Francesco Zorzi Muazzo (1732-1775), an eccentric 18th-Century Venetian patrician, was known to scholars not only for his dissolute life, which led his relatives to lock him up in an asylum, where he died, but also as the compiler of a dictionary sui generis. Starting from a dialect word as an entry, he described the meaning and, most importantly, made use of it in a meandering digression on his experiences and people he had met as well as various
considerations on Venetian customs at the time. Despite its obvious value, the work has never previously been unpublished. This was partly due to its size and partly because of objective difficulties in interpreting many sections and the need to continually explain remote and now obscure situations associated with daily life in 18th-Century Venice.
Muazzo’s biography and manuscript were made known in detail by Paolo Zolli in 1969. After lengthy reflection, however, Zolli gave up the idea of trying to publish “the collection of Venetian proverbs, sayings, judgements, words and phrases”. The linguist Franco Crevatin from the University of Trieste, partly to commemorate his friend and colleague, courageously took the work in hand again and has successfully completed it.
Even a cursory look through the book reveals the huge amount of information of all kinds it contains.

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