The Libro Mastro of Pasquale di Santuccio, merchant from L’Aquila,
probably self written in 1471-1473 by the accounting method of the double
entry, and kept in the State Archive in L’Aquila, is a document of great
interest, not only linguistic, and it should also be taken into account
by historians of medieval economy. The Editor Marini is now preparing a
complete glossed edition of the text for one of the series supported by
the Abruzzo's Deputation of Farherland's History.
It is easy to recognize the character of linguistic “medianity” of the
text in spite of the absence of -u (that appears almost only in
article lu, but is attested by several Aquilan documents of the
same age), however less clearer in revealing the belonging to linguistic
area of L'Aquila (in fact some typical features, as type au, fau, stau,
etc., are absent).
Nevertheless I will not dwell in resuming a phonetic and morphologic analysis
that makes up the subject of the study of Marini and that appears also
on a first, meticolous and skilful-hand leaded inquiry (among other things,
the studious makes fruitful use of a wide updated critical bibliography
and engages in a personal rich scrutiny of texts). I will just limit to
focus on what appeared to me as one of the most relevant data emerging
from the study of Libro Mastro (beyond some demotic features: type
faczo, palatalization of sibilant before vocalic -i, palatalization
of lateral before -o): alternation of metaphonetic and non-metaphonetic
forms in nouns, depending on geographical origin and social standing of
a designated person. That is, if the nominated person came or did not from
areas in which metaphony was active, or if his professional qualification
was prestigious, non-metaphonetic form was prevalent or at least present
(and viceversa). In short: notaro Domenicho de Pizulo, but also
Jacomo Francisco vitturale. On the other hand, among proper nouns,
those connected with sheep-breeding economy show more frequently metaphonetic
forms: ritj (reti) 'nets' (for sheeps), pollitrj (puledri)
'colts', tonneturj (tosatori) 'shearers', and others - as numerals
dudicj, sidicj, tridicj, (dodici, sedici, tredici) 'twelve', 'sixteen',
'thirteen', in which phoenomena of vocalic harmonization and compactness
of the series "dodici", "tredici", etc. could have
also worked. A likewise persuasive explanation Marini gives about systematic
distribution of the type Pietro (to designate people from Milan,
Venice, Perugia, Florence, etc.) in comparison with Petrj (used
for people from L'Aquila or from neighbouring country).
Leonardo Rossi