Agnolo Monosini (Pratovecchio 1568 – Florence 1626) was an
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
scholar and cleric of the 16th and 17th centuries, who played a key role in the development of the Italian language two hundred years prior to the
risorgimento
The unification of Italy ( it, Unità d'Italia ), also known as the ''Risorgimento'' (, ; ), was the 19th-century political and social movement that resulted in the consolidation of different states of the Italian Peninsula into a single ...
.
He was a native of
Pratovecchio and studied with the
Accademia della Crusca in
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...
, where he contributed to its first ''
Vocabolario della lingua italiana'', published in 1623, in particular adding an index of Greek words.
A passion for words
Monosini had one craze which consumed all his intellectual energies: that of proving the Greek origins of the Florentine idiom, which would one day develop into modern Italian. He was reacting to French writers of the period who took great pains to relate their own language directly with Ancient Greek, bypassing the inheritance of Latin and Italian and Alpine Humanism.
The relationships that Monosini develops between Greek and his contemporary vernacular rather suffer from his unconditional enthusiasm, with the result that the associations proposed are often cumbersome and sometimes quite bizarre.
''Floris Italicae''
In his key work, ''
Floris Italicae linguae libri novem'' (''The Flower of Italian Language in a nine books'') published in 1604, he collected many vernacular Italian proverbs and idioms, and compared and contrasted them with Greek and Latin.
''Floris Italicae'' particularly concentrated on proverbs and language from
Tuscany
it, Toscano (man) it, Toscana (woman)
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and the high
Maremma
The Maremma (, ; from Latin , "maritime and) is a coastal area of western central Italy, bordering the Tyrrhenian Sea. It includes much of south-western Tuscany and part of northern Lazio. It was formerly mostly marshland, often malarial, bu ...
, and thus included many aspects of the ‘vulgar’
vernacular
A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...
language which were to become part of the official Italian language at the time of the
Risorgimento
The unification of Italy ( it, Unità d'Italia ), also known as the ''Risorgimento'' (, ; ), was the 19th-century political and social movement that resulted in the consolidation of different states of the Italian Peninsula into a single ...
.
''Floris Italicae'' was re-published
[Pignatti, F; Monosini, A. (2011). ''Etimologia e proverbio nell'Italia del XVII secolo - Floris italicae linguae libri novem'', Rome: Vecchiarelli Editore.] in 2011, with a companion volume of etymology and proverbs from the period.
Notes
External links
Treccani Encyclopedia entryItalian language article and book reviewEntry in website of re-publisher Vecchiarelli EditoreVirtual libraryof the
La Crusca Academy (registration required)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Monosini, Agnolo
Linguists from Italy
1568 births
1626 deaths