From 12th October 1946, the national anthem of Italy has been the "Canto degli Italiani" (Chant of the Italians), written in the Autumn of 1847 by a Genoese student and patriot Goffredo Mameli, and set to music in Turin by another Genoese, Michele Novaro. Born during an atmosphere of patriotic fervor that preluded the war against Austria, the hymn ...

The dialects of modern Italian all have their roots in the spoken form of Latin (Vulgar Latin), in use throughout the Roman Empire. Vulgar Latin had, no doubt, its own local peculiarities before the fall of the Empire. The political instability that followed Roman rule kept Italy from re-uniting as a nation until the nineteenth century. This long p...

​Why is it difficult for most persons to read a Latin document? You may think that it is because they never studied Latin in school. The real answer is that some of the words appear unfamiliar to you. On the positive side, you probably already know enough Latin words to pick out a few of them in a document. These words are familiar because they are...