Valpolicella: origins of the name

It comes from the latin "vallis polis cellae", which translates to "valley of the many cellars". As usual, someone doesn't agree with this ethimology, maybe someday they'll suggest another one.

Reply to
Vilco
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I don't for one. Polis is Greek, so the etymology mixes Latin and Greek.

Reply to
Steve Slatcher

Reply to
Joe "Beppe"Rosenberg

seems to disagree with you.

Maybe Mike T. could help, as my Italian is not good enough.

M.

Reply to
Michael Pronay

Didn't you know that the latins used many greek words? Polis is one of those, as thousands of others.

Reply to
Vilco

Steve's post made sense to me, but then I thought of the extensive adoption by latin speakers of everything greek from language to gods. The incursion of greek into latin was almost as extensive as that of french into english...

Still, I remain sceptical of this etymology... and indeed the common root with Po seems more plausible to me...

Reply to
Mike Tommasi

Expecially when we're talking about wine.

I checked around the term Polesine: it is used to indicate an island on the river Po which has became attached, with time, to one of the banks. The Valpolicella area doesn't seem to be of that origin. Moreover, the explanation of Valpolicella name coming from a "great bend in the Adige river" seems wrong to me both for the river (Adige is not Po) and for the translation of Polesine into "great bend of a river".

Reply to
Vilco

Vilco ha scritto:

Vil, what about the word "Marani" that is in the same time tha name of a Lambrusco grape and the Georgian word for Cellar? May be a ancient origin from Caucasian land of the Padanian people?

;-)

Luk

Reply to
Luk

Nice one ;) Mind this: Marani is a very common name in Emilia, from Piacenza to Ferrara. Who knows?

Reply to
Vilco

I knew some Roman wrote in Greek, but I cannot think of any old word (older than television for example) or place name with a well-documented etymology that combines the 2 languages.

But actually that is beside the point. On rereading your original post you obviously were not refering to "polis" (Greek for city), but the Latin "poli". Somehow an "s" crept into your explanation.

Reply to
Steve Slatcher

Maybe it's the genitive casus (or form) of the word? I can't remember a nickel from my 2 old years of latin ;)

Reply to
Vilco

"Automobile" is older than television, albeit slightly.

A collegue jokingly referred to "ipsokinet".

M.

Reply to
Michael Pronay

Weirdly enough, this same topic arose on another wine forum, with the following explanation offered:

"The name Valpolicella dates back to this time; it was probably given to the valley by administrative officials of Verona, which took control of the valley once more in the twelfth century, along the river Adige as far as Pol (Santa Lucia di Pescantina), with tax collection and the administration of justice in Ospedaletto and subsequently San Pietro: then Valpolesela, valle di Pol. "

source:

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Since this is an English translation of an Italian website, it would be interesting to know how faithfully rendered this translation is. Any takers?

Mark Lipton

Reply to
Mark Lipton

So this is a third option, where Valpolicella comes from "valley of Pol". Then there's the version with this name coming from "Polesine" (island on the Po who attached to a bank) and the one about the "polis cellae". Probably there's some other version out there.

LOL; totally different from the origin. The section "Etimologia" says: "...l'attuale nome di Valpolicella che altro non sembra indicare se non la grande ansa formata dalla curva dell'Adige nel suo scorrere della Chiusa a Parona (come del resto abbiamo per Polesella e Polesine in provincia di Rovigo)." Which, translated, is: "...the current name of Valpolicella, which seems to indicate the big bend in the Adige river while running from Chiusa to Parona (as we see for Polesella and Polesine in Rovigo county)". So, in english the name Valpolicella comes from Polesel (Val de Pol, where Pol is a town), but in italian the origin is the name of the bend in the river. This site explains very well that there's much confusion on the origins of the name Valpolicella ;)

Reply to
Vilco

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