Last December I started to learn reading Italian (relatively easy once you have a certain knowledge of Spanish, and a bit of Latin does not hurt either). Combining my interest in Latin and Italian, I looked for information about Latin in Italian. While doing so I stumbled upon the web-site Vivarium Latinum. Lots of material to be found there.
One of the resources I found there, was a link to a monolingual Latin dictionary: Forcellini's Lexicon totius Latinitatis. It is the first real monolingual Latin dictionary I found (with translations sometimes given in Italian, French, English, German). There is Wagner's Lexicon Latinum (available as a 743-pages PDF-file), but contrary to that one the Forcellini is far more comprehensive and explains the words instead of giving just a few (almost) snyonyms (and opposites) and a French translation. The Lexicon atriale by Commenius is, of course, not in this league (and perhaps has a different focus?).
The PDF-version is spread across 6 files (pages given = pages of PDF-file):
- File 1: Praefationes, Index Scriptorum Latinorum, and Appendices (139 pages, 20 MB)
- File 2: Dictionary A-C (933 pages, 223 MB)
- File 3: Dictionary D-K (975 pages, 368 MB)
- File 4: Dictionary L-Q (1,032 pages, 111 MB)
- File 5: Dictionary R-S (647 pages, 269 MB)
- File 6: Dictionary T-Z (410 pages, 174 MB)
Despite of the huge file sizes, scrolling through them using Acrobat Reader is pretty fast. My PDF-edition of Cassell's Latin Dictionary is far slower, in comparison (probably because the Forcellini uses B&W TIF-files whereas my Cassell-version seems to use "colours"). The scans could be better, but are legible without any problem (better scans would have meant even greater file sizes!). Each PDF contains an index which makes finding an entry faster.
All in all, a very interesting dictionary. I love monolingual dictionaries and in any language try to move to these as quickly as possible. If only this one existed in a (real) digital version.
Valete,
Carolus Raeticus