Etymologically
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visione

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Pronunciation

  • /viˈzjo.ne/[1]

Forms

visione f (plural visioni)[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin vīsiō (“sight; appearance, vision”), a learned word.[2][3][4][1] The Latin noun was formed on vīsus, the past participle of videō (“to see”).[2][5][6] DELI and DEI note that Latin philosophical language, from Cicero on, used it to render Ancient Greek φαντασία (phantasía, “appearance, imagination”) and φάντασμα (phántasma, “apparition”).[2][7] The same learned word is French vision (12th century) and Spanish visión, and the only inherited outcome is Portuguese avejão (“spectre”).[3][7][8]

The verb goes back to Proto-Italic *widēō and Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“to see, know”), which also gave Ancient Greek οἶδα (oîda, “I know”) and Old Church Slavonic видѣти (viděti, “to see”).[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is Zucchero Bencivenni in 1310, for a dream or a fancy.[2] Francesco da Buti later defined it: Visione è quando l'uomo nel sonno vede chiaramente e manifestamente quello che poi gli avviene “a vision is when a man in his sleep sees clearly and plainly what will later happen to him”.[2] Dante uses it, before 1321, for the appearance of a person or reality of the divine world.[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Cacciaguida tells Dante tutta tua vision fa manifesta “make your whole vision known” (Paradiso 17.128), and Boccaccio's Decameron (9.8) distinguishes a mere dream from a true visione.[10] In Giovanni Villani's chronicle the word is used for the beatific vision of the souls after death, the subject of a controversy under Pope John XXII.[11][2] The medieval visione was also a literary genre describing the other world.[4]

The sense of sight as a perceptual process is recorded in Florio's dictionary (1598).[2] From the 19th century the word also meant an idea or overall picture (1810) and a striking scene (1847).[2] The cinema adopted it early in the 20th century for an image, an episode and a film, and prima visione is a film's first run;[2][12] visionare “to view a film” (1923) arose probably in film censorship.[2][12] In bureaucratic language prendere visione means to examine a document.[11][12] Marketing language has recently used it for English vision.[10]

Timeline

  • 1310 – Zucchero Bencivenni uses visione for a dream.[2]
  • Before 1321 – Dante uses it for a divine apparition.[2]
  • 14th century – Giovanni Villani uses it for the act of seeing.[2][11]
  • 1598 – Florio records the sense of sight.[2]
  • Before 1729 – Anton Maria Salvini uses visionario “visionary”.[2]
  • 1810 – The sense “idea, overall picture” is recorded.[2]
  • 1847 – The sense “striking scene” is recorded.[2]
  • 1923 – Visionare is recorded.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The act of seeing or examining something: Il documento è a disposizione per la visione. Prendere visione is to examine.[4][5][13]
  2. (physiology) vision, sight: the perception of light stimuli, the faculty of seeing.[4][5][14]
  3. (figurative) A view, idea or outlook: Ha una visione molto pessimistica del lavoro.[4][5][13]
  4. A striking sight or scene: Il porto al tramonto era una visione.[4][5][6]
  5. (cinema) The showing of a film to the public or to a few people: un film in prima visione.[4][5][12]
  6. (religion) A supernatural vision or apparition: le visioni dei mistici.[4][13]
  7. (literature) A medieval work describing the other world or miraculous apparitions.[4]
  8. A hallucination, dream or fantasy; ironically, a groundless idea: Hai le visioni![4][6]

Word family

  • visionare
  • visionario
  • retrovisione
  • ipovisione
  • intravisione

References

  1. ^ a b c d 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ a b c d e f 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 Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
  7. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 4068
  8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  10. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
  11. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  12. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  13. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  14. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana