This is yet another post about a monolingual dictionary.
In another thread, I mentioned four monolingual dictionaries that I found interesting, namely: Estienne’s Thesaurus, Gesner’s revision of the same, Forcellini’s Totius Latinitatis Lexicon, and Wagner’s Lexicon Latinum. One user also mentioned Comenius’s Lexicon Atriale, which I might have added. I purposely left out Calepinus’s Dictionarium because I thought at the time that it was too primitive to be very useful compared to modern dictionaries. That may be true in the early editions, but as it turns out, there are later editions that have the potential to be very useful as an intermediate dictionary.
The most interesting edition I have come across is that of J. B. Gallicciolli. A 1778 printing can be found on Google Books: Volume 1, Volume 2. (EDIT: Here is a better source: Volume 1, Volume 2.)
What makes this edition interesting is that it was published after Forcellini’s Lexicon. We read in the preface that Facciolati had published a revision of Calepinus. He understood the limitations of the Calepinus and recognized the need for a larger work, which was the Totius Latinitatis Lexicon, completed in 1771 by the sole effort of his pupil Forcellini. Forcellini wrote that one of the reasons for his tireless efforts on the Lexicon was to be of help to “studious youth”. Gallicciolli points out that a dictionary in 16 volumes is of little help to the studious youth. That is why he considers the Calepinus to be useful as an intermediate dictionary that holds a place between the “minora lexica” and the Lapis Lydius of Forcellini’s Lexicon. Yet he confesses that a certain number of words were deemed lacking in Facciolatti’s Calepinus, which he therefore extracted from Forcellini’s Lexicon and added to this edition of the Calepinus.
In the other thread, someone mentioned that the best choice for a monolingual dictionary is Forcellini. I answered that it was far too big to be useful as an everyday dictionary, and that it was a pity that nobody had bothered to publish an abridged version. I think Gallicciolli’s revision of Calepinus might be considered something like an abridgement of Forcellini. According to Gallicciolli, the later editions of Calepinus were so different from the original work that the original author would not have recognized it. One might say that although it bears the name of Calepinus, it is an altogether different work.
The title “Calepinus Septem Linguarum” speaks of seven languages, but it’s obvious that this is a essentially a monolingual dictionary with a few equivalents tacked on in other languages, with a preference for Italian.
So, I wonder if the best monolingual dictionary could be Gallicciolli’s Calepinus. The Google scans are too poor to consider transcribing. If someone comes across other scans, please let me know.