Study Italian in Italy

ITALIAN AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Notes on its origin

One might say that studying Italian as a foreign language coincided with the beginning of the use of Italian by the Italians themselves, as a lingua franca that was used and became established, alongside Latin, among the speakers of the numerous idioms that existed throughout the Italian Peninsula.
Italian derives from the operation that Dante carried out on these local vernaculars (Tuscan in particular) in order to hone a single common language that was, at the same time, “gentle”, mellifluous and literary.

The importance of art

Italian came into being as a language of beauty and culture and for this reason was studied and established itself in the Courts of Europe, partly thanks to its being a vehicle for art, theatre and opera, which were the most important means of communication at the time. This would continue to be the case until the end of the 19th century, but even today Italian is studied (both in its home country and elsewhere) because it is the language of opera par excellence. The importance of opera in the spread of Italian abroad may be seen most clearly in 18th century Vienna, especially in Mozart’s works using Italian libretti by Lorenzo Da Ponte, who hailed from the Veneto and wrote in an Italian that is still comprehensible to us today.

Goethe nella campagna romana, ritratto di W. Tischbein Italy and the "Grand Tour"

Italy, which for centuries was the favoured destination for many foreign visitors, still remains today a fundamental port of call on the "Grand Tour" for painters, writers, intellectuals and culturally-minded tourists in general.
As early as 1588 one could find the first "Chair" of the Italian language, for German students in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and over the course of the following centuries, too, foreigners have spent considerable periods of time in Italy, enjoying a “full immersion” in the language of Dante.
Indeed Mozart, when he was travelling in the "bel Paese", was so charmed by the Italian language that he wrote letters to the members of his family – who were Austrian and lived in Austria – in Italian.

Italian for foreigners in the modern age

The study of Italian as a foreign language in modern times coincided, following the unification of Italy (1861-1870), with the founding of the Società Dante Alighieri (1889), whose first Chairman, Ruggiero Bonghi (1889-1895), created committees abroad that started up Italian language courses in order to preserve the national identity of emigrants. As regards the teaching of Italian to foreigners in Italy, records have been found that document courses held in Siena from 1917 onwards and, from 1921, in Perugia.

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