The Italian Language

Learn about the Italian language, grammar, vocabulary and culture

Italian culture has made a notable impact abroad, principally in the architecture and music, while a great number of foreigners have come to Italy and been inspired by what they saw there.

Italy, for all its cultural monuments, was a stop of the Grand Tour: a trip every higher- class Englishman took as a finishing touch of his education. The main stops in Italy were Rome, Venice and Naples. As the Early Renaissance was not considered, till Ruskin's time, to be of little importance Florence was often left out of the itinerary.

An interesting exercise is to walk through the streets of Florence looking at the plaques which have been placed on a number of buildings and seeing who has lived or stayed, even for a short period, in Florence. Among the names you will see are those of Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), Pjotr Il’ich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1820-1881), Romain Rolland (1866-1944), John Milton (1608-1674) and so on.

Many impoverished English noblemen chose to go to Italy, because the cheaper cost of living allowed them to live in a style that was not possible for them on their English estates.

There is in Florence the Cimitero degli Inglesi (the English cemetery) were some famous names are to be found, among which that of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861). A Swiss architect: was responsible for the landscaping of the site: Carlo Reishammer.

At times there have been institutions abroad to promote Italian culture. Apart from the Istituto di Cultura Italiana, which are to be found in all major cities, there have been other centres, such as the Théatre Italien, in XVIII and XIX century Paris, where only Italian plays or operas were presented.

Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979), the American philanthropist, moved from New York to Venice in 1946 and made the Palazzo Vernier dei Leoni her art gallery. There is now in Venice a Guggenheim Museum.

There is, also in Paris, a Comédie-Italienne, which was founded in 1980 by Attilio Maggiulli, where only Italian plays are given. They are, however, translated into French.

Italy is also renowned for the Commedia dell'Arte, one of the ancestors of opera buffa. Most of its characters are Carnival figures, such as Harlequin, Columbine, Pantaloon, Punchinello, the Captain, etc.

The large number of English in Tuscany, more specifically in the Chianti region, led it to be renamed humorously Chiantishire. Now the English are no longer alone, there being a large number of Germans there.