The sixteen contributions which make up this volume are representative of the research currently carried out in Italy on Italian and, more generally, Romance syntax (in the generative tradition). The essays were specially collected to pay homage to Professor Lorenzo Renzi, a scholar who has since the 1960s promoted and shaped the study of Italian syntax in Italy, both through his own work and through a collective enterprise which culminated in the publication of the "Grande Grammatica Italiana di Consultazione" (3 vol., Bologna, Il Mulino, 1988-1995). Most of the contributors to this volume were engaged in that enterprise as young, unemployed linguists, and are now among the most prominent specialists in the field of Italian syntax.
