PUNCTUATION, SIGNS OF. — Ancient grammarians already make mention of the punctuation of texts, but in the literary codices handed down to us from antiquity only the occasional use of points is found, derived from epigraphy, as signs of distinction between one word and another, or of other particular signs (paragraphus, stigma, asteriscus, etc.), of not clearly defined value.
In the Middle Ages, beginning with cursive writing, Italian punctuation follows a very elementary scheme, distinguishing a long pause, a short one, and an intermediate one by placing a point in a different position relative to the height of the letters (high, low, or central). Subsequently, to avoid frequent confusions, a small stroke, vertical or oblique, was also used, either alone or in various combinations with the point. In the 9th century the long pause is marked by a point plus a comma, placed alongside or beneath it; in the 12th century the intermediate pause is indicated by two points placed side by side. The question mark appears already in some manuscripts from the end of the 8th century; it is, however, missing in many from the first half of the 9th. It should be noted that until the beginning of the modern age punctuation was used very freely and followed rhythmic rules intended to regulate the inflection of the reader’s voice rather than to distinguish the syntactic parts of the discourse.