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Basic Reference Sources for Italian Studies

Contents:
I. Research Guides, Handbooks and Bibliographies
Bull, Martin J. Contemporary Italy: A Research Guide. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996.
Focuses on history and the social sciences, providing information on important collections and published sources
Location: [Van Pelt DG577 .B786 1996]
Coppa, Frank J. and William Roberts. Modern Italian History: An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Greenwood Press, 1990.
Location: [Van Pelt Reference DG545 .C66 1990]
Healy, Robin. Twentieth-Century Italian Literature in English Translation: An Annotated Bibliography, 1929-1997. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998.
Location: [Van Pelt Library Reference Z2354.T7H44 1998]
Italy. Lucio Sponza and Diego Zancani, compilers. Oxford ; Santa Barbara: Clio Press, c1995.
Volume 30 in the World Bibliographical Series. A bibliography is provided for nearly every field imaginable (e.g., from folklore and tourism to transport and the visual arts).
Location: [Van Pelt DG467 .S66 1995]
The Oxford Companion to Italian Literature. Eds. Peter Hainsworth and David Robey. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002
Location: [Van Pelt Reference PQ4006 .O84 2002]
Guida allo studio della letteratura italiana. Pasquini, Emilio. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1997.
Location: [Van Pelt Reference PQ4013 .G85 1997]
Puppo, Mario.Manuale critico-bibliografico per lo studio della letteratura italiana. Turin: SEI, 1997.
Location: [Van Pelt Reference PQ4037 .P8 1994]
Zaccaria, Giuseppe, and Cristina Benussi. Per studiare la letteratura italiana. Nuova ed. Milan: B. Mondadori, c2002.
An introduction to the study of literature with a consideration of literary forms, criticism, theory, and history. There is a 1999 edition in the stacks.
Location: [Van Pelt Reference PQ4013 .Z33 2002]
II. Encyclopedias and Dictionaries

A. General

Dizionario Bompiani delle opere e dei personaggi di tutti i tempi e di tutte le letterature. Nuova ed. Economica. Milano : Bompiani, 1983-1984. 12 vols.
Location: [Van Pelt Reference AE35 .D49 1983]
Enciclopedia. Turin: Einaudi, 1977-83. 16 vols
Location: [Van Pelt Reference AE35 .E45 1977]
Grande dizionario enciclopedico UTET. 4th ed. Turin: UTET, 1984-91. 21 vols.
Location: [LIBRA AE35 .G7 1984]
Grande dizionario della lingua italiana. 21 vols. Torino: UTET, 1961- .
Location: [Van Pelt Reference PC1625 .B3]
Grande dizionario della lingua italiana moderna. 5 vols. + computer disk. Milan: Garzanti, 1998-1999.
Location: [Van Pelt Reference PC1625 .G73 1998 (disc at Reference CD Area)]
Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso / ideato e diretto da Tullio De Mauro. 6 vols. Torino: UTET, 1999-2000.
Location: [Van Pelt Reference PC1625 .D37 1999]
Lessico universale italiano. Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 1968-1998. 24 vols.
Location: [Van Pelt Library Reference AE35 .L43 1968]

