Winner of 2025 Premio Luca Serianni della Fondazione Sapegno

This volume presents a new edition of Meo Patacca (1695), the Romanesco epic in ottava rima by Giuseppe Berneri, enriched with a detailed linguistic commentary and an etymological glossary.

The transcription, based on the editio princeps of 1695, is introduced by an extensive section on Berneri’s life, the historical and cultural context of the poem’s publication, and a philological study of its textual tradition. The linguistic commentary—covering spelling, phonetics, morphology, and word formation—is developed in a comparative perspective, measured against other works in the Romanesco tradition. Special attention is given to the sociolinguistic fabric of the text: the coarse dialect of the henchmen, the more refined Tuscan-leaning speech of the women, and the narrator’s intermediate register are each examined in detail. The volume concludes with a glossary of around 650 entries.

This book reveals the linguistic hybridity of Meo Patacca, a reflection of seventeenth-century Rome’s rich social stratification. The glossary highlights the presence of Neapolitanisms, slang, and Judeo-Romanesco elements, offering readers a vivid window into the multilingual cityscape that shaped Berneri’s comic-heroic masterpiece.