Grice e Fortunio

 

Fortunio's 

Regole grammaticali della volgar lingua is highly important primarily because it was the first printed grammar of the Italian vernacular(published in 1516), a foundational text in the standardization of the Italian language. 

Key reasons for its significance include:

• Pioneering work: It responded to a growing need for guidance on using the Italian vernacular language, establishing the genre of published Italian grammar books.
• Codification of the language: The book provided a morphological and orthographical analysis, which was crucial for the initial codification of the Italian language.
• Establishing a literary model: Fortunio advocated for a specific linguistic norm based on the "Three Crowns" of fourteenth-century Florentine literature: Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. This grammatica degli autori (grammar of the authors) approach established a long-lasting tradition of basing the modern language on classic literary works.
• Widespread influence: Despite initial publication in a minor center (Ancona), the Regole was frequently reprinted throughout the sixteenth century and had a formative influence on the early study and teaching of Italian grammar across Europe, including in Spain and England.
• Foundation for later works: It laid the groundwork for subsequent influential works, such as Pietro Bembo's Prose della volgar lingua (1525), which further cemented the archaizing, literary-based model that eventually prevailed in the standardization of Italian. 

In essence, Fortunio's work provided the first accessible, printed rulebook for the vernacular, setting the standard that non-Tuscans could follow to master the language of the great Tuscan authors and ultimately shaping the development of the national language.