Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Discussions on the history and the correct usage of the Italian vernacular proliferated during the Renaissance for cultural and practical reasons. From the fifteenth century, scholars investigated the development of the vernacular and its status in relation to Latin. In the sixteenth century, its literary use expanded and was both supported and complicated by the spread of printing. In the absence of a norm emanating from a single political capital, some promoted the imitation of canonical Tuscan works of the fourteenth century, now archaic in some respects and requiring study even by Tuscans, while others wished to draw on the living language in writing and formal speech. These debates also had repercussions on the work of grammarians, lexicographers, and textual editors.</jats:p>