" This can be translated in English to mean, "I know that those lands, that here (in this document) are registered, and everything that they contain, have been property of the Abbey of Saint Benedict for thirty years." The document can be found in the Abbey of Montecassino today.
The language that was written was similar to Latin because before Italian most everything was Latin. Linguists affirm that the language used in the document isn't Latin although Italian is one of the closest languages to Latin. Latin word endings and cases disappeared. The fragment in the document is similar to Italian which contains double consonants and conjunctions. .
The major poetic schools of the time were in Tuscany and Sicily. During the 14th century shortly before the famous document was written the Tuscan dialect was the main dialect of Tuscany and throughout Florence in Italy. Tuscan departs least in morphology and phonology from the classical Latin. This Tuscan language harmonizes best with the Italian traditions or Latin culture. The first dictionary for Italian was edited in 1612 by the Accademia Della Crusca, an Italian society for scholars and Italian linguists established in Florence. The Accademia Della Crusca is the most important institution responsible for regulating the Italian language as well as the oldest linguistic academy in the world. The dictionary, 'Vocabolario della lingua italiana,' published by the Accademia was the first known Italian dictionary which also served as the model for similar works in French, Spanish, German and English.
Italian began to develop and experiments with the language sounds and forms began. This being in the 16th century Italy was defined as Italian by the linguists.
After this had formed struggles began to arise. The struggle between Latin used by the high society members and Vernacular, and Vulgar Latin used by the rest of the population had become intense.