Research
 

The Tabula Cebetis was a Greek dialogue written in the first–second century CE. Renaissance humanists rediscovered the text and appreciated it for its lively use of the rhetorical device ekphrasis [vivid description of a scene], which simplified comprehension of the virtuous core message and made the text suitable for language teaching and learning; also exploited by the new-born print industry. There are multiple editions of the Tabula (e.g. Aldus Manutius’ Greek/Latin edition in 1501–1503) that correlate with the pedagogical ideas of some of the most influential tutors of the time (i.e., Desiderius Erasmus, Juan Luis Vives, Roger Ascham).The text of the Tabula, and presumably the images added to different editions (beginning with Aesticampianus’ one in 1507), were used to develop reading skills for grammar and vocabulary discovery, writing skills (translation, versification, composition exercises), auditory comprehension, and oral expression (pronunciation and rhetorical declamation). 

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On the Tabula Cebetis see my chapter: Piscitelli, Michele, ‘Reworking the Tabula Cebetis: A Classical Moral Dialogue for Early-Modern    Language Learning’, in Grounded Histories of Language Teaching 16th–20th Centuries, ed. by Richard Smith and Sabine Doff (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, forthcoming 2024)

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Thomas Hoby learned Italian in practice by joining the Sienese Claudio Tolomei’s Italian lessons in Padua in 1548, by using languages for reasons related to his training as a diplomat and promoter of political-religious English interests in Europe, by travelling across the Italian peninsula, by translating Baldassare Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano in Siena in 1550, and by thinking about the relationships between vernaculars and Latin. The multifaceted character of Tolomei – a tutor and ‘language maker’ of the questione della lingua for Italians and non-Italians and a diplomat and orator equal to his friend Castiglione – is the key to navigate and connect all the ways in which Hoby and other English learned Italian in the same period. Tolomei might have started his series of lessons with Hoby and others by teaching the difference in pronunciation between Tuscan and Italian and how the Latin system of cases was translated in Italian vernacular. What did it mean in practice for Hoby, and other Tudor people in Italy, to learn the language by ‘travelling’? This is a common expression that is rarely explained and does not represent language-learning practice per se, but an activity implying a combination of different kinds of learning practice.

The Florentine religious refugee Michelangelo Florio wrote a Tuscan grammar, Regole de la Lingua Thoscana (1553), in London. Florio mapped the differences and similarities between Latin and Tuscan presenting the eight parts of speech. This was the basic grammar to learn before reading the suggested authors and independently extract rules from them with an inductive process. Tuscan was the main language for the presentation of the rules with the addition of Latin for the translation of exemplary sentences. These sentences were often strongly anti-Catholic revealing a potential use of Italian language for religious matters and related political propaganda during the Protestant oriented Edward VI’s reign (1547–1553). Florio wrote this grammar for print, and he addressed across the text anti-Catholics, self-learners, Italian language tutors, and, despite the premises, Latin illiterates. Florio’s Tuscan grammar targeted also Tudor women like Jane Grey, who was the dedicatee; and probably others like Anne Cooke and Elizabeth Tudor who demonstrated with their religious translations (from and into Italian) to use this practice for language learning and to explore crucial political-religious topics (such as the justification by faith). 

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On Michelangelo Florio's Tuscan Grammar I wrote a blog article for the ERC-funded project Travel, Transculturality, and Identity in England, c. 1550-1700 (TIDE): https://www.tideproject.uk/2021/05/27/michelangelo-florios-manuscript-grammar-1553-tuscan-language-learning-and-spiritual-denizenship-in-tudor-england/

John Clerk’s De Mortuorum Resurrectione (1545, 1547) was a multilingual (Latin, English, Italian French) compendium of biblical passages with an Italian and French verb conjugation appendix added to the second edition. The Petrarchan poet Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, requested the first edition and was its dedicatee. I argue that De Mortuorum represented, at the same time, learning and propaganda material in favour of Surrey who flirted with the evangelist party and foreign powers. After, that Surrey was executed for his unruliness and thirst for power, John Clerk added Italian and French verbs tables to the second edition of De Mortuorum following the young Catholic noble Charles Stourton’s request. This second edition confirms the tutoring role of Clerk, the use of De Mortuorum for language-learning, and the flexibility of his text and format to learn specialised religious vocabulary and matters related to salvation (no matter the specific religious stances of the reader). The main text favoured translation and reading practices as it was displayed in four parallel columns each representing a language translated almost word-by-word. The students could also mnemonically study the verb conjugations and compare them in Italian, French, and English thanks to the appendix. 

Two editions of a polyglot dictionary presented English and Italian amongst the six languages– one edited by John Renys was printed in Southwark (1537) by James Nicolson and the other one by Sessa in Venice (1541). Polyglot dictionaries belonged to a prolific family that had been printed since the end of the fifteenth century in multiple European locations. By analysing the materiality of the book, table of contents of the book, examples of lexical units and their multilingual translations, I argue that these polyglot dictionaries represented a valid pedagogical material for English individuals learning Italian. Their paratexts claimed a readership of artisans, women, merchants, and travellers, but also humanists such as Francesco Alunno who used them for his dictionaries. The presence of ‘proto-dialogues’, speech acts and formulaic language fostered speaking practices and later inspired more refined dialogue manuals with the same format in parallel columns. 

Francesco Alunno’s Le Ricchezze della lingua volgare (1543) was an Italian dictionary referencing Boccaccio’s novellas of Decameron and other of his works. Although being mainly a monolingual dictionary, multilingualism is present in an overlooked appendix with ‘cognate words’ in several Italian dialects and languages, English included. Claudio Tolomei, Michelangelo Florio and Baldassare Castiglione suggested to read Boccaccio to learn proper Tuscan language and the Decameron was a best-seller in Europe and England for his entertaining themes, such as gender relationships, courtly rhetoric of storytelling, and anti-clerical episodes. William Thomas based on Alunno’s Le Ricchezze his Italian grammar and dictionary Principal Rules (1550) on specific request of his friend John Tamworth who was keen to learn Italian. This shows that more advanced non-native Italian speakers, such as William Thomas, acted as informal tutors selecting books for Italians, modifying them, and creating material for specific learners. Alunno’s Le Ricchezze could assist English students in various stages of their language-learning process by presenting vocabulary in context and summarised grammar thanks to a short appendix. An advanced student, Thomas Hoby, used Le Ricchezze to understand the most complex passages within Boccaccio’s works.