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Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order

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The Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order (Bonfilius, Alexis, Manettus, Amadeus, Hugh, Sostene and Buonagiunta) were seven men of the town of Florence who became bound to each other in a spiritual friendship. They eventually felt called by Mary, mother of Jesus , towards whom they practised an intense devotion. They reported a vision, apparently shared by all separately at the same moment. None of them was aware that the others also had experienced it. The call was to "leave the world, the better to serve almighty God".

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103-400: Bonfilius was born Bonfilius Monaldi (Buonfiglio dei Monaldi), Alexis was born Alexis Falconieri ( Italian : Alessio Falconieri ) (1200 – 17 February 1310), Manettus was born Benedict dell'Antella (Benedetto dell' Antella), Amadeus born Bartholemew Amidei (also Bartolomeo degli Amidei; died 1265), Hugh was born Ricovero Uguccioni (Hugh dei Lippi Uggucioni (Ricovero dei Lippi-Ugguccioni)), Sostene

206-674: A Doctor of the Church , providing him the supplementary titles of " Doctor magnificus " ("Magnificent Doctor") and " Doctor Marianus " ("Marian Doctor"). Clement XI created a total of 70 cardinals in 15 consistories. Notably, two cardinals of his own creation were Michelangelo dei Conti, who became his immediate successor, Pope Innocent XIII , and Lorenzo Corsini, who later became Pope Clement XII . The pope also nominated eight cardinals " in pectore ", later publishing their names which validated their appointments as cardinals. During his pontificate, Gabriele Filippucci resigned his cardinalate which

309-689: A local language of Italy , most frequently the language spoken at home in their place of origin. Italian is a major language in Europe, being one of the official languages of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and one of the working languages of the Council of Europe . It is the third-most-widely spoken native language in the European Union (13% of the EU population) and it

412-514: A mendicant . As a pious strategy to combat clerical corruption in those times, becoming a mendicant was a not uncommon spiritual development, Francis of Assisi and Saint Dominic having furnished but the most illustrious models only a generation earlier. Alexis sought alms for his brethren through the streets of the city where he had only lately been a prominent citizen. Like Anthony the Great , Benedict of Nursia and St Francis, Alexis never entered

515-604: A Ghibelline (imperialist cause). In those days the Ghibellines in Florence had become tainted with Catharism . Notwithstanding prospects as a wealthy nobleman in one of Italy's richest and most cultured cities, Falconieri grew up practising the most profound humility. Falconieri joined the Laudesi, a pious Marian confraternity, where he met the six who were to accompany him on his consecrated life . Apparently he experienced

618-521: A Marian apparition on 15 August 1233, as did his six companions. Soon afterwards they founded the Order of the Servites . Falconieri at once abandoned all worldly things, and retired to La Camarzia, a house on the outskirts of the town. The next year he moved to Monte Senario , where a hermitage and church were founded. Falconieri was bestowed the title of Founder and Mystic . Only after the intervention of

721-633: A cardinal for ten years previously. Having accepted election after some hesitation, he was ordained a bishop on 30 November 1700 and assumed the pontifical name of "Clement XI". Cardinal protodeacon Benedetto Pamphili crowned him on 8 December 1700 and he took possession of the Basilica of Saint John Lateran on 10 April 1701. Soon after his accession to the pontificate, the War of the Spanish Succession broke out. In 1703 Pope Clement XI ordered

824-565: A huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home languages— ciao is derived from the Venetian word s-cia[v]o ("slave", that is "your servant"), panettone comes from the Lombard word panetton , etc. Only 2.5% of Italy's population could speak the Italian standardized language properly when

927-471: A little over one million people in the United States speak Italian at home. Nevertheless, an Italian language media market does exist in the country. In Canada, Italian is the second most spoken non-official language when varieties of Chinese are not grouped together, with 375,645 claiming Italian as their mother tongue in 2016. Italian immigrants to South America have also brought a presence of

1030-517: A number of individuals: Alexis Falconieri , Bartholomew degli Amidei and Benedict Dellantella, (1 December 1717) and John Francis Régis (24 May 1716). He also beatified the sisters Theresa (20 May 1705) and Sancha (10 May 1705). He canonized Andrew Avellino , Catherine of Bologna , Felix of Cantalice and Pope Pius V on 22 May 1712, Humility on 27 January 1720, Stephen of Obazine in 1701 and Boniface of Lausanne in 1702. Clement XI, on 8 February 1720, named Saint Anselm of Canterbury as

1133-602: A poetic and literary origin in the works of Tuscan writers of the 12th century, and, although the grammar and core lexicon are basically unchanged from those used in Florence in the 13th century, the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. However, Romance vernacular as language spoken in the Italian Peninsula has a longer history. In fact, the earliest surviving texts that can definitely be called vernacular (as distinct from its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae known as

