The Commodilla catacomb inscription is found on the

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...

of a

fresco Fresco ( or frescoes) is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the painting become ...

in the tomb of the Christian martyrs Felix and Adauctus, located in the catacombs of Commodilla in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

. The graffito has an important place in the history of Italian, as it represents a form of language intermediate between

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

and Old Italian.

Text

The inscription is spread over six lines: This may be divided into words as ''non dicere ille secrita a bboce'' ('don't say the secrets aloud'), referring to Christian ''mysteria'' or secret prayers to be recited under one's breath.

Date

The inscription has to post-date the fresco on which it is written, which can itself be dated to the 6th or 7th century on stylistic grounds (thus establishing the ''terminus post quem''). The ''terminus ante quem'' can be estimated on the following grounds: * Palaeographic: the type of

uncial script Uncial is a majuscule script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 4th to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Uncial letters were used to write Greek and Latin, as well as Gothic, and are the current style for ...

used may be dated between the 8th and 10th centuries, perhaps the 9th. *

Liturgical Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and participation in the sacred through activities reflecting praise, thanksgiving, remembra ...

: the practice of pronouncing prayers quietly under one's breath was introduced in the beginning of the

Carolingian The Carolingian dynasty ( ; known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charles Martel and his grandson Charlemagne, descendants of the Arnulfing and Pippinid c ...

era, between the 8th and 9th centuries *

Historical History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some theorists categ ...

: in the early 9th century, due to continuous raids in the district of St. Paul outside the walls of Rome, the

relic In religion, a relic is an object or article of religious significance from the past. It usually consists of the physical remains or personal effects of a saint or other person preserved for the purpose of veneration as a tangible memorial. Reli ...

s of Felix and Adauctus were moved out of the tomb, which was then left abandoned. Presumably the inscription pre-dates the abandonment. Altogether these point to a date around the beginning of the 9th century.

Analysis

The language used is a sort of late '

Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Colloquial, Popular, Spoken or Vernacular Latin, is the range of non-formal Register (sociolinguistics), registers of Latin spoken from the Crisis of the Roman Republic, Late Roman Republic onward. ''Vulgar Latin'' a ...

', more archaic than Old Italian and closer to

. The word , from Latin or ("those", feminine

plural In many languages, a plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated as pl., pl, , or ), is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than ...

), does not conserve its original

demonstrative Demonstratives (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic, their meaning ...

meaning but is used as a feminine plural

definite article In grammar, an article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" ...

instead. In the word , ⟨i⟩ is used to represent (and not ), as was common practice in the pre-Carolingian writing of Italy and elsewhere.Tiburzi & Cacchioli, p. 321 The spelling is of special interest. At first the word had been written , but afterwards, either the same writer or another felt that the spelling did not reflect his pronunciation closely enough, and so he inserted an additional ⟨b⟩ in superscript. This hints at the pronunciation of the

Roman dialect Romanesco () is one of the Central Italian dialects spoken in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital, especially in the Rome, core city. It is linguistically close to Tuscan dialect, Tuscan and Italian language, Standard Italian, with some notable ...

at the time, characterized on the one hand by

syntactic doubling Syntactic gemination, or syntactic doubling, is an external sandhi phenomenon in Italian, other Romance languages spoken in Italy, and Finnish. It consists in the lengthening (gemination) of the initial consonant in certain contexts. It may also ...

(still typical in the area today) and on the other hand by

betacism In historical linguistics, betacism ( , ) is a sound change in which (the voiced bilabial plosive, as in ''bane'') and (the voiced labiodental fricative , as in ''vane'') are confused. The final result of the process can be either /b/ → ...

or the merger of Latin /b/ and /w/ (thus Latin resulted in ).

References

{{reflist

Bibliography

* Marazzini, Claudio (2002). ''La lingua italiana. Profilo storico''. Bologna: Il Mulino. * Serianni, Luca (1988). ''Lezioni di grammatica storica italiana''. Rome: Bulzoni. * Sabatini, Francesco (1966). ''Un'iscrizione volgare romana della prima metà del secolo IX''. Studi linguistici italiani. VI: 49–80. *Tiburzi, Alessandra; Cacchioli, Luna (2014). ''Lingua e forme dell’epigrafia in volgare (secc. IX-XV).'' Studi Romanzi. X: 311–352.

External links