The Italians call lullabies ninne-nanne, a term used by Dante when he makes Forese predict the ills which are to overtake the dames of Florence:
E se l'anteveder qui non m' inganna,
Prima fien triste che le guance impeli
Colui che mo si consola con nanna.
Some etymologists have sought to connect "nanna" with neniæ or νήνιτος, but its most apparent relationship is with νανναρισματα, the modern Greek name for cradle songs, which is derived from a root signifying the singing of a child to sleep. The ninne-nanne of the various Italian provinces are to be found scattered here and there through volumes of folk poesy, and no attempt has yet been made to collate and compare them. Signor Dal Medico did indeed publish, some ten years ago, a separate collection of Venetian nursery rhymes, but his initiative has not been followed up. The difficulty I had in obtaining the little work just mentioned is characteristic of the way in which Italian printed matter vanishes out of all being; instead of passing into the obscure but secure limbo into which much of English literature enters, it attains nothing short of Nirvāna—a happy state of non-existence. The inquiries of several Italian book-sellers led to no other conclusion than that the book in question was not to be had for love or money; and most likely I should still have been waiting for it were it not for the courtesy of the Baron Giovanni di Sardagna, who, on hearing that it was wanted by a student of folk-lore, borrowed from the author the only copy in his possession and made therefrom a verbatim transcript. The following is one of Signor Dal Medico's lullabies:
Hush! lulla, lullaby! So mother sings;
For hearken, 'tis the midnight bell that rings.
But, darling, not thy mother's bell is this:
St Lucy's priests it calls to prayer, I wis.
St Lucy gave thee eyes—a matchless pair—