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1236-417: A renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century, sparked a debate that raged throughout Italy concerning the criteria that should govern the establishment of a modern Italian literary and spoken language. This discussion, known as questione della lingua (i.e., the problem of the language ), ran through the Italian culture until the end of the 19th century, often linked to the political debate on achieving

1339-522: A result. Starting in late medieval times in much of Europe and the Mediterranean, Latin was replaced as the primary commercial language by languages of Italy, especially Tuscan and Venetian. These varieties were consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italy and the rise of humanism and the arts . Italy came to enjoy increasing artistic prestige within Europe. A mark of

1442-433: A seven-vowel system, consisting of /a, ɛ, e, i, ɔ, o, u/ , as well as 23 consonants. Compared with most other Romance languages, Italian phonology is conservative, preserving many words nearly unchanged from Vulgar Latin . Some examples: Clement XI Pope Clement XI ( Latin : Clemens XI ; Italian : Clemente XI ; Albanian : Klementi XI ; 23 July 1649 – 19 March 1721), born Giovanni Francesco Albani ,

1545-518: A short time ten thousand people had enrolled in the Servite Order. Some of the first foundations were at Siena , Pistoia , Arezzo , Cafaggio, Prato (on the outskirts of Florence) and Lucca . Many parts of the world saw foundations established over the subsequent years. In the 19th century it reached England and USA (1874, see Our Lady of Sorrows Basilica ). The order developed the three most common devotions to Our Lady of Sorrows . These are

1648-479: A single language is that they have evolved so that they are no longer mutually intelligible ; this diagnostic is effective if mutual intelligibility is minimal or absent (e.g. in Romance, Romanian and Portuguese), but it fails in cases such as Spanish-Portuguese or Spanish-Italian, as educated native speakers of either pairing can understand each other well if they choose to do so; however, the level of intelligibility

1751-534: A synod of Catholic bishops in northern Albania that discussed promotion of the Council of Trent decrees within Albanian dioceses, stemming conversions among locals to Islam and securing agreement to deny communion to crypto-Catholics who outwardly professed the Muslim faith. Despite initially holding an ambiguous neutrality in world affairs, Clement XI was later forced to name Charles, Archduke of Austria , as

1854-513: A united Italian state. Renaissance scholars divided into three main factions: A fourth faction claimed that the best Italian was the one that the papal court adopted, which was a mixture of the Tuscan and Roman dialects. Eventually, Bembo's ideas prevailed, and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582–1583), the official legislative body of the Italian language, led to

1957-425: A very strong fever that immediately forced him to his bed, with the pope declining a meal that evening. His pulse was exceptionally slow and he even coughed up a thick liquid that was streaked with blood. Unable to sleep that night, his fever abated somewhat. But the following day saw his fever return much more violently, and he had an irregular pulse. The sputum was foamy, once more with blood, indicating that there

2060-427: Is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan , 85% with Sardinian , 82% with Spanish, 80% with Portuguese , 78% with Ladin , 77% with Romanian . Estimates may differ according to sources. One study, analyzing the degree of differentiation of Romance languages in comparison to Latin (comparing phonology , inflection , discourse , syntax , vocabulary , and intonation ), estimated that distance between Italian and Latin

2163-759: Is also spoken by a minority in Monaco and France, especially in the southeastern part of the country. Italian was the official language in Savoy and in Nice until 1860, when they were both annexed by France under the Treaty of Turin , a development that triggered the " Niçard exodus ", or the emigration of a quarter of the Niçard Italians to Italy, and the Niçard Vespers . Giuseppe Garibaldi complained about

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2266-534: Is higher than that between Sardinian and Latin. In particular, its vowels are the second-closest to Latin after Sardinian . As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino and is spoken fluently by the majority of the countries' populations. Italian is the third most spoken language in Switzerland (after German and French; see Swiss Italian ), although its use there has moderately declined since

2369-460: Is markedly lower between Italian-Spanish, and considerably higher between the Iberian sister languages of Portuguese-Spanish. Speakers of this latter pair can communicate with one another with remarkable ease, each speaking to the other in his own native language without slang/jargon. Nevertheless, on the basis of accumulated differences in morphology, syntax, phonology, and to some extent lexicon, it

2472-462: Is not difficult to identify that for the Romance varieties of Italy, the first extant written evidence of languages that can no longer be considered Latin comes from the ninth and tenth centuries C.E. These written sources demonstrate certain vernacular characteristics and sometimes explicitly mention the use of the vernacular in Italy. Full literary manifestations of the vernacular began to surface around