B. Specialized

Chiti, Roberto, and Roberto Poppi.Dizionario del cinema italiano. “[Con] la collaborazione di Enrico Lancia; prefazione di Giovanni Grazzini.” Roma: Gremese, 1991- . 7 vols.
Location: [Annenberg Library Reference PN1993.45 .C545 1991]
A Concise encyclopaedia of the Italian Renaissance. J.R. Hale ed. New York: Oxford UP, 1981.
Location: [Fine Arts Reference DG445 .C66]
Cortelazzo, Manlio. Il nuovo etimologico : DELI--dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana: con CD-ROM e motore di ricerca a tutto testo. Bologna : Zanichelli, c1999.
Location: [Van Pelt Library Reference Stacks, disc at Moelis CD Area. PC1580 .C67 1999]
Cucchi, Maurizio.Dizionario della poesia italiana. Milano: Mondadori, 1983.
Location: [Van Pelt Library PQ4057 .C83 1983]
De Mauro, Tullio.Garzanti etimologico. Milan: Garzanti linguistica, 2000.
Location: [Van Pelt Reference PC1580 .D46 2000]
Dictionary of Italian Literature. Ed. by Peter Bondanella and Julia Conway Bondanella. Rev. ed. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996.
Signed articles by scholars on concepts, movements, and individual figures.
Location: [Van Pelt Reference PQ 4006 .D45 1996]
Dictionary of Modern Italian History. Frank J. Coppa, editor-in-chief. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, c1985.
Location: [Van Pelt Library Reference DG545 .D53 1985]
Dizionario critico della letteratura italiana / diretto da Vittore Branca ; con la collaborazione di Armando Balduino, Manlio Pastore Stochi, Marco Pecoraro. 2a. ed. Publisher: Torino : Unione tipografico editrice torinese, 1986. 4 vols.
Relatively lengthy, signed articles on both literary concepts and authors, with substantial bibliographies.
Location: [Van Pelt Library Reference PQ4057 .D59 1986]
Dizionario enciclopedico della letteratura italiana. Publisher: Bari, Laterza ; Roma, Unedi, [1966-1970]. 6 vols.
Location: [Van Pelt Library Reference PQ4006 .D5]
Dizionario generale degli autori italiani contemporanei. Coordinamento Enzo Ronconi. 2 vols. [Firenze] Vallecchi [1974].
Location: [Van Pelt Reference and Van Pelt Library PQ4113 .D58]
Enciclopedia dantesca. Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 1970- . 6 vols.
Location: [Van Pelt PQ4333 .E5]
Encyclopedia of Contemporary Italian Culture. Gino Moliterno ed. London ; New York: Routledge, 2000.
Location: [University Museum Library Reference and Van Pelt Library Reference DG450 .E53 2000]
Letteratura italiana. Antonio Asor Rosa, ed. Torino: Einaudi, 1982-1986 6 vols.
Focuses on the social and cultural background, as well as Italian literature.
Location: [Van Pelt Library PQ4037 .L457 1982]
Letteratura italiana: dizionario delle opere. Ed. Alberto Asor Rosa. Turin: Einaudi, 1999-2000. 2 vols.
Location: [Van Pelt Library Reference PQ4037 .L462 1999]
The New Century Italian Renaissance Encyclopedia. Catherine B. Avery ed. New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts [1972]
Location: [Van Pelt Library Reference DG537.8.A1 N48]
III. Grammars and Style Guides
McIntosh, Colin.The Oxford Italian Grammar and Verbs. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002.
Location: [Van Pelt Reference PC1112 .M25 2002]
Dardano, Maurizio.La nuova grammatica della lingua italiana. Bologna: Zanichelli, 1997.
Location: [Van Pelt Reference PC1105 .D37 1997]
Lurati, Ottavio.Dizionario dei modi di dire. Milano: Garzanti, c2001.
Location: [Van Pelt Reference PC1460 .L87 2001]
Pittàno, Giuseppe.Cos si dice (e si scrive): dizionario grammaticale e degli usi della lingua. Bologna : Zanichelli, 1993.
Location: [Van Pelt Reference PC1435 .P56 1993]
IV. Indexes and Abstracts
AIDA: Articoli italiani di periodici accademici
Indexes 287,000 articles in 1,388 Italian journals.
Bibliografia generale della lingua e della letteratura italiana [BiGLI]. Roma: Salerno, 1991- .
Yearly index to over 1500 international journals.
Location: [Van Pelt Reference PC1001 .B535]
Historical Abstracts
Covers the history of the world (excluding North America) from 1450 to the present. Although 1450 is the general starting date, there are many articles in Historical Abstracts that survey topics from the 12th-15th centuries. Indexes books and journals published since 1973. Excludes book reviews.
ITER: Gateway to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
Iter's bibliography covers all literature pertaining to the Middle Ages and Renaissance (400-1700). Citations for journal articles, reviews, review articles, bibliographies, catalogues, abstracts and discographies are included. Also included are citations for monographs, and material published in monographs and collections of essays. The database also includes Paul Oskar Kristeller's Iter Italicum, the most comprehensive finding list available of previously uncatalogued or incompletely catalogued Renaissance humanistic manuscripts found in libraries and collections all over the world
Letteratura italiana, aggiornamento bibliografico. Trieste: Alcione Edizioni. anno 1:no.1/2 (1991) - . Semiannual.
Like the Romanische Bibliographie, an important supplement to MLA. Indexes over 150 Italian periodicals.
Location: [Van Pelt Library Reference PQ4001 .L465]
MLA International Bibliography
The Modern Language Association's International Bibliography (MLA) covers literature, languages, linguistics, and folklore/folklife. Covers 1963 to the present. Before 1970, however, the file is primarily limited to English language materials.
Romanische Bibliographie. Tübingen, M. Niemeyer Verlag. Vol. 77 (1961/62)- . Annual.
Annual bibliography for the Romance languages and literatures. Picks up some sources not found in MLA.
Location: [Van Pelt Library PC3 .R453; latest five years in Reference]
V. Biography
Archivio biografico italiano. Ed. Tommaso Nappo. Munich and New York: Saur, 1987-
An index can be found at Van Pelt Reference CT1123 I39 1993, or online at the World Biographical Index
Location: [Van Pelt Library Microfiche 849]
VI. Histories

A. General

Atlante della storia d'Italia. Novara : Istituto geografico De Agostini, 1997.
Location: [Van Pelt Library Reference DG421 .A93 1997]
Hearder, Harry.Italy: A Short History. 2nd ed. rev. and updated by Jonathan Morris. Cambridge, U.K. ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Location: [Van Pelt Library DG467 .H43 2001]
Killinger, Charles L.The history of Italy Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 2002.
Location: [Van Pelt Library DG467 .K55 2002]
Italy, a Country Study. 2nd ed. Rinn S. Shinn ed. Washington, D.C.: Headquarters, Dept. of the Army : For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. G.P.O., 1987
Produced by Foreign Area Studies, the American University, this is part of a series covering all major countries. It provides an overview history and a summary of a nation’s current economic, political, military and social environment.
Location: [Van Pelt Library Reference DG417 .I887 1987]
The Oxford Illustrated History of Italy George Holmes ed. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2001
Location: [Van Pelt Library DG441 .O73 1997]
Storia d'Italia. Torino, G. Einaudi, 1972-1976. 6 vols.
Location: [Van Pelt Library DG467 S794]
Salvatorelli, Luigi.Sommario della storia d'Italia: dai tempi preistorici ai nostri giorni. Torino: Einaudi, c1969.
Location: [Van Pelt Library DG467 .S3 1969]

