galleria

Forms

galleria f (plural gallerie)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French galerie, taken in the older senses of the French word, which is recorded from 1316.^[2][3][4][5] The French word goes back to Medieval Latin galeria (“portico, loggia; covered passage”), which spread to many European languages: Spanish galería, German Galerie and the English word gallery.^[4] The Medieval Latin word is recorded in Italy in the 9th century for a porch, courtyard or open space in front of a church.^[6][7] DELI notes that the French word has also been derived from the Italian one, which the dates do not allow.^[2]

The origin of the Medieval Latin word is debated.^[2][4][6] Littré took it from galilaea (“church porch”), a word of the monastic language, of the Cluniacs in particular, recorded in a text of 1202, and GDLI finds this likely.^[6] Nocentini explains the change as a swap of suffix, confirmed by Old French galilée (“portico”): in the abbeys the porches crowded with lay people were likened to Galilee, a region still partly pagan, while the inner church with the monks' choir was likened to Judea.^[4] The name is Latin Galilaea (“Galilee”), from Ancient Greek Γαλιλαία (Galilaía), from Biblical Hebrew הַגָּלִיל (Hagalíl).^[1] Prati sees the suffix -eria put in place of the ending of the church word.^[8] Devoto has the church word dissimilated to *galiraea and crossed with gallo and the collective suffix -eria.^[9] DELI finds the change of meaning from the region to a porch hard to explain.^[2]

Meyer-Lübke thought a link with galea, the galley, improbable.^[10] DEI compares a Greek word that Hesychius glosses as a kind of portico with seats.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a letter from France of 1528 that Marin Sanudo copied: “in una gran sala o galleria” (in a great hall or gallery), where the word means a long covered walk inside a building.^[2][8][12]

Semantic evolution

Around 1558 Benvenuto Cellini used the word for the King of France's gallery at Fontainebleau and had to explain it to Tuscans: it was what they would call a loggia or rather an androne, a long hall, which held paintings and sculptures.^[2][13] From such halls the word came to mean a set of rooms for showing works of art, and later a shop that shows and sells them.^[2][14] In 1688 the notes to the Malmantile still called it a foreign word, for rooms full of fine and curious things, and also a military fortification; in 1798 D'Alberti called it “a foreign word made ours”.^[2]

The underground senses came from warfare and engineering: Davila (1630) describes a covered siege galleria built like a bridge and roofed with turf, mining galleries followed, and in 1826 the Milanese press used it for a tunnel; the railway and road tunnel is the commonest sense today.^[2][3] In the theatre it named the tier of seats above the boxes from 1808 (Pananti), and in the 1860s the glass-roofed arcades of Italian cities took the name, Milan's Galleria Vittorio Emanuele among them.^[2][3]

English borrowed galleria for an Italian shopping arcade (1861) and later for a shopping centre;^[12] German Galerie was taken from Italian or French in the late 16th century.^[12] Through Italian the word also reached Polish galeria.^[11][1]

Timeline

• 1316 – French galerie is recorded, for the porch of a church.^[2][12]
• 1528 – A letter from France in Marin Sanudo's diaries has galleria, a long hall.^[2][8]
• About 1558 – Benvenuto Cellini uses galleria for a hall holding works of art.^[2]
• 1630 – Davila uses the word for a covered siege passage.^[2]
• 1808 – Pananti uses it for the upper tier of seats in a theatre.^[2]
• 1826 – The Milanese press uses it for a tunnel.^[2]
• 1861 – English galleria is recorded for an Italian arcade with shops.^[12]
• 1869–1870 – The covered pedestrian arcade sense appears in Tommaseo–Bellini and in Carducci.^[2]
• 1943 – Gallerista, the owner of an art gallery, is first recorded.^[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A tunnel cut through a mountain or hill for a road, a railway or a canal: Il treno rallentò prima di entrare in galleria.^[3][15][16]
2. A gallery in a mine: an underground passage dug to reach the ore.^[3][17]
3. (military) A covered or underground passage in fortifications, used especially in siege warfare.^[16][17]
4. A small burrow dug in the ground or in wood by an animal such as a mole or an insect.^[3][18]
5. A covered pedestrian arcade, often roofed with glass and lined with shops and cafés.^[3][16][18]
6. (architecture) A long, wide hall linking the rooms of a palace, often richly decorated; in churches, an arcaded loggia above the aisles or along the façade.^[5][14]
7. An art gallery: a building or set of rooms where works of art are kept and shown, and also the collection itself; a galleria d'arte is also a shop that shows and sells them.^[3][15][16]
8. (figurative) A publication with a series of biographies of famous people.^[3][5]
9. In theatres, the upper tier of seats above the boxes; in cinemas and modern theatres, the balcony above the stalls.^[3][16][18]
10. In engineering, a duct; a galleria del vento is a wind tunnel.^[16][2]
11. (computing) A collection of pictures or videos on a website or a device, a calque of English gallery.^[5]

Word family

• gallerista

Related words

• French galerie
• Medieval Latin galeria

Usage notes

GRADIT lists a technical homograph galleria (1956), a moth of the genus Galleria of the family Pyralidae, from the scientific Latin name of the genus.^[3] Treccani stresses it gallèria and calls the origin of the name uncertain; the wax moth of beehives belongs to it.^[14]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 6, 553
7. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
8. ^ a b c Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 478
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1752
12. ^ a b c d e Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
13. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
15. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
16. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
17. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
18. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli