The botanical lexicon in “Il Viaggio all’Indie Orientali” by Father F. Vincenzo Maria di S. Caterina da Siena (1672)

  • Andrea Drocco Università di Torino

Abstract

In the middle of the XVII century the Discalced Carmelite Padre Vincenzo Maria of Saint Caterina of Siena visited India and, when he returned, drew up his travel account, titled Il Viaggio alle Indie Orientali. This work plays a key role in the context of Italian travel accounts about India. However, despite its importance, it is rather surprising that no significant research has been conducted to investigate in deep this text, edited for the last time in 1683. The aim of the present paper is to pursue its analysis, in particular offering an etymological research and a critical examination of a consistent part of the botanical terms mentioned and explained by Padre Vincenzo Maria. As we will show, many of these terms appeared for the first time, in an Italian text and in some few cases in an European one, in Padre Vincenzo Maria’ s work.

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Author Biography

Andrea Drocco, Università di Torino

Andrea Drocco obtained his Ph.D. degree in Indology and Tibetology in 2005. He is currently pursuing postdoctoral research in New-Indo-Aryan historical linguistics at the University of Turin and, contemporary, he teaches Hindī and Indo-Aryan linguistics at the same University and at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

His primary research goals are directed toward understanding the manifestation of ergativity in modern Indo-Aryan languages and in particular the syntactic changes that took place in non-nominative “subjects” (i.e. ergative) in one of the Indo-Aryan Himalayan languages/dialects from the point of view of language change due to contact and convergence. At the same time his research plans are aimed at the analysis of the lexicon of Indian languages, with an emphasis on the linguistic contact with European languages.

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Published
2016-12-08
Section
Movement 2: Imagining the plants and metaphorizing the social / Immagini vegetali e metafore del sociale