Literature

The Cambridge History of Italian Literature. Peter Brand and Lino Pertile, eds. Rev. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999.
Chapters arranged by century with each chapter by a specialist in the period.
Location: [Van Pelt PQ4038.C35 1999]

Renaissance

The Italian Renaissance: the Essential Readings. Paula Findlen, ed. Malden, MA Blackwell, 2002.
Location: [Van Pelt DG445 .I78 2002]
VII. Finding Books and other Materials in Franklin
Franklin can be accessed from the library homepage [ http://www.library.upenn.edu/]. Franklin [ http://www.franklin.library.upenn.edu/] is the online catalog for all the Penn Libraries, with the exception of the Biddle Biddle Law Library, which has its own catalog. It accounts for over 98% of cataloged items, the remaining 2% being contained in the card catalog. Cataloged items include books, serials, journals, e-journals, newspapers, conference proceedings, sound recordings, video recordings, and bibliographic and numeric data files in electronic format acquired since 1968, as well as most older materials. Among materials only partially in Franklin are older serials that have ceased publication, holdings of the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, sound recordings on cassette tape or on LP, and research collections in microform. Not included in Franklin are citations to articles in magazines, journals, newspapers, and the listings of individual conference papers, essays in collections.

When doing author or title searches in Franklin, there are a few things to keep in mind: 1. Searches are truncated, i.e., you only need to enter as much information as you think is needed to find what you are looking for 2. Omit first articles (“the,”,“an,” “il,” “las,” “le,” etc.) in titles, but all words following must be entered exactly as they appear on the book’s title page. 3. Enter author names with the last name first (e.g., “Boccaccio, Giovanni,”). Capitalization is not important. An excellent way to use FRANKLIN is to search by Library of Congress subject heading. Some subject headings relevant for Italian Studies used in FRANKLIN are:
  • italian literature
  • italian literature 20th century history and criticism
  • italian language dialects
  • Italian poetry
  • opera italy
  • art italy
  • motion pictures italy
  • Italy history
  • Italy history 1492-1559
  • Renaissance Italy
  • Italy civilization
Keyword searching is very useful for combining different concepts into one search, for restricting searches to geographic areas, and for identifying unfamiliar Library of Congress subject headings, especially from known catch-phrases. To make a search more precise you can limit the searching to specific fields. Keep flexible in your searches, using broader or different terms, when your results are small, and narrower terms when results are large and include many irrelevant titles. To learn all the variations possible see Keyword Search in the Franklin User Guide.
  • saints AND italy
  • fest? AND (florence OR naples)
  • modernism AND ital?
  • italy AND cinema
  • skey italy AND skey relations AND skey “united states”
  • skey italy AND skey history AND publ cambridge
  • skey italy AND skey history AND pubc firenze
VIII. Internet Resources
From the library’s homepage [ http://www.library.upenn.edu ] use the E-Resources link and then do a search on “Resource by Interest,” choosing “Italian Studies,” to see a full listing of online resources for the fields.
Major sites include:

EDULINKS
Geared to teachers of Italian language and culture, with links to sites with material on a variety of subjects. In Italian.
Italian Studies Web
Maintained by the Association for College and Research Libraries. Specializes in gateways to Italian sites, links to Italian libraries and book dealers.
TUTTITALIA
Collection of links in the areas of Italian culture, language and literature. Maintained by the University of Innsbruck
Location:
Windows on Italy
An overview of the country, including maps, history, news, and culture.

Fulltext Literary Sites:

Antologia (Frammentaria) della Letteratura Italiana
Fulltext covering a variety of genres and time periods. Works are organized by genre and then listed alphabetically.
Italian History Index
A collection of diverse resources on Italian history of all periods. Includes texts, lists of sources, journals. In both English and Italian.
Italian Literature - Electronic Full Texts (NYU)
This site provides links to web sites offering full text Italian literature and related resources. Links are by century.
Italian Women Writers Project
”A long-term research endeavor to preserve and provide access to an extensive corpus of literature written by Italian women authors.”

Sites Dedicated to Specific Authors:

Dartmouth Dante Project
This database contains the full text of Dante's Commedia and its commentaries from over 70 authors.
World of Dante (U. of Virginia)
An easy to use and heavily illustrated edition of the Comedy.
Progetto Pico/Pico Project
A complete resource for the reading and interpretation of the Discourse on the Dignity of Man (1486) by Pico della Mirandola.
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