Scribere condecenter vulgare L’italiano negli atti e nell’educazione linguistica dei notai vercellesi nel XVI secolo

This article seeks to clarify the relationship between notaries and the Italian language in the 16th century, through examination of the particular situation of Vercelli. Study of the notarial acts drawn up in this city, ­combined with analysis of the papers regulating the admission to the college of notaries, reveals the presence of the Italian language in notarial activity even before the Ordini nuovi issued by Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy. These documents raise questions about the linguistic education of notaries and invite us to reflect upon the function of the formulary and other means by which they could learn how to write in the vernacular. The editions of the Summa rolandina translated and expanded with brief notations on grammar were new ways of disseminating the Italian language, showing the long-standing link between grammar and ars notariae, a link which would ­continue at least until the 18th century, when grammar was still ­considered as the basis of notarial ­culture.