Warmly and interestingly presented by De Mauro (who, in his "Prefazione", pp. 5-9, himself offers a persuasive scheme of seven types of adequacy to be demanded of a translation), this slim and handy volume unites five of Nocera's studies dating from the years 1981 to 1988, and (except one) previously published. A specially written Introduction (pp. 15-25) and an Index (of names and of selected subjects, pp. 133-138) provide a frame. This type of publication has much to commend it: By assembling into a larger whole the detailed arguments of separate articles (in this case, mostly papers delivered at conferences) it can present the fruits of sustained thought and research activity in a large field without any loss of freshness and specificity. This works best, however, in the case of contributions studying individual works or authors; problems arise with overlapping surveys.