Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

logical questions, because students of Italian cannot fail, especially if they should travel into Italy, to hear and read much about this controversy, and they might be puzzled and disheartened by the exaggerations of the more violent zealots of either party. Italian is a language that requires to be studied assiduously, in order that one may perceive its power and its beauties. The best scholars of Italy, men grown old in philological studies, have acknowledged that the longer they have laboured at their own language, the more they have discovered its capabilities, and the elegance, and at the same time the precision and strength, of which it is susceptible. We are of opinion, that no writer has yet exhibited all these powers in their fulness. Nor do we think that the zeal with which questions of language have been discussed by the Italians of late years, although carried sometimes beyond the verge of sound philosophy, is either misplaced or useless, for the subject is to Italy a matter of high importance in a national point of view, as no people without a common language can ever rank as a nation.

The field of Italian literature is much more extensive than is generally supposed. We have mentioned a few of the most distinguished writers of various ages; but for the rest we must refer to the numerous bibliographers, to Tiraboschi, and to Lombardi, the continuer of his work, to Fontanini, Crescimbeni, Gamba, &c. We may, perhaps, in a future part, give a critical list of the best grammars, dictionaries, and other works which may afford valuable assistance to students. The English have, until lately, derived their notions about Italy, the Italians, and their literature, chiefly through French channels, a medium not always to be depended upon.

It is time that every nation should be heard in its own cause. No one ought to form a judgment of matters connected with other countries, unless he has referred to the best native authorities. It is a common error, derived from political exaggeration, to suppose that the Italian mind has been asleep ever since the restoration of 1815. Never perhaps was there a period during which it was so active. The presses of Milan, Pavia, Padua, Venice, Turin, Florence, Rome, Naples, and Palermo, bring forth every year numerous works, of which very few ever cross the Alps, or are known even by name to foreign critics. Almost every town of Lom. bardy has its presses employed. We might refer to the pages of the Biblioteca Italiana, and to those of the Antologia of Florence, the two best literary journals of Italy, where monthly lists of the new publications are to be found. But these lists do not include by far the whole of the new works. Many books are published in southern Italy, at Naples, and in Sicily, which are hardly ever known, even by name, at Florence or Milan. The want of security for literary property is a great evil. As soon as a work of any attraction is published in one of the Italian states, reprints of it appear in others. This is to writers and booksellers a more severe check than even the censorship; yet in spite of these discouragements, Italy has produced during the last twenty years excellent works of history, biography, classical learning, and illustration of the arts, as well as books of travels, historical novels, essays, descriptive sketches, in short all the materials for an entertaining library, in which Italy was before rather deficient; likewise good works on science, jurisprudence, public economy, besides an immense number of new and correct editions

of former writers, and especially of the chronicles of the middle ages, to which we see with pleasure the Italians have turned their attention, for in them are to be found the true elements of modern Italian civilization and nationality. Among the original works, we will mention a few that occur to us now; Micali's Italy before the Roman dominion, Pignotti's excellent History of Tuscany, Botta's important History of Italy during the French invasions and late occupation of the country, and again his recent continuation of Guicciardini, Cicognara's History of Sculpture, Ferrario's History of Chivalry and Romance, Litta's splendid biographical and archæological work on the great Italian families, Inghirami's Etruscan Antiquities. Among the jurists and political economists, Romagnosi, Gioja, Tamburini, are illustrious names. The plays of Nota and Giraud; the tragedies of Pellico, Manzoni, and Niccolini, are justly admired. Manzoni has given Italy the best, we may say the first, historical novel she ever had, and numerous writers have now followed the same career. Della Cella, Brocchi, Raddi, Breislak, Rosellini, have published their travels undertaken for objects of learning or science. Of poets and philologists, Monti, Foscolo, Pindemonte, are lately dead. Among scientific men, Vaccà, Piazzi, Volta, Scarpa, Oriani, are also departed. But Aldini, Brugnatelli, Configliacchi, Ferrara, Conti, and Mai are living. All the above names, and we have only mentioned those most generally known, afford a sufficient refutation to those who pretend to say, that Italy is "the land of the dead." There exists considerable difficulty in England in procuring new works from the various parts of Italy; there is, however, one

Italian bookseller in London, Rolandi, of Berners Street, who keeps up a correspondence with the principal houses of Milan and Florence, and is pretty regularly supplied with most of the new works from the Italian press.

359

ON THE STUDY OF THE ITALIAN
LANGUAGE.

(From the Quarterly Journal of Education, No. XII.)

We promised in a former Number* to offer some suggestions to students of Italian in this country, with respect to the method of learning that language, and also to give a list of the best grammars, dictionaries, and other works, which may afford assistance. We cannot enter here into an elaborate grammatical dissertation; we shall merely make such remarks, and offer such hints as have occurred to us at various times.

The first thing is to acquire a good pronunciation. For this purpose it is requisite that the teacher, if not a native of Tuscany or Rome, should at least be familiar with the pronunciation of educated people in those countries, as we have already explained in our former article; and that he should pronounce, for instance, the letter u full and round, like the English oo; that he should be exact in discriminating between the two sounds of the e and of the o, as well as those of the s and the z; and also in pronouncing the syllables ce and ci, which ought to be sounded as the English ch, though somewhat more softly; the sce, sci, which latter have the sound of the English sh in shame, shin;

No. X. of the Journal of Education, p. 265.

« AnteriorContinuar »