Language of Practical Mathematics in Renaissance Italy

Valentina Ferrari is a historical linguist and in particular a historian of the origins of Italian vernaculars. She is currently Research Fellow on a project focusing on the linguistic history of vernacular mathematics in Renaissance Italy: Vernacular Mathematics in the Italian Dialects: A History, funded by the Leverhulme Trust. She is based in the Faculty of Linguistics, Philology, and Phonetics at the University of Oxford. She has published on a variety of topics on lexical, syntactic, and textual aspects of medieval Latin and Romance documents from Italy. She holds a PhD in linguistics from the Scuola Normale Superiore.Martin Maiden is a Romance linguist with particular interests in Italian and Romanian. Since 1996 he has been Professor of the Romance Languages at Oxford University. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, a member of Academia Europaea, and a corresponding member of Italy’s Accademia della Crusca. He has been president of the Società internazionale di linguistica e filologia italiana and the Società di linguistica italiana. He is currently President of the Société de linguistique romane. He is the author of A Linguistic History of Italian (1995) and co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of the Italian Language (2026).

• 1. Introduction: text and contextValentina Ferrari2. Text and translation2.1 The manuscript: characteristics2.2 The manuscript: contents2.3 Editorial criteria2.4 The translation2.5 Abbreviations2.6 The text: transcription and translationValentina Ferrari – Translation by Martin Maiden3. Linguistic analysis3.1 Introduction3.2 Phonology and orthography3.2.1 Introduction3.2.2 Vowels3.2.2.1 Stressed vowels3.2.2.2 Unstressed vowels3.2.3 Consonants3.2.3.1 Voicing of intervocalic voiceless consonants3.2.3.2 Shortening of long consonants3.2.3.3 Original palatals and affricates3.2.4 Other phenomena3.3 Morphology3.3.1 Nouns and adjectives3.3.1.1 Number and gender marking3.3.1.2 Numerative morphology (and remnants of a neuter gender)3.3.2 Possessive adjectives3.3.3 Articles3.3.4 Pronouns3.3.4.1 The system3.3.4.2 Clitic pronouns3.3.5 Demonstratives3.3.6 Relative and interrogative forms3.3.7 Verb3.3.7.1 Inflexional paradigms3.3.7.2 Conjugation classes3.3.7.3 Person and number3.3.7.4 Auxiliary selection3.4 Syntax3.3.1 Basic word order3.3.2 The position of clitics3.4.2.1 General principles3.4.2.2 Clitic climbing3.4.2.3 Clitic clusters (sequences of clitics)3.4.2.4 Clitic doubling3.4.3 Position of auxiliary verbs3.4.4 Position of adverbs3.5 Negation3.6 Causatives3.7 Complementation3.8 Gerundial subordinate clauses3.9 Presentative constructions3.10 Relative constructions3.11 The structure of comparative and superlative constructions3.12 Agreement of verb with subject3.13 Agreement of the past participle3.14 Use of tenses3.15 Position of numerals3.16 Position of determiners3.17 Anacolutha?Martin Maiden4. The Lexicon and Phraseology4.1 Introduction4.2 The mathematical language of the libro d’abbaco4.2.1 Introduction4.2.2 The language of arithmetic4.2.2.1 Introduction4.2.2.2 The system of numbering4.2.2.3 Addition4.2.2.4 Subtraction4.2.2.5 Multiplication4.2.2.6 Division4.2.2.7 Operators4.2.2.8 Expression of the result4.2.2.9 Exquisire4.2.3 The language of algebra4.2.3.1 Introduction4.2.3.2 The ‘unknown’ and its powers4.2.3.3 The rule of the double false position and its lexicon4.2.3.4 The grande guisa4.2.4 The lexicon of calculations of net weight, gross weight, tare4.2.5 The language of geometry4.3 The northern Italo-Romance dialectal lexicon of the libro d’abbaco4.4 Special uses of two common words: capitolo, mano.4.5 Units of measurement and currency4.5.1 Introduction4.5.2 Units of measurement4.5.3 Units of currency4.6 Phraseology and discourse4.6.1 Rhetorical characteristics4.6.2 Structure of the text4.6.3 Addressing the reader and giving instructionsValentina Ferrari5. ConclusionMartin Maiden6. References and bibliographical abbreviations