Luca Palmarini

The purpose of this article is to analyse the symbolism concerning Poland and the reigning house of the Jagellonian dynasty, represented, together with various symbols of other institutions, in a temporary triumphal arch, created in 1556 on the occasion of the arrival of Queen Bona Sforza in Padua. The city authorities asked Alessandro Maggi, a Paduan scholar and collector of antiquities, to take charge of the arch, designed by the Veronese architect Michele Sanmicheli, and to provide it with a symbolic-decorative apparatus. In order to immortalize the event, Maggi decided to write, in the form of an open letter, and to give to the press Dichiaratione dell’arco fatto in Padova nella venuta della Serenissima Reina Bona di Polonia, a chronicle in which he not only narrated Bona’s stay in the lands of the Venetian Republic and the festive procession that took place in Padua, but also meticulously described the structure of the arch, explaining, at least in part, its symbolism. In particular, the iconographic and iconological analysis of the allegorical representations and selected inscriptions will allow us to understand his level of knowledge of the realm of which Bona Sforza, consort of Sigismund I, had been queen for almost forty years, as well as what meanings Maggi ‒ through personal interpretations and the application of his profound knowledge of the ancient Roman world to the era contemporary to him ‒ intended to convey to onlookers.

In this paper we present and analyse, from the linguistic point of view, the treatise Giuochi mathematici written by Piero di Niccolò d’Antonio da Filicaia. It is a very appealing witness of the history of the recreational mathematics from the beginning of the 16^th century. After a brief introduction of Piero’s cultural background, we describe the structure of the treatise and its sources. We deal especially with the fourth part of Giuochi mathematici in which the author imitates the contents of Alberti’s Ludi matematici. Our analysis shows that textual reworking is quite deep although there is continuity as far as terminology and contents are concerned.

*Articolo realizzato nell’ambito del progetto di ricerca 2016/21/B/HS2/00744 finanziato con i fondi del National Science Centre of Poland.

The article aims to compare and analyse Italian grammars and manuals for Polish users published between the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. The purpose is to observe the general trends on the methods proposed, the changes taking place and the possible influences on teaching of Western languages as foreign languages in a historical moment when after the Third Partition Poland had ceased to exist as a sovereign state.

This work intends to analyze the linguistic production of Wojciech Meisels, author of Italian language grammars and a bilingual dictionary Italian-Polish, Polish-Italian. This work reconstructs the author’s life and tries to understand his first contacts with the Italian culture and language. Survivor the Second World’s War, Wojciech Meisels was the professor at the Jagiellonian University of Cracow. He prepared a highly popular bilingual Italian-Polish, Polish Italian dictionary, in two volumes, entitled Podręczny Słownik włosko-polski (1964) and Podręczny słownik polsko-włoski (1970). The second part of the article presents a lexicographic analyze of this dictionary trying to explain its success

“Fortunate” Italian in Cracow. Biography and linguistic and literary work of Giannini Fortunato between Italy and Poland
Every student of Italian during their studies surely came across the name of Giannini Fortunato in the context of his two most famous in Poland works: Italian-Polish Polish-Italian Dictionary and The Practical Method of Italian Language. This teacher of Italian language, who came to Cracow over a decade ago, without any doubt provided a further boost to the linguistic and cultural relations existing between these two countries for centuries. The present article aims at presenting the biography and achievements of Giannini, who appears to be highly prolific in the fields of both languages. Moreover, the literary heritage left by Giannini is undoubtedly worth paying attention both from historical as well as from linguistic point of view.