2575-594: Is spoken as a second language by 13.4 million EU citizens (3%). Including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries (such as Switzerland, Albania and the United Kingdom ) and on other continents, the total number of speakers is approximately 85 million. Italian is the main working language of the Holy See , serving as the lingua franca (common language) in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as

2678-549: Is used, and the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continues to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Other examples are Cocoliche , an Italian–Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires , and Lunfardo . The Rioplatense Spanish dialect of Argentina and Uruguay today has thus been heavily influenced by both standard Italian and Italian regional languages as

2781-509: The Il Globo (Australia) and the La gazzetta del Sud Africa (South Africa). Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language. In the 21st century, technology also allows for the continual spread of the Italian language, as people have new ways to learn how to speak, read, and write languages at their own pace and at any given time. For example,

2884-991: The La Voce del Popolo ( Croatia ), the Corriere d'Italia (Germany), the L'italoeuropeo (United Kingdom), the Passaparola ( Luxembourg ), the America Oggi (United States), the Corriere Canadese and the Corriere Italiano (Canada), the Il punto d'incontro (Mexico), the L'Italia del Popolo ( Argentina ), the Fanfulla (Brazil), the Gente d'Italia ( Uruguay ), the La Voce d'Italia ( Venezuela ),

2987-527: The 1969 revision of the calendar, 17 February was judged more appropriate as this was the date Alexis Falconieri died. Italian language Italian ( italiano , pronounced [itaˈljaːno] , or lingua italiana , pronounced [ˈliŋɡwa itaˈljaːna] ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of

3090-702: The Gallo-Italic linguistic panorama of Northern Italy , the Italo-Dalmatian , Neapolitan and its related dialects were largely unaffected by the Franco- Occitan influences introduced to Italy mainly by bards from France during the Middle Ages, but after the Norman conquest of southern Italy , Sicily became the first Italian land to adopt Occitan lyric moods (and words) in poetry. Even in

3193-1152: The Jesuit Daniele Farlati and Dom Jacopo Coleti . Clement XI made a concerted effort to acquire Christian manuscripts in Syriac from Egypt and other places in the Middle East, greatly expanding the Vatican Library 's collection of Syriac works. Clement XI extended the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary to the Universal Church of the Roman Rite in 1716. Clement XI confirmed the cultus of Ceslas Odrowaz (27 August 1712), Jakov Varingez (29 December 1700), Peregrine Laziosi (11 September 1702), John of Perugia (11 September 1704), Peter of Sassoferrato (11 September 1704), Buonfiglio Monaldi (1 December 1717), Pope Gregory X (8 July 1713) and Humbeline of Jully (1703). He formally beatified

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3296-693: The King of Spain , since the imperial army had conquered much of northern Italy and was threatening Rome itself in January 1709. By the Treaty of Utrecht that put an end to the war, the Papal States lost its suzerainty over the Farnese Duchy of Parma and Piacenza in favour of Austria , and lost Comacchio as well, a blow to the prestige of the Papal States. In 1713 Clement XI issued

3399-674: The Kingdom of Italy in the Dodecanese ). Italian is widely spoken in Malta , where nearly two-thirds of the population can speak it fluently (see Maltese Italian ). Italian served as Malta's official language until 1934, when it was abolished by the British colonial administration amid strong local opposition. Italian language in Slovenia is an officially recognized minority language in

3502-773: The Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia ), although the masses kept speaking primarily their local vernaculars. Italian was also one of the many recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire . Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city because the cities, until recently, were thought of as city-states . Those dialects now have considerable variety . As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout Italy, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian . The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are syntactic gemination of initial consonants in some contexts and

3605-1033: The Middle Ages , the established written language in Europe was Latin, although the great majority of people were illiterate, and only few were well versed in the language. In the Italian Peninsula , as in most of Europe, most would instead speak a local vernacular. These dialects, as they are commonly referred to, evolved from Vulgar Latin over the course of centuries, unaffected by formal standards and teachings. They are not in any sense "dialects" of standard Italian, which itself started off as one of these local tongues, but sister languages of Italian. Mutual intelligibility with Italian varies widely, as it does with Romance languages in general. The Romance languages of Italy can differ greatly from Italian at all levels ( phonology , morphology , syntax , lexicon , pragmatics ) and are classified typologically as distinct languages. The standard Italian language has

3708-545: The Palazzo Muti , as well as donating a summerhouse near the shores of Lake Albano . He also performed the baptism of James' son, the Jacobite Prince of Wales, Charles Edward Stuart . During his reign as a pope the famous Illyricum Sacrum was commissioned, and today it is one of the main sources of the field of Balkan region during Middle Ages , with over 5,000 pages divided in several volumes written by

