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Updated: May 1, 2025
If there is anything to justify the charge of "Patavinity," or provincialism, made by Asinius Pollio, we, at least, are not learned enough in Latin to detect it; and Pollio, too, appears to have been no gentle critic if we may judge by his equally severe strictures upon Cicero, Cæsar, and Sallust.
I have written in French, and not in Italian, because the French language is more universal than mine, and the purists, who may criticise in my style some Italian turns will be quite right, but only in case it should prevent them from understanding me clearly. The Greeks admired Theophrastus in spite of his Eresian style, and the Romans delighted in their Livy in spite of his Patavinity.
I have been very fortunate lately: I have met with an extreme good print of M. de Grignan; I am persuaded, very like; and then it has his touffe ébourifée; I don't, indeed, know what that was, but I am sure it is in the print. None of the critics could ever make out what Livy's Patavinity is; though they are all confident it is in his writings.
"You are right; every language should preserve its purity. Livy has been criticised on this account; his Latin is said to be tainted with patavinity." "When I began to learn Latin, the Abbe Lazzarini told me he preferred Livy to Sallust." "The Abbe Lazzarini, author of the tragedy, 'Ulisse il giovine'? You must have been very young; I wish I had known him.
I have written in French, and not in Italian, because the French language is more universal than mine, and the purists, who may criticise in my style some Italian turns will be quite right, but only in case it should prevent them from understanding me clearly. The Greeks admired Theophrastus in spite of his Eresian style, and the Romans delighted in their Livy in spite of his Patavinity.
"You are right; every language should preserve its purity. Livy has been criticised on this account; his Latin is said to be tainted with patavinity." "When I began to learn Latin, the Abbe Lazzarini told me he preferred Livy to Sallust." "The Abbe Lazzarini, author of the tragedy, 'Ulisse il giovine'? You must have been very young; I wish I had known him.
To Augustan purists this relaxation of the language seemed provincial and unworthy of the severe tradition of the best Latin; and it was this probably, rather than any definite novelties in grammar or vocabulary, that made Asinius Pollio accuse Livy of "Patavinity."
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