Franco-Italian, also known as Franco-Venetian or Franco-Lombard, in Italy as ''lingua franco-veneta'' "Franco-Venetan language", was a

literary language Literary language is the Register (sociolinguistics), register of a language used when writing in a formal, academic writing, academic, or particularly polite tone; when speaking or writing in such a tone, it can also be known as formal language. ...

used in parts of northern Italy, from the mid-13th century to the end of the 14th century. It was employed by writers including Brunetto Latini and Rustichello da Pisa and was presumably only a written language, and not a spoken one. Absent a standard form for literary works of the

Gallo-Italic languages The Gallo-Italic, Gallo-Italian, Gallo-Cisalpine or simply Cisalpine languages constitute the majority of the Romance languages of northern Italy: Piedmontese, Lombard, Emilian, Ligurian, and Romagnol. In central Italy they are spoken in th ...

at the time, writers in genres including the romance employed a hybrid language strongly influenced by the

French language French ( or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-R ...

(at this period, the group called

langues d'oïl The ''langues d'oïl'' are a dialect continuum that includes standard French and its closest relatives historically spoken in the northern half of France, southern Belgium, and the Channel Islands. They belong to the larger category of Gallo- ...

). They sometimes described this type of literary Franco-Italian simply as French. Franco-Italian literature began to appear in northern Italy in the first half of the 13th century, with the ''Livre d'Enanchet''. Its vitality was exhausted around the 15th century with the

Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

copy of the '' Huon d'Auvergne'' (1441). Prominent masterpieces include two versions of the '' Chanson de Roland'', the very first version of '' The Travels of Marco Polo'' and the '' Entrée d'Espagne''. The last original text of the Franco-Italian tradition is probably ''Aquilon de Bavière'' by Raffaele da Verona, who wrote it between 1379 and 1407.

Notes

{{Interlanguage varieties Mixed languages Languages extinct in the 15th century Languages attested from the 13th century Medieval Italian literature Extinct languages of Italy Gallo-Romance languages Extinct languages of Europe