3811-554: The Placiti Cassinesi from the province of Benevento that date from 960 to 963, although the Veronese Riddle , probably from the 8th or early 9th century, contains a late form of Vulgar Latin that can be seen as a very early sample of a vernacular dialect of Italy. The Commodilla catacomb inscription is also a similar case. The Italian language has progressed through a long and slow process, which started after

3914-530: The Quirinal Palace . He took medication that day but experienced pains in his thorax and had trouble breathing from the cold air in his rooms. The following day, Clement XI celebrated Mass in his private chapel before meeting various prelates which included the Archbishop of Ravenna Geronimo Crispi. However, at around noon, he was suddenly struck with an extraordinary chill which was accompanied by

4017-691: The Roman Empire . Italian is the least divergent language from Latin , together with Sardinian (meaning that Italian and Sardinian are the most conservative Romance languages). Spoken by about 85 million people, including 67 million native speakers (2024), Italian is an official language in Italy , San Marino , Switzerland ( Ticino and the Grisons ), Corsica , and Vatican City . It has official minority status in Croatia , Slovenian Istria , and

4120-674: The Roman catacombs . Giovanni Francesco Albani was born in 1649 in Urbino to the Albani family , a distinguished family of Albanian origin in central Italy. His mother Elena Mosca (1630–1698) was a high-standing Italian of bergamasque origin, descended from the noble Mosca family of Pesaro . His father Carlo Albani (1623–1684) was a patrician. His mother descended in part from the Staccoli family, who were patricians of Urbino , in part from

4223-838: The Rosary of the Seven Sorrows , the Black Scapular of the Seven Dolours of Mary and the Novena to Our Sorrowful Mother. Alexis died in Monte Senario at about 110 years of age on 17 February 1310. His entombed body and shrine is near the church of the Santissima Annunziata in Florence, which is served by the order. On 1 December 1717, pope Clement XI declared Falconieri worthy of veneration by

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4326-493: The Universal Prayer and highly recommended it to others. Pope Clement XI had a famous sundial added in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri and had an obelisk erected in the Piazza della Rotonda in front of the Pantheon , and a port built on the Tiber River , the beautiful Porto di Ripetta , demolished at the end of the 19th century. He established a committee, overseen by his favourite artists, Carlo Maratta and Carlo Fontana , to commission statuary of

4429-406: The Western Roman Empire's fall in the 5th century. The language that came to be thought of as Italian developed in central Tuscany and was first formalized in the early 14th century through the works of Tuscan writer Dante Alighieri , written in his native Florentine . Dante's epic poems, known collectively as the Commedia , to which another Tuscan poet Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed

4532-474: The bull Unigenitus in response to the spread of the Jansenist heresy. There followed great upheaval in France , where apart from theological issues, a strong Gallican tendency persisted. The bull, which was produced with the contribution of Gregorio Selleri, a lector at the College of Saint Thomas, the future Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas Angelicum , condemned Jansenism by extracting and anathematizing as heretical 101 propositions from

4635-423: The vicar general . He died in Germany on 3 May 1282 Pope Leo XIII canonized them all on 15 January 1888. Their feast was inserted in the General Roman Calendar for celebration on 11 February. This had been the anniversary of the granting of canonical approval to the order in 1304. In 1909, 11 February became the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes , and so the feast of the seven founders was moved to 12 February. For

4738-406: The 111 Italian lecturer sections belonging to foreign schools where Italian is taught as a language of culture. As of 2022, Australia had the highest number of students learning Italian in the world. This occurred because of support by the Italian community in Australia and the Italian Government and also because of successful educational reform efforts led by local governments in Australia. From

4841-458: The 13th century in the form of various religious texts and poetry. Although these are the first written records of Italian varieties separate from Latin, the spoken language had probably diverged long before the first written records appeared since those who were literate generally wrote in Latin even if they spoke other Romance varieties in person. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the use of Standard Italian became increasingly widespread and

4944-438: The 1970s. It is official both on the national level and on regional level in two cantons : Ticino and Grisons . In the latter canton, however, it is only spoken by a small minority, in the Italian Grisons . Ticino, which includes Lugano , the largest Italian-speaking city outside Italy, is the only canton where Italian is predominant. Italian is also used in administration and official documents in Vatican City . Italian

5047-414: The Giordani, who were nobles of Pesaro. The original name of the Albani was Lazzi (Laçi) which they changed to Albani in memory of their origin. Francesco Albani funded an expedition in Albania to locate the exact settlement of his family's origins. In the final report, the two most probable locations which were presented to him were Laç near Lezhë and Laç near Kukës, both in northern Albania. Albani

