Francesco Valentini (1789 - 1862)

Francesco Valentini

Francesco Valentini, full name Francesco Cosma Damiano Valentini, was an Italian linguistic scholar, teacher and translator who worked in Germany.

Valentini held a doctorate and was the Royal Prussian Professor of Italian Language and Literature in Berlin. From 1831 to 1836, he published an Italian-German dictionary in four volumes in Leipzig.

One day Valentini was invited to give a lecture on the theater and carnival masks of his native Rome. The lecture was such a success that it was later published in 1826 by the Berlin art dealer and publisher Wittich, who illustrated it with charming color engravings based on drawings by the Berlin artist Johann Heinrich Stürmer. The book was published in German and Italian.