Il dibattito linguistico sul Poligrafo (1811–1814)

The journal Il Poligrafo, founded in Milan by Luigi Lamberti and Vincenzo Monti and printed between April 1811 and May 1814, is one of the most active of the early Nineteenth century in collecting and re-launching ideas on the nature and rules of language. It brings together collaborators of various orientations, united by a pessimistic vision of the state of the contemporary Italian language, burdened by the contaminating influence of French and in general by innovative drives not supported by the good authors’ model. Among the journal’s initiatives, the debates stand out with other journals, such as the Giornale Enciclopedico di Firenze, carried out on the edge of irony, in which different editors take turns to affirm the reasons of good language meant as that used by a recognized canon of authors of the past (roughly operating up to the sixteenth century) and by contemporaries who referred to that use. The first of Monti’s three dialogues anticipating the theses of his Proposta also fits into the debate with the Giornale Enciclopedico.