Books by level / Italian books
La mandragola · La Clizia · Belfagor: reading level, length and free edition
La mandragola · La Clizia · Belfagor by Niccolò Machiavelli is a plays and a novella in Italian. Our team rates it C1. It runs to 29,244 words with 4,815 different word forms, about 2.5–5 h of reading at 200 to 100 words per minute, and it is free from Project Gutenberg.
- Author
- Niccolò Machiavelli
- Language
- Italian
- Level
- C1
- Form
- plays and a novella
- Words
- 29,244
- Different word forms
- 4,815
- Forms for 95% / 98%
- 3,353 / 4,231
- Reading time
- 2.5–5 h
- Free edition
- Project Gutenberg
Le commedie e la novella satirica del celebre pensatore fiorentino.
Is La mandragola · La Clizia · Belfagor right for your level?
To recognise 95% of the running words in La mandragola · La Clizia · Belfagor, you need its 3,353 most frequent word forms; for 98%, the share at which most readers manage a novel without a dictionary, 4,231. The median Italian C1 book in our table needs 4,856 forms for 95%, so by this measure the book is easier than most for its level: number 2 of 5, easiest first.
A word form is any spelling that appears in the text, so “walk” and “walked” count twice, and names count too. These numbers are a guide to how much vocabulary the book asks for, not a test. The level itself was set by hand by our team. Before you commit, read one page of the free edition and count the words you do not know: the one-page test takes two minutes.
Which words should you know before you start?
These are the words that La mandragola · La Clizia · Belfagor uses most often but that are not among the 2,000 most common word forms across all 20 Italian books in our library; the number is how many times each appears. Names of people and places are left out. Learning a handful of them first makes the opening chapters easier.
- cosi 36
- fuora 28
- cotesto 24
- dipoi 21
- veggo 19
- fussi 18
- fusse 18
- pertanto 14
- gliene 13
- danari 13
- debbe 13
- mogliema 13
- iersera 12
- briga 12
- pigliare 12
How does it begin?
Per il testo della Mandragola, mi sono attenuto all’edizione curatane per la Bibliotheca romanica (Strasburgo, J. H. Ed. Heitz, 1912) da Santorre De Benedetti. Ne ho però tolto e modificato quelle peculiarità grafiche che già al principio del Cinquecento non avevano più alcuna rispondenza nella pronuncia. Per la Clizia, ho seguito l’edizione Italia, 1813.
From the Project Gutenberg edition, which is in the public domain. If this paragraph already feels slow, try a book one level lower.
How long does it take to read?
| Words | 100 wpm | 150 wpm | 200 wpm | 250 wpm |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29,244 | 5 h | 3 h | 2.5 h | 2 h |
Learners reading a book at their level often manage 100 to 150 words per minute, and readers in their first language 200 to 250. Where these speeds come from, and a calculator for your own: How long does it take to read a book?
Where can you read it for free?
The free edition is Project Gutenberg eBook #56498. Project Gutenberg publishes books that are in the public domain in the United States, as EPUB, Kindle and plain text, free and without an account. Copyright terms differ by country: if you live outside the United States, check that the book is out of copyright where you are before you download it.
To read it with a translation over every word you tap, open it in Readlang Mobile on iPhone or iPad.
What to read next at C1
Italian books at the same level that ask for a similar amount of vocabulary:
- Enrico IV, Luigi Pirandello: 18,998 words, 2,518 forms for 95%
- I Canti, Giacomo Leopardi: 25,789 words, 4,856 forms for 95%
- L’umorismo, Luigi Pirandello: 51,514 words, 6,438 forms for 95%
- I promessi sposi, Alessandro Manzoni: 230,062 words, 10,406 forms for 95%
See also all Italian books by level and books at C1 in all five languages.