In the year of Dante, Giovanni Cova & C. and the Accademia della Crusca together for the Dictionary of Taste
A reinterpretation of the first dictionary, in Italian and English
It was 1612 when the first dictionary by the Accademici della Crusca was formed. Now, after 400 years, the Dictionary of Taste will be created, thanks to the collaboration between the oldest and most important Italian linguistic academy and the pastry chefs of Giovanni Cova & C. It’s a specially reworked extract taken from that first dictionary, dedicated entirely to gastronomy and taste. The Italian voices will be accompanied by entries in English taken from the first bilingual Italian-English Vocabulary, John Florio’s New World of Words, published in 1611. A special edition of the panettoni by Giovanni Cova & C. will be dedicated to Dante Alighieri and will accompany the Dictionary of Taste. The Milanese company has earned the nickname “Il Panatton de Lusso Milan”, present on all the products for decades and in over 62 countries around the world. Celebrating Dante is a way to pay homage to the soul of Italy.
The Dictionary by the Academicians of the Crusca
Founded in 1583, the Accademia della Crusca has welcomed Italian and international scholars, grammarians and philologists, writers and poets, historians, philosophers, legal scholars and politicians. The Academy’s main work, the Vocabulario (1612; later expanded and republished several times until 1923), made a decisive contribution to the identification and dissemination of the Italian language and set an example for the great lexicons of the French, Spanish, German and English languages.
President of the Accademia della Crusca Claudio Marazzini commented “The Accademia della Crusca takes part with great pleasure in the initiative by Giovanni Cova & C. for a joint collaboration in the year of Dante. The combination of culture and food is not new, on the contrary, it has now met with great approval. Food is itself culture and is linked to language, because the irreplaceable value of the storytelling of products is well known”.
