Sul contatto linguistico nella Romania medievale: le lettere di Bartolo de Cavalli alias Bartol de Cavalls (prima parte)

The article presents the edition of the letters of the Valencian copyist Bartol de Cavalls / Bartol de Cavalli housed with the correspondence in the Datini Archive (now the Stato di Prato Archive). They are of interest not only for the information they provide on the life and work of the compiler of the dedicatory codex for the Valeri Màxim by Antonio Canals (1395), but also for their peculiar linguistic composition, characterized by interference between Old Catalan and Italian, the latter in turn analysable into two distinct components: one, Tuscan, determined by the origin of Bartol's speakers, and the other, Venetian, explicable by the strong, well documented connections with the Venetian merchants on the Balearic Islands, in Barcelona and Valencia.