Introduction

The research focuses on reconstructing the lexicon and phraseology within the semantic field of honor and the rituals of duelling. The aim is to restore historical depth to these words—especially those that retain a strong symbolic charge long after the practices that generated them have vanished—and to contribute to a greater linguistic awareness among younger generations, enhancing their ability to situate concepts and practices of public and private life within their specific temporal and socio-cultural contexts.  

The corpus is built from the literary, historical, and cinematic texts examined in this research, serving as a link and synthesis between the various disciplines involved in the project. The intent is also to highlight analogies and differences, persistences and innovations across various textual genres in the representation and use of "duelling words" and, more broadly, the semantic sphere of honor. The interpretations provided by writers, historians, journalists, jurists, and filmmakers are compared with definitions found in 19th and 20th-century lexicography, which remains the foundation for even the most recent historical Italian dictionaries.The material in this section is divided into two outputs:

• An alphabetical glossary that reconstructs the profile of each term, including its diachronic development, through documentation from the corpus and comparisons with major 19th and 20th-century lexicographical tools.

• A collection of lexical entries (in-depth files) which trace, in a more extensive and detailed form, the history of specific words and expressions of particular interest. These terms continue to carry a strong symbolic resonance in contemporary Italian, despite the disappearance of the practices from which they originated.