In the highly prestigious Uffizi Gallery in Florence, a curious and, we might say, “patriotic” exhibition is being staged until 30 September, an ideal journey through the works of art which for Italy have represented the formation of a collective artistic language, to discover the birth of the common language of Italians.
The event was conceived and is supported by the Dante Alighieri Society of Rome and by its chairman Bruno Bottai, together with the Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, and organised by Luca Serianni, illustrious Italianist of Rome’s La Sapienza University.
It intends illustrating the evolution of the Italian language from its origins up to the present day, through documents normally kept in libraries and museums and not therefore normally available, autographs of renowned writers of the golden ages of our peninsula and a series of images and paintings in some way related to the history of the Italian language.


This singular event has already attracted numerous visitors, inasmuch as it talks of our country and illustrates our language, a language studied and documented across over one thousand years, from the “Placito di Capua” (“Sao ko kelle terre per kelle fini que ki contiene …”) up to the TV koiné of today.
The exhibition has been staged in Florence, because this is where our language was born, first with Dante Alighieri, then with Petrarca, Boccaccio and Ariosto; and then Macchiavelli, Galileo Galilei, Leopardi, Manzoni, D’Annunzio and Sciascia who, throughout Italy, from north to south, have found in Italian the most precious of cultural assets.
But more specifically, it has been staged in the Uffizi Gallery, because this is the sanctuary of great Italian art.
Giotto started the “romance” style compared to the Greek style, and shows this in the “majesty” known as All Saints which contrasts with the Byzantine style and is still visible in Cimabue.
Art history starts in Florence, a figuration that passes in Masaccio and Piero della Francesca, Raphael and Caravaggio up to Tiepolo. It was here in Florence, in the same period when Giotto worked and when Dante Alighieri wrote in Tuscan vulgar and gave rise to the great history of literature.
This unified journey of the history of the language and the history of the arts was not easy to see before and will not be easy to see again.

What we can see: here is a series of literary documents such as parchments, manuscripts, autographs and printed books, together with works of arts such as paintings and sculptures.
Here is the copy of Dante’s Commedia transcribed by Boccaccio, which belonged to Petrarca and was annoted by him;
the famous autographed copy of the Decamerone from the Berlin state Library, Alberti’s Grammatichetta;
the manuscripts by Bembo and Ariosto, by Manzoni and Montale; and a whole series of ferial, political, commercial and bureaucratic languages.
From Placito di Capua of 960 up to the financial writings of Datini, to the proceedings of the criminal Courts, to the Bulletin of the Italian national fascist Federation against tuberculosis (1928). There is even the ignominious notice kept in the State Archives of Rome, which was affixed to the door of the Roman barber Giovan Battista Fabrino on 28 July 1966.
Among the paintings are the images, or better, the portraits of the protagonists of our literary history.
Here is the Portrait of Macchiavelli by Santi di Tito, of Alessandro Manzoni by Hayez, of Niccolò Tommaseo by Sarri. We can also see the landscapes of our cities such as Florence seen by Thomas Patch and Naples painted by Vanvitelli.

Just as we can witness the tastes and lifestyles of the age: here is the “Dama col petrarchino” by Andrea del Sarto or the portrait of chancellor Moroni by Solario.
The 18th century is present with the “Canterina corteggiata” by Crespi, with the “Musici” by Gabbiani, with the “Ballo” by Pietro Longhi, with “Rinaldo abbandona Armida” by Tiepolo.

The linguistic unification of the Italians occurred in 1861 when the country was politically united - before that were the Italians and their idioms: Neapolitan, Roman, Venetian, Lombard, etc.
Then, at the end of the 20th century, came the basic language imposed by television.
Up to the 19th century, Italian was studied in Milan as it was in Palermo, almost as a foreign language, but the figurative languages were already unified - the 16th century is the age of Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian.
Then Roman baroque swept across from Cracow to Mexico City as far as Seville and the Tuscan-Florentine manner conditioned the courts of Prague and Paris, while the Palladian style influenced St. Petersburg and Washington.
Translated by interpres sas