The article assumes that each and every dictionary considers language not only as a list of (written) words, which are indexed according to specific rules, but also that it reveals a definite conception of language. It further considers the hitherto poorly examined first 25 years of mono-lingual Italian lexicography which has found its way into print. Only a few aspects of this work are discussed here, though each of them thoroughly.

On the basis of explicit statements made by 16th-century lexicographers and of the manner in which their dictionaries were actually compiled, an attempt is made to indicate what sort of relationship may occur between the discordant sound of an expression which aims to pass itself for Italian, and the form that is eventually adopted as representing the (literary) code. It appears that the main tendency in Italian lexicography was that of taking over, regularly and almost exclusively, usages from literary figures of the past, particularly from Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. A few pages in a lexicon compiled in 1532 by the Florentine Giovambattista Verini appear to be the only exception; they belong to an unassuming spelling-book with no other expressed goal than that of teaching the public how to read and write. These few pages also record the lexical usage current in Tuscany as well as a few words borrowed from the northern regions of Italy. The other dictionaries examined in the present paper (none of which having been compiled by a Tuscan lexicographer) express quite a different aim, namely, to teach their reading public to write well by following general principles based on the imitation of literary texts. (Only in few cases does the lexicographer recommend the use of ‘good speech’ under particular circumstances.)

The entry word of a dictionary may be the result of an individual decision taken by the lexicographer, and based on the limited corpus of the lexicon by a single, preferred author. These indexed words may also have been based on the entire lexicon of this ‘exemplary’ author, but also on a more composite langue arrived at by the use of several texts belonging to different historical periods and perhaps even through the use of the lexicographer’s own knowledge of the language. The present article deals with dictionaries and with the linguistic views of the authors as explicitly stated in their works. (Some of these statements pertaining to the use of Italian as a regional composite and to Latin as a model are particularly interesting.) It also takes into consideration the main features of these indexes, keeping in mind the linguistic sources from which they were derived, certain aspects of the language employed for definitions, and the function of quotations drawn from (usually) literary texts. (A few minor observations regarding contemporary rhyming dictionaries as well as references to comments on literary texts are also made.)

Among the many books reviewed in the present paper, particular attention is paid to Le tre fontane (1526) by Niccolò Liburnio which contains separate lexical lists derived from Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. This book may be called ‘palindromic’ because its headwords offer a norm which has a triple as well as a single application: on the one hand, it sets apart the writer’s parole, objectifying it, and, on the other, it presents a mixture of styles to be taken as the langue of the literary subcode. Le ricchezze (1543) by Francesco Alunno is, among the dictionaries compiled on the basis of the lexicon of a single author, the one that best sheds light on the linguistic ideas of its author.

The Vocabulario (1536) by Fabricio Luna is a book which, notwithstanding its poor quality, is of particular value even today since it introduced a number of changes into lexicographic practice. This includes the picking out of words for its entries from a variety of texts which cover several regions of Italy and different historical periods; beginning with written Italian used in the 14th century, which was by then regarded as ‘classical’, Luna’s book works its way down to the modern period. In this process, the lexicographer apparently was involving himself; one encounters, in its headwords, and for the first time in the history of Italian lexicography, a so-called ‘Tuscan’ language, obviously labelled not according to its geographic distribution but based on stylistic characteristics, with no concrete links to time and place. Moreover, the belief or, rather, the misunderstanding that a linguistic texture never changes throughout the ages (a principle on which all historical dictionaries are based) stems from the juxtaposition of quotations that were in fact derived from different kinds of parole.

La fabrica del mondo (1548), the last book of lexicography compiled by Alunno, presumes to cater for the general demand for written language by offering a new turn with regard to the listing of entry words: they are now given in accordance with an encyclopedic approach, where words are grouped according to subjects; the headwords, in addition to being drawn from these three acknowledged masters of the 14th century (who are obsequiously brought to the fore), are now taken from contemporary sources and quite intentionally selected by the lexicographer himself.