Crescenzo Del Monte, jodìo romano: A Jewish-Roman Poet and Linguist in Fascist Italy

• Published in: Italica (New York, N.Y.) Vol. 97; no. 2; pp. 203 - 236
• Main Author: Leisawitz, Daniel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Illinois Press 22-06-2020; American Association of Teachers of Italian
• Subjects: Antisemitism; Crescenzo Del Monte; Del Monte, Crescenzo; dialectology; Essays/Research Studies; Fascism and literature; Fascists; Ghetto of Rome; Giudaico-Romanesco; Giuseppe Gioachino Belli; Italian dialect poetry; Italian Jews; Italian linguistics; Italian Studies; Jewish-Italian literature; Jews; Languages; Literature; Poetry; Poets; United Kingdom; Israel
• ISSN: 0021-3020; 2325-6672
• DOI: 10.5406/23256672.97.2.02

The poetry and socio-linguistic scholarship of Crescenzo Del Monte (Rome, 1868-1935) represent an important contribution to the understanding and preservation of Giudaico-Romanesco, the dialect of the Jews of Rome. Del Monte's assertion that Giudaico-Romanesco represents the closest living descendent of the spoken language of Ancient Rome and the medieval Italian vernacular of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, came into irreconcilable conflict with the anti-Semitic, xenophobic, and dialectophobic policies of the regime as the Fascists took control of Italy and exercised ever stricter control over cultural production. Del Monte's work remains fundamental to an understanding of the culture and language of the Jews of Rome in the decades leading up to and following their political emancipation.