5150-417: The Italian dialects has declined in the modern era , as Italy unified under Standard Italian and continues to do so aided by mass media from newspapers to radio to television, diglossia is still frequently encountered in Italy and triglossia is not uncommon in emigrant communities among older speakers. Both situations normally involve some degree of code-switching and code-mixing . Notes: Italian has

5253-439: The Italian language into a lingua franca used not only among clerks, nobility, and functionaries in the Italian courts but also by the bourgeoisie . Italian literature's first modern novel, I promessi sposi ( The Betrothed ) by Alessandro Manzoni , further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese "in the waters of the Arno " ( Florence 's river), as he states in the preface to his 1840 edition. After unification,

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5356-497: The Mediterranean. The increasing political and cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of the rise of the Medici Bank , humanism , and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts. The Renaissance era, known as il Rinascimento in Italian, was seen as a time of rebirth, which is the literal meaning of both renaissance (from French) and rinascimento (Italian). During this time, long-existing beliefs stemming from

5459-491: The bishop of Florence and Cardinal Castiglione in 1240 were novices accepted into the order. The rule of Augustine of Hippo and the Dominican Constitutions set the tone. Wearing a black habit and living in towns, they were, in effect, friars. The new order was recognised in 1259, and solemnly approved by Pope Benedict XI in 1304. It remains one of twelve Mendicant orders in the Catholic Church . The discipline of fervently practising humility had drawn Alexis into wandering as

5562-444: The case of Northern Italian languages, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. The economic might and relatively advanced development of Tuscany at the time ( Late Middle Ages ) gave its language weight, although Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life, and Ligurian (or Genoese) remained in use in maritime trade alongside

5665-455: The colonial period. In the early 19th century, Eritrea was the country with the highest number of Italians abroad, and the Italian Eritreans grew from 4,000 during World War I to nearly 100,000 at the beginning of World War II. In Asmara there are two Italian schools, the Italian School of Asmara (Italian primary school with a Montessori department) and the Liceo Sperimentale "G. Marconi" (Italian international senior high school). Italian

5768-419: The contrary by Lafitau. On 14 March, Clement XI took ill while Lafitau was trying to get the pope's nephew to persuade the pope to name the French Chief minister Guillaume Dubois to the cardinalate. However, Clement XI was in a state of delirium and was not responsive to his pleas. On 16 March, Quadragesima Sunday , the pope did not participate in the services, however, celebrated Mass in his private chapel at

5871-405: The country (some 0.42% of the total population). Their numbers dropped dramatically after World War II following the Istrian–Dalmatian exodus , which caused the emigration of between 230,000 and 350,000 Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians. Italian was the official language of the Republic of Ragusa from 1492 to 1807. It formerly had official status in Albania due to the annexation of

5974-408: The country to the Kingdom of Italy (1939–1943). Albania has a large population of non-native speakers, with over half of the population having some knowledge of the Italian language. The Albanian government has pushed to make Italian a compulsory second language in schools. The Italian language is well-known and studied in Albania, due to its historical ties and geographical proximity to Italy and to

6077-446: The country. A few hundred Italian settlers returned to Libya in the 2000s. Italian was the official language of Eritrea during Italian colonisation . Italian is today used in commerce, and it is still spoken especially among elders; besides that, Italian words are incorporated as loan words in the main language spoken in the country (Tigrinya). The capital city of Eritrea, Asmara , still has several Italian schools, established during

6180-415: The country. The official census, carried out in 2002, reported 2,258 ethnic Italians ( Istrian Italians ) in Slovenia (0.11% of the total population). Italian language in Croatia is an official minority language in the country, with many schools and public announcements published in both languages. The 2001 census in Croatia reported 19,636 ethnic Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians ) in

6283-479: The death of Pope Innocent XII in 1700, a conclave was convoked to elect a successor. Albani was regarded as a fine diplomat known for his skills as a peacemaker and so was unanimously elected pope on 23 November 1700. He agreed to the election after three days of consultation. Unusually, from the viewpoint of current practice, his election came within three months after his ordination as a priest and within two months after he celebrated his first Mass, though he had been

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6386-464: The design and fashion industries, in some sports such as football and especially in culinary terms. In Italy, almost all the other languages spoken as the vernacular —other than standard Italian and some languages spoken among immigrant communities—are often called " Italian dialects ", a label that can be very misleading if it is understood to mean "dialects of Italian". The Romance dialects of Italy are local evolutions of spoken Latin that pre-date

