Newsgroup: it.cultura.letteratura.italiana
Titolo: Goldoni - La Locandiera - text questions

Hi! I'm working my way through Goldoni's La Locandiera, and I'm finding some
places in the text that I don't quite understand.
In the first scene, there's lots of talk about money. The units mentioned
are the zecchino, the scudi, and the paoletti. The Count boasts that he
spends a zecchino a day at the inn, so that sounds like a lot of money. The
scudi also apparently is a good chunk of change, as the Count says he'll
give three hundred scudi to Mirandolina if she'll marry. The paoletti, on
the other hand, isn't much; the impoverished Marquis can only spend three of
them a day at the inn, and apparently, from what Fabrizio says about
him--more on that later--it doesn't actually cover the tab.
Can anybody fill me in on about what those units of money would have been
worth, or what a comparable amount of money might be today?
I'm sorry I can't write in Italian; I'm only able to read it, not write it
or speak it.
Thanks!

 graziosamente scrisse:

The "ducato veneziano" was called "zecchino" from the half of the XVI
century
You can see an image of the "zecchino" here:
http://digilander.iol.it/comunedibevilacqua/moneta.htm
and here The history of that money:
http://www.cronologia.it/storia/biografie/dogi050.htm
It was made of 3,5 gr of pure gold (this is the mean of "zecchino")
and had the value of 22 lire. As nowadays the gold's price is 11 Euro
for gr. the price of the zecchino would be approx. 38,5 Euro.
The  "paoletto" or "paolo", so called because it was coined by the
Pope Paolo III, was a silver money that had the value of 3 lire, while
the "scudo" had the value of 5 lire.
However it isn't so easy  to determine what a comparable amount of
money might be today: in the XVIII century a day labourer could earn
much more less than a paolo a day, while today he earns more than 50
Euro!!
Paolo Cassoli
paolo...@tiscalinet.it
http://digilander.iol.it/paolocssl
                         _)-¬_
   ______ m__(_° \°)__m_________
   ... si dileguerà e perderassi.

 wrote in message
news:3cc05f77...@powernews.libero.it...


Hi Bob! You may have had the answers to your questions about La locandiera,
already, but I've just read your three messages and I think I can partly
answer to them. I think V.S. means in the context Vostra Signoria, an
extremely respectful way of addressing to somebody of a higher rank, like
the Cavaliere, even though it sounds contradictory that you show respect
while calling a man Vostra Signoria Illustrissima, but that's an Italian
peculiarity to call men like women. It could have been Vostra Santità if
Mirandolina referred to a religious person high in the hierarchy of
religious power.
About the coins, that's not easy, I can badly answer; about the zecchino
that was a coin made of 4 grams of gold. I can' t really say what one could
do in the eighteenth century with four grams of gold, but I suppose not many
people had money at all, and gold was not at hand. The scudo was also made
of a precious metal, either gold or silver. I cannot add anything about the
paoletti, but now I'm curious about it and will try to know more, by the way
if you have any information about those money would you tell me that?
Finally, the name Mirandolina should have been made up by Goldoni, its
meaning is not as clear as the names of Restoration Comedies, but the word
clearly reminds other words, so now I'm just guessing that "mirando" is the
gerund of "mirare", that is to look at somebody or something with
admiration, also "mirandola" reminds me "girandola" that, like all words,
has many meanings, one of them being a wheathercock, that thing fixed on the
roof that changes its position according to the wind blowing direction, and
in Italian, as I think in English, it is used to refer to a fickle person.
Now, as far as I remember, Mirandolina is not acutally fickle, but it seems
to me that men turn around her and rather hectically try to find the way to
conquer her. The name Mirandolina gives me the feeling of somebody dynamic,
that in the context has a dynamic mind. At last, the diminutive "ina"  adds
some gracefulness in consideration that the main character is a young woman,
certainly pretty, dynamic and witty. That's my guessing about the name.
Nice to have had an excursion through one of my favourite Italian author's
work. Hope I've been of any help.
Sabrina.