inspired?

Words and Expressions

belle arti -- fine arts

capolavoro -- masterpiece

stile artistico -- artistic style

arte moderna -- modern art

pittore -- painter

For more information on upcoming exhibits and events at Palazzo Strozzi, click here.

Dianne Hales is the author of La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language. 

The Lost Angels of Rome

Gli angeli di Roma

The Angels of Rome

One of the most famous angels in Rome stands atop the Castel Sant’Angelo (Castle of the Holy Angel). The mammoth structure on the banks of the Tiber  was originally built as a mausoleum by the emperor Hadrian in the year 123.  From its ramparts Romans fought back the assaults of the Visigoths in 410 and the Ostrogoths in 537.

In 590 a virulent plague was ravishing Rome, and Pope Gregory the Great entreated God’s mercy. The archangel Michael, fulfilling the original meaning of angelus as a messenger from God, appeared in a vision sheathing his sword over the fortress, a signal of the plague’s end.   The grateful pontiff christened Castel Sant’Angelo in his name and had an imposing statue of Michael mounted on top.

Over the centuries the bridge leading to the Castel Sant’Angelo became the principal crossing point for pilgrims to St. Peter’s basilica.  In 1668 Pope Clement IX commissioned ten stone angels to line its balustrades, thereby transforming the Ponte Sant’Angelo into the most theatrical monument of Baroque design.

The master artist and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini did the drawings for the angels—all male, with grieving faces and graceful bodies, brilliantly positioned to be observed (and appreciated) from every direction.   Each of the angels carried a symbol of Christ’s passion and death, such as the whip that scourged him and the nails used to crucify him.

The angels on the bridge became icons for millions of pilgrims, but the most exquisite, the only two carved by Bernini himself, never took their designated places.  Copies by lesser artists were installed instead.

Some say that the Pope couldn’t bear the thought of exposing such beautiful statues to the elements.  Others contend he wanted to move the pair of angels—one carrying the crown of thorns (above) and the other the mocking inscription I.N.R.I. (for Jesus, King of the Jews)—to his own palace.

Bernini, perhaps as a way of promoting his not-so-talented offspring, claimed that they were the work of his son Paolo Valentino and kept the  “lost" angels in his studio opposite the church of Sant’Andrea delle Fratte (St. Andrew of the Thickets), so called because it was once literally out in the sticks.  

In 1729 Bernini’s nephew donated the angels to the church, which was partly designed by Bernini’s former student and eventual rival Francesco Borromini. The angelic pair remains there still, their beauty undiminished by fire, earth, water or air, to each side of the front altar.  I think of these heavenly messengers when the bells of Sant’Andrea, right across from the apartment we are renting, ring out the Angelus, and I never fail to pause before them whenever I visit the lovely church.

Words and Expressions

angeli custodi -- guardian angels

il sesso degli angeli-- the sex of angels, a phrase for trivial or inconsequential matters  

angelino, angioletto -- little angel, cherub

angelo caduto -- fallen angel like Lucifer

arcangelo -- archangel

angelico -- angelic, saintly, pure, as in voce angelica (heavenly voice), viso angelico (sweet, angelic face), or carattere angelico (angelic character)

Sei un angelo! –- You are an angel (to thank someone who has done a favor or service)

“Uomo solitario, o bestia o angiolo!” -- A loner is either a beast or an angel.

Cav. Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language. 

Click below for a modern Italian "Angelo""

 

Baking Words in the Italian Language

L’arte delle parole

The Art of Words

As part of Florens 2010, an international week of cultural events. two of Italy’s great institutions—the Uffizi Gallery and the Accademia della Crusca—are celebrating art and letters in a presentation on ”Parole e Immagini dei Mestieri e delle Arti” (Words and Images of the Crafts and Arts) in the Uffizi biblioteca (library) on Friday, November 19.  

Although less famous than the Uffizi, with its renowned collection of paintings (pitture) and sculptures (sculture), “La Crusca,” the oldest scholarly academy in Europe, deserves acclaim for a different masterpiece: the Italian language (la lingua italiana).

During the 1500s, an unheralded but invaluable invention transformed Italian agriculture: il frullone, a sieve-like device that separated wheat from chaff to produce flour. A group of irreverent Florentine intellectuals, passionately devoted to preserving their language’s più bei fiori (loveliest blooms), decided to become human frulloni and separate the linguistic fior di farina (the flower of the wheat) from the coarse crusca (chaff or bran).The  self-declared Crusconi formed  L’Accademia della Crusca (the Academy of the Bran) and took on a lofty mission:  creating the first dictionary of officially recognized words in any language.

This was no dry academic venture by uptight language police. The Crusconi playfully gave themselves names related to farming, cooking, and baking, such as Lievito (yeast or leaven), Macinato (milled into flour), Sollo (soft or spongy), and Grattugiato (grated). Each Cruscone also selected a related symbol, such as a sieve or sheaf of wheat, which was embossed in vibrant colors upon a wooden pala (above), a shovel-like paddle bakers used to slide loaves of bread from an oven.

Among La Crusca’s traditions was an annual stravizzo, a term members used defined with understatement as “eating that happens together with pleasant conversation.” The menu from one stravizzo presents five staggering courses that included eight types of meat, even more varieties of pasta, fruit, vegetables, cheese, biscotti — and stuzzicadenti (toothpicks).

Despite their jocularity, La Crusca’s founding brothers took their mission seriously. Over decades of research, discussion, and debate, they created the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, published on January 20, 1612. The 960 oversized pages of this unique compendium contained only words that qualified as “belle, signifcative, e dell’uso nostro” (“beautiful, noteworthy, and of our use,” that is, from Italian authors such as Dante, Petrarca, and Boccaccio).

When I had the privilege of turning the stiff, dry pages of a first edition of the Vocabolario, I was so moved that I became senza parole (speechless). This volume, constructed of words chosen to please the ear, the eye, and the soul, contains Italian’s genome. No less than the artists laboring in a Renaissance bottega, the language “bakers” of La Crusca had painstakingly created a living work of art: la più bella lingua del mondo (the most beautiful language in the world).

Last week brought belle notizie (good news) for Italian’s belle parole: The College Board has reinstated the AP Italian placement exam, a decision heralded as a triumph for Italy, Italian-Americans, and all who love the language “baked” by Florentine wordsmiths some four hundred years ago.

Words and Expressions

parolina, paroletta -- nice word

parolone -- big or long word, pompous-sounding word A

avere la parola facile -- to have the easy word, to be articulate

in parole povere -- in poor or plain words

È una parola! -- it’s a word (easier said than done)

in poche parole -- in short, in brief

Dianne Hales is the author of  LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World’s Most Enchanting Language.

Click below to hear Italian music icon Mina dismiss the "parole, parole, parole" (words, words, words) of Alberto Lupo in a famous pop tune: