Italian · Advanced
Read Piccolo mondo antico in Italianwith every sentence explained
English title: The Little World of the Past
Antonio Fogazzaro · 1895
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About the book
Piccolo mondo antico by Antonio Fogazzaro was first published in 1895. In Passage you read the full text in the original Italian, marked advanced and filed under historical fiction and romance. It runs to about 109,200 words.
A secret marriage, a furious grandmother, and a little house on a lake under Austrian rule.
In the 1850s, northern Italy is still under Austrian control, and patriots dream of a united nation. Franco Maironi, a young nobleman full of faith, music and poetry, has secretly married Luisa Rigey, a clever, independent girl of modest family. His grandmother, the cold and powerful Marchesa Orsola Maironi, will never forgive him, and she holds the family fortune.
Cut off from his inheritance, Franco brings Luisa to a simple home in Valsolda, on the shores of Lake Lugano, where they live among kindly neighbours, village priests and Austrian officials. But a hidden will, money worries and their deep differences, his trusting faith against her fierce sense of justice, put their love to the test.
Antonio Fogazzaro's most beloved novel, filmed by Mario Soldati in 1941, The Little World of the Past is a warm, moving story of love, faith and Italy on the brink of change.
- Author
- Antonio Fogazzaro
- First published
- 1895
- Language
- Italian
- Level
- Advanced
- Genre
- Historical Fiction, Romance
- Length
- About 109,200 words
How it opens
Soffiava sul lago una breva fredda, infuriata di voler cacciar le nubi grigie, pesanti sui cocuzzoli scuri delle montagne. Infatti, quando i Pasotti, scendendo da Albogasio Superiore, arrivarono a Casarico, non pioveva ancora. Le onde stramazzavano tuonando sulla riva, sconquassavan le barche incatenate, mostravano qua e là, sino all’opposta sponda austera del Doi, un lingueggiar di spume bianche. Ma giù a ponente, in fondo al lago, si vedeva un chiaro, un principio di calma, una stanchezza della breva; e dietro al cupo monte di Caprino usciva il primo fumo di pioggia.
Reading Piccolo mondo antico in Passage
Passage sets the book as a quiet, paginated reader in Italian. Read at your own pace, and when a sentence stops you, tap it. You get:
- a natural translation of that exact sentence,
- a short note on the grammar, in plain words,
- the key words, which you can save with the sentence they came from,
- all of it in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Turkish or Portuguese, whichever you read best.
It's marked advanced, with richer vocabulary and longer sentences. If it feels heavy, start with an intermediate Italian book and come back to it. The words you save come back later in short review games, so the book keeps teaching after you close it.
