Prepositions in Medieval Italian Names

by Sara L. Uckelman (Aryanhwy merch Catmael)

© 2004-2005 Sara L. Uckelman; all rights reserved
last updated 27May05

Introduction

This article is meant to be a brief introduction to the different types of prepositions used in medieval Italian names. It is an amalgamation of information provided by Arval Benicoeur (Josh Mittleman), Mari neyn Brian (Kathleen M. O'Brien), Maridonna Benvenuti (Andrea Hicks), and Talan Gwynek (Brian M. Scott).

Languages in Italy

Italy acquired a standard language only in the 19th century. Even today, very distinct dialects of Italian remain in common use. There are three main groups of dialects: northern, central, and southern. This map contains a more detailed list of the primary dialects of Italy.

Most of our sources on Italian names are from central Italy, with a few from northern Italy and almost none from southern Italy. It is because the use of prepositions differed from dialect to dialect that this article is necessary.

Prepositions in patronymics

One way to form patronymic bynames (bynames based on the father's given name) is <preposition> 'of' + <father's name>. The most common preposition used in patronymic bynames is di.

Examples:

Much less frequently, and primarily in Latin documents, de is also found:

Examples:

The byname examples are at: http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/Studium/BynAlphaExamples.html

My understanding is that this usage is a holdover from Latin. I'm not sure, but I seem to remember someone telling me that the byname spellings in my article that use de tend to use more Latin-like spellings and the bynames that use di and da tend to use more typically Italian.

Prepositions in locatives

One way to form locative bynames (bynames based on the bearer's origin of residence) is <preposition> 'of' + <place name>. The most common preposition used in locative bynames is da.

Examples:

Much less frequently, and primarily in Latin documents, de is also fou nd:

Prepositions in descriptives

Examples:

Other prepositions

Two related prepositions are dei and degli

Examples:

On a side tangent, it has been asserted that dei (as in dei Medici) is a scribal abbreviation only. If anyone knows one way or the other whether it was a scribal abbreviation in period, or maybe a late-period variant of degli, or something else altogether, that would be great info.

Summary of patterns

• <da [unmodified town name]> - town name
• <di [father's given name]> - father's given name
• <della X> - 'of the'; there are lots of examples in the Catasto, but I don't know if there's a basic pattern for what was used for X in period
from my Rome data:
• <de [father's given name]> - father's given name in Italian in nominative case
• <de [town name]> - town name in Italian in nominative case. If I remember correctly, when this data got discussed, we thought the <de> in these was a holdover from Latin.

Examples of patterns

Choluccio de Lucca 25 Apr (25 Apr) 1482 89
Choluccio di Lucca 25 Nov (01 Oct) 1482 93
Coluzo di Lucha 15 Mar (02 Oct) 1483 96

Simone da Lucha 30 May (22 May) 1482 90
Simone da Lucca 20 Aug (05 Aug) 1482 91
Simone da Lucha 02 Oct (15 Jun) 1482 92
Simone de Lucha 01 Dec (20 Nov) 1482 93
Simone de Lucha 10 Apr (09 Mar) 1483 95
Simone da Lucha 05 Mar (21 Feb) 1484 99

In addition, here's some of the non- <da>/<di> examples in the Rome data. I've used = to indicate two bynames referring to the same person.

delli Albertoni de Albertonibus de Astalli de Ballioniibus = de Baglioni de Boni Auguri (standardized as de Bonis Auguriis) de Gottifredis = di Gottifredi de Gigiantibus de Vettori = de Vettoris (standardized)

I don't know what, if any, patterns could be drawn from this data.

There are two names where <di> and <da> get swapped. They are:

Giovanni da Chapranicha 10 Jul (22 Dec) 1483 97
Giovanni di Chrapanicha 18 Mar (23 Dec) 1484 100
and Giovanni Antonio di Parma 30 May (31 Mar) 1482 90 Giovanni Antonio 20 Jun (22 Dec) 1483 96 Giovanni Antonio da Parma ?30 Jun (22 Dec) 1483 97 Giovanni Antonio 25 Aug (02 Oct 1482) 1483 99

Given the source for this data, such a small number could easily be attributed to transcription error when the typed version was made from the original handwritten document. So, lacking evidence of a real pattern of <di>/<da> swap in period, I've ignored these as likely transcription errors when doing data analysis off this data.

John/Iohannes Florio's 1598 Italian-English dictionary: Dèi 1. Gods, Also of the Degli 1. of the, Also he gaue him

In modern Italian dèi went before a word that started with a consonant; degli goes before a word starting with a vowel. The Tratte examples listed above show degli before a words starting with a vowel and s + consonant! This needs more research.

The standardization corrects the Latin grammar: Bonis Auguriis is the ablative plural. (The preposition <de> takes the ablative.)

The <-is> forms are again fixing the Latin grammar.

Florio states that genitive masculine plural is <déi> or <de'> which are noted together, and then genitive masculine plural <degli>.

Note that <Il> and <I> are commonly and ought to be vsed before nonnes or words that begin with consonants, as Il bene, Il dóce, Il M´le...Il Rè, &c. I béni, I dóci...I Rè.

The closest I could find to degli was the following: "Note that L, and Gli, are or els ought ever to be vsed before nonnes or words beginning with vowels, and are commonly by the best Speakers or Writers apostrophed, and pronounced together as they were but one word as L'abbate, L'Angelo, L'amóre...gl'abba/ti, gl'Angeli, gl'amóri..."

The reason I mentioned it is that I've seen waaaaay too many cases where someone takes a surname they find in a book (like Martini) and simply puts a particle in front of it.

