Auctoritas in the Proses of the Vulgar Language

Abstract

In the Prose della volgar lingua, Bembo chose Petrarch’s language as the perfect model to imitate in order to make the Italian “vulgar” intelligible. When Bembo wrote this work, the exemplary authority of the Tuscan was already established; however, the Italian vulgar appeared unstable, susceptible to change over time, and fragmented from city to city. Therefore, it was necessary to regulate it, to establish a stable grammar, and to make clear, with regard to the composition of verse, some valid “standard characters for Italian writers, independent of the variety that was common among them; and to settle, in this way, the conditions necessary for creating a long life for the Italian language – a goal to which Ariosto, among others, aspired.

Keywords

• Bembo
• Prose della volgar lingua
• history of the Italian language
• literary Tuscan.