|
Bravi
''Bravi'' (sing. ''bravo''; sometimes translated as ‘bravoes’) were a species of coarse soldiery or hired assassins employed by the rural lordlings (or dons) of northern Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to protect their interests. The word derives, probably, from the Latin ''pravus'' (bad, wicked, evil) via the Spanish ''bravo'', in the sense of violent, aggressive, savage, and impulsive. Their fame—and their reputation as frightening and domineering bullies—rests in part on their striking presence in Alessandro Manzoni Alessandro Francesco Tommaso Antonio Manzoni (, , ; 7 March 1785 – 22 May 1873) was an Italian poet, novelist and philosopher. He is famous for the novel '' The Betrothed'' (orig. it, I promessi sposi) (1827), generally ranked among the maste ...’s historical novel '' The Betrothed'' (1827), which became one of the best-known Italian works of fiction of the nineteenth century and which opens with an extended description of the phenom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Betrothed (Manzoni Novel)
''The Betrothed'' ( it, I promessi sposi ) is an Italian historical novel by Alessandro Manzoni, first published in 1827, in three volumes, and significantly revised and rewritten until the definitive version published between 1840 and 1842. It has been called the most famous and widely read novel in the Italian language.Archibald Colquhoun. ''Manzoni and his Times.'' J. M. Dent & Sons, London, 1954. Set in Lombardy in 1628, during the years of Spanish rule, the novel is also noted for its extraordinary description of the plague that struck Milan around 1630. The novel deals with a variety of themes, from the illusory nature of political power to the inherent injustice of any legal system; from the cowardly, hypocritical nature of one prelate (the parish priest don Abbondio) and the heroic sainthood of other priests (the friar Padre Cristoforo, the cardinal Federico Borromeo), to the unwavering strength of love (the relationship between Renzo and Lucia, and their struggle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I Promessi Sposi - Ch1
I, or i, is the ninth letter and the third vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''i'' (pronounced ), plural ''ies''. History In the Phoenician alphabet, the letter may have originated in a hieroglyph for an arm that represented a voiced pharyngeal fricative () in Egyptian, but was reassigned to (as in English "yes") by Semites, because their word for "arm" began with that sound. This letter could also be used to represent , the close front unrounded vowel, mainly in foreign words. The Greeks adopted a form of this Phoenician ''yodh'' as their letter ''iota'' () to represent , the same as in the Old Italic alphabet. In Latin (as in Modern Greek), it was also used to represent and this use persists in the languages that descended from Latin. The modern letter ' j' originated as a variation of 'i', and both were used interchangeably fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don (honorific)
Don (; ; pt, Dom, links=no ; all from Latin ', roughly 'Lord'), abbreviated as D., is an honorific prefix primarily used in Spain and Hispanic America, and with different connotations also in Italy, Portugal and its former colonies, and Croatia. ''Don'' is derived from the Latin ''dominus'': a master of a household, a title with background from the Roman Republic in classical antiquity. With the abbreviated form having emerged as such in the Middle Ages, traditionally it is reserved for Catholic clergy and nobles, in addition to certain educational authorities and persons of distinction. ''Dom'' is the variant used in Portuguese. The female equivalent is Doña (), Donna (), Doamnă (Romanian) and Dona () abbreviated D.ª, Da., or simply D. It is a common honorific reserved for women, especially mature women. In Portuguese "Dona" tends to be less restricted in use to women than "Dom" is to men. In Britain and Ireland, especially at Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin, the word is u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical region. Italy is also considered part of Western Europe, and shares land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and the enclaved microstates of Vatican City and San Marino. It has a territorial exclave in Switzerland, Campione. Italy covers an area of , with a population of over 60 million. It is the third-most populous member state of the European Union, the sixth-most populous country in Europe, and the tenth-largest country in the continent by land area. Italy's capital and largest city is Rome. Italy was the native place of many civilizations such as the Italic peoples and the Etruscans, while due to its central geographic location in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, the country has also historicall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latin (language)
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian region and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. Even after the fall of Western Rome, Latin remained the common language of international communication, science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the 18th century, when other regional vernaculars (including its own descendants, the Romance languages) supplanted it in common academic and political usage, and it eventually became a dead language in the modern linguistic definition. Latin is a highly inflected language, with three distinct genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), six or seven noun cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative, and vocative), five declensions, four verb conjuga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spanish (language)
Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a global language with more than 500 million native speakers, mainly in the Americas and Spain. Spanish is the official language of 20 countries. It is the world's second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese; the world's fourth-most spoken language overall after English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu); and the world's most widely spoken Romance language. The largest population of native speakers is in Mexico. Spanish is part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. The oldest Latin texts with traces of Spanish come from mid-northern Iberia in the 9th century, and the first systematic written use of the language happened in Toledo, a prominent city of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alessandro Manzoni
Alessandro Francesco Tommaso Antonio Manzoni (, , ; 7 March 1785 – 22 May 1873) was an Italian poet, novelist and philosopher. He is famous for the novel '' The Betrothed'' (orig. it, I promessi sposi) (1827), generally ranked among the masterpieces of world literature. The novel is also a symbol of the Italian Risorgimento, both for its patriotic message and because it was a fundamental milestone in the development of the modern, unified Italian language. Manzoni also contributed to the stabilization of the modern Italian language and helped to ensure linguistic unity throughout Italy. He was an influential proponent of Liberal Catholicism in Italy. His work and thinking has often been contrasted with that of his younger contemporary Giacomo Leopardi by critics. Early life Manzoni was born in Milan, Italy, on 7 March 1785. Pietro, his father, aged about fifty, belonged to an old family of Lecco, originally feudal lords of Barzio, in the Valsassina. The poet's maternal gran ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social History Of Italy
Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from the Latin word ''socii'' ("allies"). It is particularly derived from the Italian ''Socii'' states, historical allies of the Roman Republic (although they rebelled against Rome in the Social War of 91–87 BC). Social theorists In the view of Karl MarxMorrison, Ken. ''Marx, Durkheim, Weber. Formations of modern social thought'', human beings are intrinsically, necessarily and by definition social beings who, beyond being "gregarious creatures", cannot survive and meet their needs other than through social co-operation and association. Their social characteristics are therefore to a large extent an objectively given fact, stamped on them from birth and affirmed by socialization processes; and, according to Marx, in producing and reproducin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
16th Century In Italy
16 (sixteen) is the natural number following 15 (number), 15 and preceding 17 (number), 17. 16 is a composite number, and a square number, being 4 (number), 42 = 4 × 4. It is the smallest number with exactly five divisors, its proper divisors being , , and . In English speech, the numbers 16 and 60 (number), 60 are sometimes confused, as they sound very similar. Sixteen is the fourth power of two. For this reason, 16 was used in weighing light objects in several cultures. The British have 16 ounces in one pound; the Chinese used to have 16 ''liangs'' in one ''jin''. In old days, weighing was done with a beam balance to make equal splits. It would be easier to split a heap of grains into sixteen equal parts through successive divisions than to split into ten parts. Chinese Taoists did finger computation on the trigrams and hexagrams by counting the finger tips and joints of the fingers with the tip of the thumb. Each hand can count up to 16 in such manner. The Chinese abacus use ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