We need to make clear that

di Martino
da Padova

are correct, but

di Martini
di Padovano

are not.

This is the situation I was referring to. That they simply can't take any modern Italian surname derived from a place and add <da> to it.

But that has nothing to do with case. Padovano is an ethnic term, 'man of Padua, Paduan'. The <-i> in Martini is a plural marker. (There's a possibility that in some names it may have originated as a Latin genitive, but Fucilla is of the opinion that even if this is the case, it was understood as a plural in the Middle Ages.)

Question: So, what would the format be if someone wanted their Italian byname in Latin?

No. The Latin patronymic would be the usual filius/filia X, with X in the Latin genitive, and the descriptive byname would just be translated into Latin (e.g., Italian Calvo 'bald' might be replaced by Latin Calvus). These <de> names are a different animal altogether; see below.

The ones like de Albertonibus for delli Albertoni (presumably a non-standard spelling of degli Albertoni) are not patronymic, though the family name originated in a patronymic. The Italian is 'of the Albertoni', where Albertoni is a plural from Albertone, diminutive of Alberto -- more or less 'of the family of Albertone', but literally 'of the Albertones' (with an English plural in <-s>). Latin <de> can be used in the sense of origin and descent -- <de stirpe Priami> 'of Priam's lineage' -- so <de Albertonibus> 'of the Albertones' is a fairly natural translation.

Similarly, de Ballioniibus is simply 'of the Ballioni [family]' (I'll stick with the Latin plural this time), Ballioni being a natural Latinization of Italian Baglioni. (The underlying baglio is apparently cognate with bailiff and refers to some sort of official.)

I suspect that de Bonis Auguriis is the same thing, the Italian family name actually being Bonaugurio 'good omen'. To the best of my knowledge, all of these + ablative plural names are Latinizations of existing family names that were usually already in the plural in Italian.

<Degli> "of the" was combined with existing family names to show membership in or affiliation with the family. We don't know exactly what <Piero degli Acciaiuoli> implied as opposed to <Piero Acciaiuoli>. The Tratte, which you cited, has a couple examples of surnames formed with , both abbreviated by the database restriction on the length of surnames: (degli Oriuoli) and (degli Statuti). The well known <dei Medici> is another example of the same construction: In modern Italian, <dei> "of the" is used before words starting with consonants, while <degli> is used before a vowel. Other examples appear in our article Names from Arezzo, Italy, 1386-1528, on the web at http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/arezzo.html

Niccolò di Luca di Piero di Filippo degli Albizi, 1411
Michele di Vanni degli Albizi, 1414
Giovanni di Roberto di Giovanni degli Albizi, 1489

Note that in these examples, a man was identified as his father's son -- and sometimes with longer lineage -- with the family name at the end of the string of patronymics. We would expect the name of an upper-class man of the 15th century in Italy to follow this pattern in most records, so we suggest you choose a given name for your father and include it in your name according to the pattern shown here.

In Florentine Italian (the basis for modern Italian and the dialect of the region most popular among SCAfolk), the standard usage was:

di was the patronymic marker. Piero di Giovanni Bucco identifies Piero as Giovanni's son.
• da was the locative preposition. Leonardo da Vinci was from Vinci. da becomes d' before a vowel.
• de was not used in names except in compound with the definite article, as follows.
• della, delle, dello, del are various forms of "from the", used in locatives like Del Pino "from the pine", Della Casa "from the house". Del was also used in surnames that are either patronymic or less specifically relational, e.g. Delbonino. Some of them may be attributive, e.g. Delbarba could be "with the beard".

In other parts of Italy, usage was different; and we don't have good enough data to say what the right usage is for most places. In our Venetian data, the usage of da and di seems to be the same; but we see dalla, dalle, dal as well as della in locatives.

Lyneya Fairebowe's Palermo data (in the internal library) has lots of examples of patronymic di but also some that look like locatives in di. She has a few names in dila that looks like locatives, as well as the more expected del and delo.

To see some examples of di in bynames, go to:

http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/Studium/BynAlphaExamples.html

and search on <[space]de[space]>. http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/Studium/BynAlphaExamples.html under: de Marchia Antonio Troyolo de Marchia 28 Jan (03 Oct) 1483 95 Trolio dela Marcha 15 Jul (22 Dec) 1483 97 Troyolo de marchie 25 Aug (25 Mar) 1483 98 Troyolo delle Marche 15 Oct (01 Jun) 1483 99

Modern Italian practice derives from the Tuscan dialect. The Tuscan usage was:

• <di> was used as a patronymic particle, Bernardo di Piero di Aldo Grosso.
• <da> was used in locatives based on named places, Leonardo da Vinci (though note that many locatives use an adjectival form, e.g. Bernardo Fiorentino).
* , , etc. were used in local bynames based on descriptions of places, e.g. , , , etc. They were also used to create family names based on individual nicknames, like , . is a contraction of . * was not used in Tuscan Italian (as is also true of modern Italian). However, it was used in Latin, notably in locatives, and a great many documents in period Italy were written in Latin.

This system is not universal. Mari's "Italian Men's Names in Rome", for example, has examples of vernacular names using <de> in locatives and as a family membership marker (e.g. de Amici "of the Amici family". Lyneya Fairebowe's 16th century data from Palermo includes examples of di as a patronymic particle but also as a locative preposition.

A systematic study of the variation in the use of the preposition in names throughout Italy would be very interesting but very difficult, requiring a great deal of research and considerable expertise. I don't know of a scholarly work on the subject. A good place to start is Martin Maiden & Mair Parry, _Dialects of Italy_ (London, New York: Routledge, 1997). I don't know if it addresses this issue, but it might.