Abstract

The author first reconsiders two documents from the group of the oldest Italian texts, the "Carta picena" and the "Carta osimana". He goes on to present two new texts: a document from the archive of the Abbey of Fiastra (Macerata), overlooked to date by philologists and containing remarkable vulgarisms, and a deed from Monselice (Padua), dated 1224, with a formula expressed in the Paduan dialect; finally he publishes a judgment rendered by the Calimala consuls (1278) which contains a merchant's "scritta" written in Florentine language. For each text the author shows the legal reasons that triggered the use of the vernacular in a notarial deed from the Middle Ages.