Religion and rite

The twenty-third entry is il santuario, and it is the word on this page an English reader is most likely to translate into the wrong half of his own language. Both nouns descend from late Latin sanctuarium, the part of a building set apart as holy, and they were pulled apart afterwards by history rather than by meaning. English kept the medieval right of asylum that a church once granted, so « sanctuary » in ordinary use is now a place of safety: a fugitive takes sanctuary, a government offers sanctuary, and a bird sanctuary is ground on which nothing may be shot. Italian kept none of that. Il santuario is a church holding something venerated and drawing people who travel to reach it, which is why il pellegrinaggio stands a few entries above it here. For the idea of safety Italian reaches for il rifugio, for the legal one l’asilo politico, and for protected ground l’oasi or la riserva naturale. One trap runs the other way as well: in an English church « the sanctuary » is the space around the altar, and that in Italian is il presbiterio.