6489-420: The diffusion of Italian television in the country. Due to heavy Italian influence during the Italian colonial period , Italian is still understood by some in former colonies such as Libya. Although it was the primary language in Libya since colonial rule , Italian greatly declined under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi , who expelled the Italian Libyan population and made Arabic the sole official language of

6592-420: The educated gentlemen was to make the Grand Tour , visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It was expected that the visitor would learn at least some Italian, understood as language based on Florentine. In England, while the classical languages Latin and Greek were the first to be learned, Italian became the second most common modern language after French, a position it held until

6695-409: The establishment of Italian, and as such are sister languages to the Tuscan that was the historical source of Italian. They can be quite different from Italian and from each other, with some belonging to different linguistic branches of Romance. The only exceptions to this are twelve groups considered " historical language minorities ", which are officially recognized as distinct minority languages by

6798-433: The fact that it was linguistically an intermediate between the northern and the southern Italian dialects. Thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy. Italian was progressively made an official language of most of the Italian states predating unification, slowly replacing Latin, even when ruled by foreign powers (such as Spain in the Kingdom of Naples , or Austria in

6901-504: The faithful. He extended the same honour to his six companions on 3 July 1725. One of the seven founders of the Servite Order in 1233, Amadeus of the Amidei (died 1265) was also known as Bartolomeo degli Amidei. He was born into the Amidei family in the Republic of Florence , and died at Monte Senario in 1265. With the other six, his feast day is on 17 February. After following Philip Benizi to France and Germany , another founder, Hugh dei Lippi Ugguccioni remained there to serve as

7004-410: The free website and application Duolingo has 4.94 million English speakers learning the Italian language. According to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs , every year there are more than 200,000 foreign students who study the Italian language; they are distributed among the 90 Institutes of Italian Culture that are located around the world, in the 179 Italian schools located abroad, or in

7107-462: The governor of Rieti , Sabina and Orvieto . Pope Alexander VIII elevated him to the cardinalate in 1690 despite his protests and made him the Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria in Aquiro but he later opted for the Diaconia of Sant'Adriano al Foro and later, as the Cardinal-Priest, for the titulus of San Silvestro in Capite . He was then ordained to the priesthood in September 1700 and celebrated his first Mass in Rome on 6 October 1700. After

7210-427: The heathen. Clement XI died in Rome on 19 March 1721 at 12:45pm and was buried in the pavement of Saint Peter's Basilica rather than in an ornate tomb like those of his predecessors. On March 10, Clement XI had a meeting at about 11:00am with the Bishop of Sisteron Pierre François Lafitau. When the pope met with the bishop, he said that his time was drawing to a close and that he would soon die, despite protests to

7313-431: The island of Corsica (but not in the neighbouring Sardinia , which on the contrary underwent Italianization well into the late 18th century, under Savoyard sway: the island's linguistic composition, roofed by the prestige of Spanish among the Sardinians , would therein make for a rather slow process of assimilation to the Italian cultural sphere ). The rediscovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia , as well as

7416-640: The language to that continent. According to some sources, Italian is the second most spoken language in Argentina after the official language of Spanish, although its number of speakers, mainly of the older generation, is decreasing. Italian bilingual speakers can be found scattered across the Southeast of Brazil as well as in the South. In Venezuela , Italian is the most spoken language after Spanish and Portuguese, with around 200,000 speakers. In Uruguay , people who speak Italian as their home language are 1.1% of

7519-498: The late 18th century when it tended to be replaced by German. John Milton , for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. Within the Catholic Church , Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. Italian loanwords continue to be used in most languages in matters of art and music (especially classical music including opera), in

7622-534: The late 19th to the mid-20th century, millions of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay, Southern Brazil and Venezuela, as well as in Canada and the United States, where they formed a physical and cultural presence. In some cases, colonies were established where variants of regional languages of Italy were used, and some continue to use this regional language. Examples are Rio Grande do Sul , Brazil, where Talian

7725-567: The law. On the other hand, Corsican (a language spoken on the French island of Corsica ) is closely related to medieval Tuscan , from which Standard Italian derives and evolved. The differences in the evolution of Latin in the different regions of Italy can be attributed to the natural changes that all languages in regular use are subject to, and to some extent to the presence of three other types of languages: substrata, superstrata, and adstrata . The most prevalent were substrata (the language of

7828-820: The municipalities of Santa Tereza and Encantado in Brazil . Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia . Italian is included under the languages covered by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Romania , although Italian is neither a co-official nor a protected language in these countries. Some speakers of Italian are native bilinguals of both Italian (either in its standard form or regional varieties ) and

