ACCADEMIA DELLA CRUSCA. - It arose in 1582 and was humorously so named because the first five members, according to Rajna, unlike those of the Accademia fiorentina, considered themselves more people of bran than of flour; but the bolter chosen as its emblem suggested that with it the academicians, vigilant guardians of good language, wished to sift the flour from the bran. With Leonardo Salviati (from 1583 onward) the Accademia received new impetus, even if the general tone of the discussions remained still empty or extravagant.

On 6 March 1591 there was talk for the first time of compiling a Vocabolario that would contain words authoritatively accredited by the usage of the fourteenth-century classics: the first volume came out in 1612, in Venice, at Giovanni Alberti's, edited by Bastiano de' Rossi. The second edition (Venice 1623) was a model also for the other nations; in the third (3 vols., Florence 1648-91) many additions are noted, reproduced later in the fourth edition (ibid., 1729-1738). In 1783 the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo suppressed the C., merging it into a single association with other Florentine academies. It revived in 1811, by decree of Napoleon, as an independent body, made up of 12 resident members and 20 corresponding members. The fifth edition of the Vocabolario was begun in 1842; but in 1923 it was still at the letter O. In that same year the constitution and composition of the Accademia were changed: the publication of the Vocabolario was suspended, and replaced by a series of critically edited texts and documents and a periodic bulletin of Italian philology. According to this new program there have so far been published the Testi fiorentini del Duecento edited by A. Schiaffini (Florence 1926), the critical editions of the Teseida edited by S. Battaglia (ibid. 1938) and of the Amorose visione edited by V. Branca (ibid. 1944), besides 7 large fascicles of the Studi di filologia italiana (ibid. 1927-46). And it is to the credit of the C. to have contributed, albeit drawing censure for its intransigence, to the preservation of the unity and purity of the Italian idiomatic organism.

Bibliography11 works

BIBL.: C. Marconcini, L'A. della C. dalle origini alle prime edizioni del vocabolario, Pisa 1910; G. Volpi, L'A. della C. al tempo della dominazione francese in Toscana, in Rass. nazionale, 17 (1918), pp. 269-80; id., L'A. della C. nel primo decennio della restaurazione lorenese, ibid., 24 (1919), pp. 250-57; E. Pistelli, L'ultima crociata contro la C., in Marzocco, 17 luglio 1921; C. De Lollis, C. in fermento, Firenze 1922; P. Raina, Accademie e vocabolari, in Marzocco, 18 febbr. 1923; I. Del Lungo, Per la lingua d'Italia, Bologna 1925; M. Maylender, Storia delle Accademie d'Italia, II, ivi 1927, pp. 122-46; M. Barbi, C., lingua e vocabolari, in Pan, 6 (1933), pp. 1324 (rist. in La nuova filologia, Firenze 1938); G. Toffanin, Il Cinquecento, Milano 1941, p. 525 sgg.; G. Gentile, Gino Capponi e la cultura toscana nel sec. XIX, 3ª ed., Firenze 1942, pp. 432-58.

Antonio Altamura

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Accademia della Crusca

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