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National Geographic : 1974 Nov
Contents
the Tuscan dialect of his native city, Florence, as the official tongue of Italy for all time. In other countries politics determined the na tional language; in Italy, it was letters. Linguists generally acknowledge that Ital ian is the most mellifluous language in the world. Charles V, the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor, is supposed to have said that he spoke Spanish to God, French to men, German to his horse-and Italian to women. ROFESSOR GIACOMO DEVOTO, the eminent lexicographer, explained the purity of Tuscan for me. "The great Roman roads running the length of Italy were bifurcated by the geography of Tus cany," he said, "like a stream diverted by a granite boulder. The Via Aurelia, heading north from Rome toward Gaul, encountered the great swamps, the Maremma, in the south west of Tuscany and had to hug the Tyrrhe nian coast. The foothills of the Apennines deflected the Via Flaminia east along the Adriatic shore. "In Rome itself, returning veterans and subject peoples debased the language, but the flow of war and migration bypassed Tus cany and left its Latin and, later, its Italian, limpid and pure." As the rest of Italy says, "When a Tuscan speaks, he polishes the air around him." The men of the Renaissance were protean. Galileo wrote poetry; Lorenzo the Magnifi cent was celebrated as a man of letters. Before them, Dante had proved himself a competent scientist in meteorology, astron omy, botany, and the observation of bird flight. But even in this glittering company one figure towered like a giant among pygmies. "... some times there is brought together in a single human being beauty, grace, and vir tuosity to such a degree that wheresoever that person turns each of his actions is so divine that, leaving behind all other men, it is manifest that this is a thing granted by God and not acquired by human art." So a contemporary describes Leonardo da Vinci, the greatest universal genius the world has ever known. Painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, scientist, poet, philosopher, mu sician-Leonardo was all these so astound ingly that "the terrible manifestations of his intellect" awed all who knew him. Leonardo possessed great strength, so that "with his right hand he could twist a horse shoe as though it were made of lead," but he was gentle and soft of heart. He loved ani mals and "... when passing by a place where Tipping the scale against a truck's front end, a heavyweight block of marble from quarries near Carrara is eased onto a flatbed. Precarious but practical roadway to the quarries (right) has wishbone curves too sharp for trucks to round; vehicles must back along one grade, then go forward on the next. National Geographic, November 1974 654
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