Why study Italian
-
There are many reasons why you should study a foreign language and its
literature and culture. Learning a foreign language is one of the most
enriching experiences in anybody's education. Studying a foreign language,
after all, is not only about how to order in a restaurant or how to read
a map. It entails exploring a way of life, a different culture and the
traditions of another country.
Italian as a world language 
The value of Italian
as a major, minor,or as an elective is, generally, not readily seen. If
one stops to consider,however, he will awaken to a pleasant surprise.
Italian is the
Romance language closest to Latin. A knowledge of Italian, therefore, will
go far in helping one to understand the whys and wherefores of the English
language, which has a very large percentage of words of Latin derivation.
Italy draws thirty
million tourists per year. This is fifteen to twenty million more tourists
than are drawn by any other country. This enormous influx of visitors is
due to the large number of culture centers in the country; centers such
as
|
Florence,Venice,Rome,Milan,Padua,Pisa,Bologna,Turin,etc.
|
The Italian language
is, of course, important for the immediate requirements of the tourist
in Italy - but it is much more important as a language of culture and civilization.
Italy ranks among the very first in the world in endeavors of
literature,
sciences,
plastic
arts,
music,
theater
arts,
philosophy
and
religion
|
In the literature
of Italy we find the very fathers of the Renaissance
| Dante,
Petrarch,
and
Boccaccio,
Ariosto
and
Tasso. |
In the arts may
be mentioned the giants in the field:
| Michelangelo,
Raphael,
Leonardo
daVinci,
Titian,
Giotto,
Cellini |
and dozens of others,
about whom and by whom much Italian literature has been written. As the
home of the Opera, Italy has operettas, etc. Witness the works of
| Verdi,
Puccini,
Rossini,
Mascagni,
Leoncavallo,
Donizetti,
Respighi,
Palestrina,
GianCarloMenotti |
and others. Among
modern luminaries may be mentioned the internationally known Nobel Prize
winners
Pirandello
(Six
Characters
in
search
of an
Author),
|
the
poets
Quasimodo
and
Montale
|
and
the
philosopher-critic
Benedetto
Croce.
|
As the seat of
Christianity for the last 2000 years Italy has produced an extensive amount
of religious literature, of all epochs. Three of the many outstanding figures
in this realm are
| St.Thomas
Aquinas,
St.
Francis
of
Assisi,
St.Catherine
of
Siena |
Most interesting
of all, however, is the fact that relatively few people seem to know, or
to realize, that the Italian language is a scientific language, and that
it may be teamed to great advantage by students of the physical sciences
and mathematics. Few science students seem to remember, when choosing a
subject to study, that
|
Italian
physical
scientist
and
Nobel
Prize
winner
Enrico
Fermi,
is
the
father
of
the
Atomic
Pile
(first
controlled
nuclear
reaction)
and
of
the
atomic
bomb;
|
or that the inventor
and Nobel Prize winner
|
Guglielmo
Marconi
is
the
inventor
of
the
wireless
apparatus-hence
the
father
of wireless
communication,
|
and
|
Antonio
Meucci
was
the
true
inventor
of
the
telephone;
|
or that the
|
anatomist
Marcello
Malpighi
left
the
medical
world
many
anatomical
discoveries
|
and
|
Renato
Dulbecco
received
the
Nobel
prize
for
cancer
research.
|
And who doesn't
know, also, of the
|
astronomer,
Galileo, creator of the telescope,
discoverer
of
the
satellites
of
Jupiter,
and
investigator
of
the
laws
of
oscillation
of
the
pendulum?
|
And of his
disciple,
|
Evangelista
Torricelli,
who
invented
the
barometer?
|
Or
|
Leonardo
daVinci,
father
of
geology,
who
wrote
very
interestingly
on
this
subject?
|
Then in higher
mathematics we find
|
Tartaglia
and
Cardan,
who
discovered
the
solution
of
cubic
equations.
|
Chemistry
has no less important names. Besides
|
Enrico
Fermi,
whoalso
created
the
new
radioactiveelement
Fermiurn,
|
there are
|
Medeo
Avogadro
(known
for
discovering
the
number
of
molecules
in
a
gram/molecule),
|
Stanislao Cannizzaro
(famous for critical organic reactions named after him), and Dr. Natta,
who received the Nobel Prize for his work in the field of polymers, and
Bruno Coppi, inventor of the"Ignitor" (that could lead to the controlled
nuclear fusion, 1000 times more powerful than the traditional atomic energy).
Political science
is outstandingly represented by
|
Niccola
Machiavelli
by
his
world-renowned
work,
The
Prince.
|
In pedagogy
Maria
Montessori
has
developed
a revolutionary
system
of education
which
has
been
adopted
by
all
civilized
countries
around
the
world:
The
Montessori
System
of Instruction.
|
And, to conclude,
in the field of cinematography Italy needs no introduction - we all know
about Italian films.
It should be observed
that in the above we have touched on
|
literature,
the
arts,
religion,
philosophy,
atomic
energy,
wireless
communication,anatomy,
astronomy,
meteorology,
geology,
mathematics,
chemistry,
pedagogy,and
political
science.
|
By learning Italian
one may read what the above people themselves have written, and what others
have written aboutthem, about the arts, and about the sciences, in the
original Italian.
Even when taken
as a minor, Italian will help the student in his major in a very positive
way - because there is poignant Italian literature in every field of endeavor.
THE
ITALIAN SECTION
The
University of South Florida