Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-jswmv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-15T22:05:21.721Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Etymology of Italian Casamatta

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Robert A. Hall Jr.
Robert A. Hall Jr.*
Affiliation:
Cornell University
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In present-day usage, Italian casamatta and its cognates in other European languages (Sp. casamata, Fr. and Eng. casemate, Ger. Kasematte) refer to a type of chamber, vault, or embrasure in the ramparts of a fortress, or to a similar embrasure on ships. In some castles, the casemate can assume the shape of a vaulted passage, running along from tower to tower above the inner edge of a moat, and pierced with arrow-loops to the field. It is generally acknowledged that Eng. casemate, Fr. casemate, Ger. Kasematte, and Sp. casamata are all Renaissance borrowings, directly or indirectly, from Ital. casamatta, which is first attested in Machiavelli (1520).

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 38 , Issue 3-Part1: July-September , September 1962, pp. 270 - 273
Copyright
Copyright © 1962 Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

1 New English dictionary 2.147. In English, casemate also refers to a type of hollow moulding in architecture, apparently through a confusion with casement.

I use the abbreviations customary in Romance linguistics, especially as given in R. A. Hall Jr., Bibliografia della linguistica italiana 2 (Firenze, 1958).

2 S. Toy, A history of fortification from 3000 b.c. to a.d. 1700 199 (London, 1955).

3 NED 2.147.

4 E. Gamillscheg, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der französischen Sprache 191 (Heidelberg, 1928); A. Dauzat, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française 146 (Paris, 1938); O. Bloch and W. von Wartburg, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française 3 111 (Paris, 1960).

5 F. Kluge, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache 18 (ed. W. Mitzka) 355 (Berlin, 1960).

6 J. Corominas, Diccionario crítico etimológico de la lengua castellana 1.713–4 (Madrid, 1954).

7 In his Arte della guerra, Book 7: ‘Nel fondo del fosso ogni dugento braccia vuole essere una casamatta che, con l'artiglierie, offenda qualunque scendesse in quello’.

8 G. Baist, RF 7.414 (1891/93); ibid. 10.177–8 (1895/99); ZRPh. 32.41–2 (1908) ; followed by W. Meyer-Lübke, REW 3 §1867, with the remark that ‘Casa matta ... ist begrifflich ausgeschlossen’, by G. degli Alberti in Enciclopedia Italiana 9.281 (1931), and by the Encyclopedia americana 5.702 (1958).

9 Pantagruel, prologue to Book III: vuidoient chasmates. The Rabelaisian spelling chasmates is now generally considered to have been a capricious Hellenism on Rabelais' part; see Corominas, loc.cit. (cf. fn. 6).

10 Cf. Kr. Nyrop, Grammaire historique de la langue française 3 1.56 = §43.1 (Copenhague, 1914).

11 E.g. Gamillscheg, Bloch-Wartburg, Kluge (cf. fnn. 4, 5), following Bertoni (cf. fn. 12).

12 G. Bertoni, ZRPh. 36.293–5 (1912). Bertoni assumes that the meaning ‘schola pescatorum = fishermen's cooperative’ (the association was also called ordo Casamata) represents the name of a locality (presumably originally ‘fishermen's hut‘) which became that of the group. In later attestations, the name has the forms Casa matha, casa amata, casa matta.

13 Bertoni, loc. cit. (fn. 12), citing attestations (from the sixteenth century and later) of a street in Mòdena called Via della Camata, and a document from 1569 discussing the stabling of the horses in the camata for which the street was named.

14 L. Sainéan, ZRPh. 30.316–7 (1906); ibid. 33.59 (1909).

15 P. G. Goidànich, AGl. 17.410–1 (1910/13), fn.; A. Prati, ibid. 18.420–1 (1914/22); followed by A. Prati, Vocabolario etimologico italiano 240 (Milan, 1951); J. Corominas, loc.cit. (cf. fn. 6); Dizionario Enciclopedico Italiano 2.843 (1955).

16 F. Diez, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Sprachen 4 90 (Bonn, 1878); followed in Encyclopaedia britannica, e.g. in the 11th ed. 5.444 (1910), in the 14th ed. 4.957 (1960), etc.

17 C. Battisti and G. Alessio, Dizionario etimologico italiano 1.789 (Firenze, 1950).

18 Rom. 23.619 (1894).

19 ZRPh. 32.41 (1908).

20 Goidànich and Prati, loc.cit. (cf. fn. 15).

21 Cited by Segl, ZRPh. 42.98–9 (1922).

22 F. Specht, Ersatz von Doppelmedia durch Doppeltenuis, Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung 55.12 (1928); L. Spitzer, La famille de mots mattus en roman, Bulletin linguistique 6.231–234 (1938); followed by Thesaurus Linguae Latinae 8.493 (Munich, 1939).

23 Le palatali piemontesi 213 (Torino, 1918), comparing Piedmontese bañá, meaning both ‘wet’ and ‘foolish’.

24 REW 3 §5401.

25 Lg. 25.391 (1949).

26 Cf. K. Jaberg and J. Jud, Sprach- und Sachatlas Italiens und der Südschweiz, map 723 (Zofingen, 1932): mattus covers all of northern Italy and has spread through central Italy as well, but leaving a few islands of pazzo ‘mad’ in Tuscany and Umbria (points 523, 543, 586).

27 C. Merlo, StRom. 4.150–1 (1906).

28 Cf. Battisti and Alessio, DEI 3.2394, s.v. matto 2 and matto 3.

29 In EncIt. 9.281.

30 For instance, in his description of the castle of Schaffhausen, E. Viollet-le-Duc (An essay on the military architecture of the Middle Ages 193–5 [tr. M. MacDermott; Oxford and London, 1860]) shows and discusses ‘one of the embrasures of the great chamber, ingeniously planned to allow pieces of small calibre to fire in every direction without unmasking either those pieces or the men who served them’.

31 Cf. R. A. Hall, Jr., The reconstruction of Proto-Romance, Lg. 26.6–27 (1950).

32 For another application of this reconstructive technique in word-history, cf. R. A. Hall Jr., Proto-Romance baró n̂e strong man, SIL 5.65–8 (1947).