THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE

BY €. FELIX FORESTI, LL. D, PROFESSOR OF THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN COLUMBIA COLLEGE AND IN THE UNIVERSITY OF THE CITY OF NEW-YORK. One volume, l2mo. Price $1.

“ The Italian Reader is compiled by Mr. Foresti, Professor of the Italian Language in the Columbia College and the University of New-York. It appears to be designed to follow the study of Ollendorff’s Italian Grammar, on which work many correct judges have pronounced that no important improvement can well be made. In making selections for the book before us, Mr. Foresti has preferred moderr Italian writers to the old school of novelists, historians, and poets, In this he has done a good thing ; for the Italian Reader contains the modem language. True. there are some innovations, some changes which many would deem a departure from ori inal purity, but nevertheless it is {he language which one finds and hears spoken in Italy. These changes have gone on under the eye and against the stern authority of the Academy della Crusca. and in their magnificent new dictionary, new in process of publication, they have found themselves compelled to insert many words which are the growth not only of modem necessity, but

Tice.

je SPThe selections in the Italian Reader are from popular authors, snch as Botta, Manzoni, Machiavelli, Villani, and others. They are so made as not to constitute mere exercises, but contain distinct relations so complete as to gratify the reader and engage his attention while they instruct. This is a marked improvement on that old system which exacted much labor without enlisting the sympathies of the student. The selections from Manzoni, for example, are from the “ Promessi Sposi,’ one of the noblest works of fiction ever issued from the .press—a work so popular as to have gone through an incredible number of editions in Italy, while it has been translated into every language of Europe. There have been, we believe, no less than three distinct English translations made, two of which were done in this country. The Reader contains six extracts from this novel, among which are the beautiful episodes of Father Cristoforo and the Nun of Monza, and a description of the famine and plague of Milan in the year 1630. The account of the plague rivals the celebrated one of Boccacio in his Decameron. The idiomsthat occur in the selections are explained by a glossary appended to each. The Italian Reader can with confidence be recommended to students in the language asa safe and sure guide. After mastering it, the Italian poets and other classicists may be approached with eonfidence.”—Savarm

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