Teaching and Learning the Italian Vernacular in Sixteenth-Century Western Europe: Pedagogy, Texts, and Practices

This dissertation aims to explore how the Italian vernacular was taught and learned in sixteenth-century Western Europe. During this period, numerous grammars, textbooks, and dictionaries on the Italian vernacular were published. While previous scholarship has primarily focused on the linguistic content of these works, with only a few studies addressing their pedagogical implications, this dissertation seeks to fill this gap in the history of Italian pedagogy. This study examines both printed and manuscript texts - linguistic and literary, as well as archival documents - to shed new light on the topic. The first chapter investigates the label used to refer to the Italian vernacular, whether “fiorentino,” “toscano,” “volgare,” or “italiano”, arguing that the language taught and learned likely depended on the terminology employed by authors in their works. The second chapter analyzes marginalia and other marks left by readers in most of the books examined in the first chapter. This chapter highlights that readers were not passive recipients but rather active participants in the learning process, and it suggests that no shared system of annotations existed. The third chapter examines the pedagogical methods used by teachers and learners of the Italian vernacular. It emerges that an ante litteram grammar-translation approach was predominant, aiming to teach grammar and translation with a strong focus on written language. However, in England, a more direct approach - focusing on oral communication - may have been employed as well. This dissertation offers new insights to the field while also leaving some questions open. To what extent was the grammar-translation method more widely employed than the sources suggest? Were other European languages taught and learned in a similar way? Did the teaching and learning methods of Italian vernacular pedagogy remain unchanged in the following centuries? Future research could build on this study by investigating additional sources, such as unexplored archival documents and bilingual literary texts, to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the teaching and learning of the Italian vernacular in early modern Western Europe.

Author dc:creator

• Lorenzon, Massimiliano

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Del Soldato, Eva

• Education
• European Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
• History

Language dc:language.iso

en

Repository record dc:identifier.uri

https://repository.upenn.edu/handle/20.500.14332/61375

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.upenn.edu:20.500.14332/61375