In the 19th century, the production of German-Italian dictionaries flourished and important standards for modern bilingual lexicography were set. The paper examines the paratexts of the largest dictionaries of that period: Jagemann (1790-1791), Filippi (1817), Valentini (1831-1836), Feller (1855), Michaelis (1879-1881) and Rigutini - Bulle (1895-1900). As the analysis of the various text types that constitute those paratexts shows, the dictionaries differ significantly for what concerns the presence and the extent of certain elements such as the preface, lists of abbreviations and sources, grammar tables, or lists of proper names. The study focuses on the prefaces, trying to answer the question which are the elements that constitute them, before pointing out some peculiarities of Valentini’s dictionary. In conclusion, it summarizes the statements that the paratexts allow us to make about 19th century bilingual lexicography.
