Bernardino Pianzola (1721–1803) was an Italian missionary who stayed in countries of the Eastern Mediterranean for twelve years. After returning to Italy he wrote a grammatical-lexicographical work entitled Dizionario, Grammatiche e Dialoghi per apprendere le lingue italiana, latina, greca-volgare, e turca (Padua 1781), which was reprinted twice in subsequent years. Pianzola’s work is one of the most important sources of knowledge about the 18th spoken Turkish, though it has been unfairly neglected by the hitherto published studies. Rocchi’s book fills the gap, presenting a richly commented edition of Pianzola’s entire Turkish lexical corpus.
