Letteratura Italiana – Italian Literature

The Etruscans—descendants of Villanovan civilization and one of the most ancient people of Italy—produced literature as early as the 7th or 8th century BC, reaching its peak before the Greeks. This would theoretically be the oldest Italian literature. According to Livy, Roman children were instructed in Etruscan literature since the 4th century BC. However, with the exception of 10,000 inscriptions, a few late fragments and the Liber Linteus, Etruscan literature is no longer extant. Thus the oldest surviving Italian literature is that of Ancient Rome, written in the Latin language.

Latin was the language of the Latins, an Italic tribe from Latium, Italy. The Latins founded Rome in 753 BC and later spread their language and civilization across all of Italy. The oldest Latin text, the 7th century BC Praeneste fibula, proves their ancient literacy. Latin literature was formally established in Rome by Appius Claudius Caecus in the 3rd century BC, although Ennius is considered the true father of Latin literature. In reality, Latin literature existed even earlier, however all Roman records prior to the 4th century BC were destroyed when the Gauls sacked Rome in 390 BC.

Latin gradually replaced Etruscan and the closely-related languages spoken by the other Italic tribes, becoming the common spoken language of all ancient Italians and the primary literary language of Italy for over a millennium. Latin remained the literary language of Italy throughout the Middle Ages, although the spoken language began to evolve and develop into modern Italian. Between the 12th and 13th centuries the Italian troubadours wrote in Provencal instead of Latin. Literature in the Italian vernacular emerged in the 13th century with the Franciscans and the Sicilian School of poetry. By the 14th century, the Italian vernacular became established as a respected literary language through the works of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio. From then after, Italian writers chose to write in the Italian vernacular alongside Latin.


Articles


Library of Italian Literature

Antiquity

Julius Caesar

Cato the Censor

Cicero

Ennius

Florus

Gaius

Aulus Gellius

Horace

    Silius Italicus

    Juvenal

    Livy

    Lucretius

    Cornelius Nepos

    Ovid

    Marcus Velleius Paterculus

    Valerius Maximus

    Pliny the Elder

    Pseudo-Sallust

    Sallust

    Seneca

    Suetonius

    Tacitus

    Varro

    Virgil

    Vitruvius


    Late Antiquity

    Ambrose

    Augustine

    Boethius

    Cassiodorus

    Dionysius Cato

    Eutropius

    Venantius Fortunatus

    Jerome

    Julius Firmicus Maternus

    Paulinus of Nola

    Vegetius

    Sextus Aurelius Victor

    Uncertain Authorship


    Medieval

    Dante Alighieri

    Francis of Assisi

    Bonaventure

    Guido Cavalcanti

    Thomas of Celano

    Gregory the Great

    Giacomo da Lentini

    Brother Leo

    Marco Polo

    Jacopone da Todi

    Giovanni Villani

    Jacobus de Voragine

    Uncertain Authorship


    Renaissance

    Leon Battista Alberti

    Ludovico Ariosto

    Matteo Bandello

    Pietro Bembo

    Flavio Biondo

    Giovanni Boccaccio

    Matteo Maria Boiardo

    Leonardo Bruni

    Michelangelo Buonarroti

    Giovanni della Casa

    Baldassare Castiglione

    Benvenuto Cellini

    Cennino Cennini

    Luigi Cornaro

    Filarete

    Giovanni Fiorentino

    Stefano Guazzo

    Francesco Guicciardini

    Niccolò Machiavelli

    Andrea Palladio

    Francesco Petrarca

    Luigi da Porto

    Franco Sacchetti

    Bartolo da Sassoferrato

    Girolamo Savonarola

    Giovanni Francesco Straparola

    Torquato Tasso

    Fazio degli Uberti

    Giorgio Vasari

    Leonardo da Vinci


    Counter-Reformation—Baroque

    Giambattista Basile

    Roberto Bellarmino

    Carlo Borromeo

    Giovanni Botero

    Tommaso Campanella

    Vincenzo da Filicaia

    Giambattista Marino

    Pietro Metastasio

    Filippo Neri

    Lorenzo Scupoli

    Alessandro Tassoni


    Settecento

    Gian Rinaldo Carli

    Alphonsus Maria de' Liguori

    Giambattista Vico


    Risorgimento—Romanticism

    Massimo D'Azeglio

    Cesare Balbo

    Alessandro Manzoni

    Giuseppe Mazzini

    Goffredo Mameli

    Ippolito Nievo

    Silvio Pellico

    Antonio Rosmini


    Post-Risorgimento—Modern

    Carlo Collodi

    Giovanni Papini

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