7931-412: The nation was unified in 1861. Italian is a Romance language , a descendant of Vulgar Latin (colloquial spoken Latin). Standard Italian is based on Tuscan , especially its Florentine dialect , and is, therefore, an Italo-Dalmatian language , a classification that includes most other central and southern Italian languages and the extinct Dalmatian . According to Ethnologue , lexical similarity

8034-408: The number of printing presses in Italy grew rapidly and by the year 1500 reached a total of 56, the biggest number of printing presses in all of Europe. This enabled the production of more pieces of literature at a lower cost and Italian, as the dominant language, spread. Italian became the language used in the courts of every state in the Italian Peninsula , as well as the prestige variety used on

8137-590: The official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta . Italian has a significant use in musical terminology and opera with numerous Italian words referring to music that have become international terms taken into various languages worldwide. Almost all native Italian words end with vowels , and the language has a 7-vowel sound system ('e' and 'o' have mid-low and mid-high sounds). Italian has contrast between short and long consonants and gemination (doubling) of consonants. During

8240-630: The openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local language (for example, in informal situations andà , annà and nare replace the standard Italian andare in the area of Tuscany, Rome and Venice respectively for the infinitive "to go"). There is no definitive date when the various Italian variants of Latin—including varieties that contributed to modern Standard Italian—began to be distinct enough from Latin to be considered separate languages. One criterion for determining that two language variants are to be considered separate languages rather than variants of

8343-584: The original inhabitants), as the Italian dialects were most probably simply Latin as spoken by native cultural groups. Superstrata and adstrata were both less important. Foreign conquerors of Italy that dominated different regions at different times left behind little to no influence on the dialects. Foreign cultures with which Italy engaged in peaceful relations with, such as trade, had no significant influence either. Throughout Italy, regional varieties of Standard Italian, called Regional Italian , are spoken. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors:

8446-458: The other hand, almost everyone still speaks the Corsican idiom , which, due to its linguistic proximity to the Italian standard language, appears both linguistically as an Italian dialect and therefore as a carrier of Italian culture, despite the French government's decades-long efforts to cut Corsica off from the Italian motherland. Italian was the official language in Monaco until 1860, when it

8549-580: The papal sacristan Niccolo Agostino degli Abbati Olivieri, Bishop of Porfirio , administered the Extreme Unction . On 19 March, the fever returned violently, and Clement XI slowly lost his ability to speak as his eyes clouded over and his respiration slowly diminished as the pope died just after midday. In his book " Journal of a Soul ", while he was preparing for the Second Vatican Council , Pope John XXIII resolved to pray

8652-674: The pope accepted on 7 June 1706. Clement XI also accepted the resignation of Francesco Maria de' Medici from the cardinalate on 19 June 1709. Another important decision of Clement XI was in regard to the Chinese Rites controversy : the Jesuit missionaries were forbidden to take part in honors paid to Confucius or the ancestors of the Emperors of China , which Clement XI identified as "idolatrous and barbaric", and to accommodate Christian language to pagan ideas under plea of conciliating

8755-406: The population of Italy could speak Standard Italian. He reports that in 1951 that percentage had risen to 87%. The ability to speak Italian did not necessarily mean it was in everyday use, and most people (63.5%) still usually spoke their native dialects. In addition, other factors such as mass emigration, industrialization, and urbanization, and internal migrations after World War II , contributed to

8858-409: The priesthood. Beyond preaching and his life of prayer, Alexis' principal endeavour was providing for the various religious communities where he lived. In 1252 a new church at Cafaggio was completed under his direction, with the financial assistance of his relative, Chiarissimo Falconieri. Under his influence, his niece Juliana Falconieri decided at a young age to follow the consecrated life. Within

8961-523: The proliferation of Standard Italian. The Italians who emigrated during the Italian diaspora beginning in 1861 were often of the uneducated lower class, and thus the emigration had the effect of increasing the percentage of literates, who often knew and understood the importance of Standard Italian, back home in Italy. A large percentage of those who had emigrated also eventually returned to Italy, often more educated than when they had left. Although use of

9064-528: The pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" between vowels in many words: e.g. va bene "all right" is pronounced [vabˈbɛːne] by a Roman (and by any standard Italian speaker), [vaˈbeːne] by a Milanese (and by any speaker whose native dialect lies to the north of the La Spezia–Rimini Line ); a casa "at home" is [akˈkaːsa] for Roman, [akˈkaːsa] or [akˈkaːza] for standard, [aˈkaːza] for Milanese and generally northern. In contrast to

9167-415: The publication of Agnolo Monosini 's Latin tome Floris italicae linguae libri novem in 1604 followed by the first Italian dictionary in 1612. An important event that helped the diffusion of Italian was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy some decades after and pushed

