Giovanni Spano (born

Ploaghe Ploaghe ( sc, Piàghe) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Sassari in the Italian region Sardinia, located about north of Cagliari and about southeast of Sassari. Ploaghe borders the following municipalities: Ardara, Chiaramonti, ...

, Sardinia, 3 March 1803; died

Cagliari Cagliari (, also , , ; sc, Casteddu ; lat, Caralis) is an Italian municipality and the capital of the island of Sardinia, an autonomous region of Italy. Cagliari's Sardinian name ''Casteddu'' means ''castle''. It has about 155,000 inhabitant ...

, Sardinia, 3 April 1878), also a priest and a

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

, is considered one of the first

archaeologists Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

to study the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

island of Sardinia. After

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...

in which he learnt

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

Latin 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 ...

and Sardinian, he progressed to a

Sassari Sassari (, ; sdc, Sàssari ; sc, Tàtari, ) is an Italian city and the second-largest of Sardinia in terms of population with 127,525 inhabitants, and a Functional Urban Area of about 260,000 inhabitants. One of the oldest cities on the island, ...

seminary and in 1825 earned a degree in

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

. He was ordained in 1830 and in 1854 became director of the Cagliari Athenaeum. In 1871 he was named

senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

of the

Kingdom of Italy The Kingdom of Italy ( it, Regno d'Italia) was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to ...

and professor in

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

. He wrote the ''Ortografia sarda nazionale, ossia grammatica della lingua loguderese paragonata all'italiana'' (1840), in an attempt to find a single and unified

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...

for the

Sardinian language Sardinian or Sard ( , or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language spoken by the Sardinians on the Western Mediterranean island of Sardinia. Many Romance linguists consider it the language that is closest to Latin among all its genealogica ...

: the book, following the classification of the Italian

Francesco Cetti Francesco Cetti (9 August 1726 – 20 November 1778) was an Italian Jesuit priest, zoologist and mathematician. Cetti was born in Mannheim in Germany, but his parents were natives of Como. He was educated in Lombardy and at the Jesuit college ...

, proposed the division of Sardinian into four dialects and a unified writing form based on Logudorese, an umbrella for a group of dialects spoken in villages (''biddas'') like

Bono Paul David Hewson (born 10 May 1960), known by his stage name Bono (), is an Irish singer-songwriter, activist, and philanthropist. He is the lead vocalist and primary lyricist of the rock band U2. Born and raised in Dublin, he attended M ...

Bonorva Bonorva ( sc, Bonòlva) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Sassari in the Italian region Sardinia, located about north of Cagliari and about southeast of Sassari Sassari (, ; sdc, Sàssari ; sc, Tàtari, ) is an Italian city a ...

Bosa Bosa is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Oristano (until May 2005 it was in the province of Nuoro), part of the Sardinia region of Italy. Bosa is situated about two-thirds of the way up the west coast of Sardinia, on a small hill, abou ...

Ghilarza Ghilarza ( sc, Ilàrtzi) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Oristano in the Italian region Sardinia, located about north of Cagliari and about northeast of Oristano. Antonio Gramsci, political philosopher and founder of the Ita ...

Macomer Macomer ( sc, Macumère) is a town and ''comune'' of Sardinia (Italy) in the province of Nuoro. It is situated on the southern ascent to the central plateau (the Campeda) of this part of Sardinia, at the junction of narrow-gauge lines branching fro ...

Ozieri Ozieri ( sc, Otieri) is a town and ''comune'' of approximatively 11,000 inhabitants in the province of Sassari, northern Sardinia (Italy), in the Logudoro historical region. Its cathedral of the Immacolata is the episcopal see of the Roman Cath ...

, Ploaghe and

Sennori Sennori ( sc, Sènnaru) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Sassari in the Italian region Sardinia, located about north of Cagliari and about northeast of Sassari. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 7,298 and an area of ...

. He also wrote a Sardinian-Italian/Italian-Sardinian Dictionary (1851–1852), the four-volume Sardinian Archaeological Bulletin (1855–1861), the Guida della città e dintorni di Cagliari'' (1856), the ''Guida del Duomo di Cagliari'' (1856), and the ''Storia e descrizione dell'Anfiteatro Romano di Cagliari'' (1868). When he died in 1878, the words "''Patriam dilexit, laboravit''" were inscribed on his

tomb A tomb ( grc-gre, τύμβος ''tumbos'') is a :wikt:repository, repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be ...

at Bonaria. A scientific college in Sassari is now named after him.

External links

Brief biography of Giovanni Spano
by Bruno Carta (in Italian).
Liceo Scientifico Giovanni Spano di Sassari
(in Italian). 1803 births 1878 deaths People from the Province of Sassari Italian archaeologists Linguists from Italy Sardinian literature {{Italy-hist-stub