My other half, who works in the antiques trade, often sends me texts to translate, check and correct. The only trouble is that I am not all that hot on expressions such as bombature, rocailles, modanate and baccelliere (this last one is ‘bachelor’ sometimes…). But I got ‘ebanistici’ to be ‘cabinet maker’, which seemed to fit quite well. Our usual way round this is to leave them as they are, in Italian, and hope that those working in this field know what the blazes these terms mean. Maybe I am wrong, but attempting to translate some furniture terminology is quite possibly like trying to translate words used on musical scores such as ‘allegro’, ‘forte’ or ‘pianissimo’, ie not really necessary. At least I hope so.
If anyone out there on the www wishes to point out the error of my ways, I’m all ears or even modanate??!!
PS ‘modanate’ could be related to ‘moda’ – which is fashion or way or method. The ‘ate’ indicates that the word could be the second person plural of an Italian verb such as ‘andate’. Don’t know. Enlighten me.
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Hi, Alex. I’m italian and I’m from Milan too. I found your blog surfing the Net in search of some pics of the city, and I must say that I like it. I also read it to practice with my English, tht isn’t as good as I would like it to be (er… was that right? I always use this kind of “laocoontic” sentences)
Maybe I can help on the subject of the post: “Bombato” means “convex” in general. If I can remember, when I was attending hig school I read that speaking of forniture the translation of “bombato” is “bow-fronted” but I’m not entirely sure.
As for “modanate”, I must write in Italian, as my English isn’t good enough to explain that.
La modanatura è una cornice sagomata che procede lungo l’intero mobile o edificio (il termine è usato anche in architettura), principalmente a scopo decorativo. Solitamente si usano per dividere in due metà la parte liscia, come cornice o per separare un cambiamento d’andamento (da orizzontale a verticale, per esempio). Per esempio, In architettura sono mondanature le cornici decorate che separano la parete dallo sporgente del tetto in molti palazzi antichi, o quelle che separano il fusto della colonna dalla base.
Hope that helps.
I forgot: modanate is the adjective form of modanature. Sorry for the double post.
Hi Cristian – many thanks for your explanation of ‘bombato’ and ‘modanate’ – I now have a better idea as to what they are and I shall dig out my dictionary of architectural terms to see what modanate could be in English.
Glad you like my blog and thanks for reading:) I hope it helps you with your English. All the best,
Alex
modanatura – is in the context of furniture – ‘beading’ I think, for buildings it is ‘cornice’ – bombatura can mean ‘crowning’ or ‘camber’ incidentally.
“Rocaille” is a French word which refers to rock-like and shell motifs. ‘Rococo’ derives from the same word.
Now why I could not find out all this the other day, I do not know. Thanks again Cristian for pointing me in the right direction:)
I’m glad I’ve been helpful.
You know, here in Milan we say “acqua guardada, la büija pùu”, that means something like “looked water never boils”. When someone is too focused on his aim, he may miss something.
I thought that Modanatura was also used in architecture. My hig school memories must be starting to fade