9270-542: The referendum that allowed France to annex Savoy and Nice, and a group of his followers (among the Italian Savoyards ) took refuge in Italy in the following years. Corsica passed from the Republic of Genoa to France in 1769 after the Treaty of Versailles . Italian was the official language of Corsica until 1859. Giuseppe Garibaldi called for the inclusion of the " Corsican Italians " within Italy when Rome

9373-473: The teachings of the Roman Catholic Church began to be understood from new perspectives as humanists —individuals who placed emphasis on the human body and its full potential—began to shift focus from the church to human beings themselves. The continual advancements in technology play a crucial role in the diffusion of languages. After the invention of the printing press in the 15th century,

9476-469: The title Divina , were read throughout the peninsula and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language. In addition to the widespread exposure gained through literature, the Florentine dialect also gained prestige due to the political and cultural significance of Florence at the time and

9579-542: The total population of the country. In Australia, Italian is the second most spoken foreign language after Chinese, with 1.4% of the population speaking it as their home language. The main Italian-language newspapers published outside Italy are the L'Osservatore Romano ( Vatican City ), the L'Informazione di San Marino ( San Marino ), the Corriere del Ticino and the laRegione Ticino ( Switzerland ),

9682-403: The works of Pasquier Quesnel , declaring them to be identical in substance with propositions already condemned in the writings of Jansenius . The resistance of many French ecclesiastics and the refusal of the French parlements to register the bull led to controversies extending through the greater part of the 18th century. Because the local governments did not officially receive the bull, it

9785-561: Was also introduced to Somalia through colonialism and was the sole official language of administration and education during the colonial period but fell out of use after government, educational and economic infrastructure were destroyed in the Somali Civil War . Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia. Although over 17 million Americans are of Italian descent , only

9888-525: Was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy , but King Victor Emmanuel II did not agree to it. Italian is generally understood in Corsica by the population resident therein who speak Corsican , which is an Italo-Romance idiom similar to Tuscan. Francization occurred in Nice case, and caused a near-disappearance of the Italian language as many of the Italian speakers in these areas migrated to Italy. In Corsica, on

9991-668: Was born Gerardino Sostegni (Gherardino di Sostegno) and Buonagiunta was born John Manetti (Giovanni di Buonagiunta (Bonajuncta)). Falconieri was one of the seven founders of the Servite Order , who are celebrated together on the anniversary of his death. He was the son of Bernardo Falconieri, a merchant prince of Florence, and one of the leaders of the Republic. His family belonged to the Guelph party. In keeping with their political principles, they took every opportunity to frustrate

10094-674: Was educated at the Collegio Romano in Rome from 1660 onwards. He became a very proficient Latinist and gained a doctorate in both canon and civil law. He was one of those who frequented the academy of Queen Christina of Sweden . He would serve as a papal prelate under Pope Alexander VIII and was appointed by Pope Innocent XII as the Referendary of the Apostolic Signatura . Throughout this time, he also served as

10197-480: Was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 23 November 1700 to his death in March 1721. Clement XI was a patron of the arts and of science. He was also a great benefactor of the Vatican Library ; his interest in archaeology is credited with saving much of Rome's antiquity. He authorized expeditions which succeeded in rediscovering various ancient Christian writings and authorized excavations of

10300-443: Was mirrored by a decline in the use of the dialects. An increase in literacy was one of the main driving factors (one can assume that only literates were capable of learning Standard Italian, whereas those who were illiterate had access only to their native dialect). The percentage of literates rose from 25% in 1861 to 60% in 1911, and then on to 78.1% in 1951. Tullio De Mauro , an Italian linguist, has asserted that in 1861 only 2.5% of

10403-484: Was not, technically, in force in those areas – an example of the interference of states in religious affairs common before the 20th century. Clement XI supported James Francis Edward Stuart , the exiled Stuart Prince of Wales, recognizing him as James III and VIII, and paid for the residence of him and his wife, Princess Maria Clementina Sobieska , Granddaughter of John III Sobieski , King of Poland-Lithuania, in Rome,

10506-658: Was replaced by the French. This was due to the annexation of the surrounding County of Nice to France following the Treaty of Turin (1860) . It formerly had official status in Montenegro (because of the Venetian Albania ), parts of Slovenia and Croatia (because of the Venetian Istria and Venetian Dalmatia ), parts of Greece (because of the Venetian rule in the Ionian Islands and by

10609-399: Was something wrong with his lungs, causing his doctors to realize that his condition would more than likely prove fatal. Clement XI made his confession and the profession of faith before receiving Holy Communion at 8:00pm. James Francis Edward Stuart , the "Pretender", tried to see the dying pope, however he was denied on the grounds of the dangerous state of the pope's condition. That night,

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