Abstract

The article gives an account of some linguistic and lexical aspects of Giordano Bruno’s Cena de le ceneri (1584), starting with a quick survey of the state of historical-linguistic studies on the author. After pointing out, on the one hand, the reasons behind the choice of vernacular and, on the other hand, the formal and pragmatic structures of the dialogue, the contribution reconstructs Bruno’s choice of a composite Italian opposed to Tuscan-style purism by investigating three different lexical sectors: regionalism and loanwords; technicalities of philosophy and science; and learned words and coinages used with an expressive and deforming function.