Italian citation styles are two systems rather than one style: footnotes, which Italian guides call the "continental" way, and author-date, the sistema autore-data. The relatore (supervisor) decides which one a tesi di laurea uses, and most departments publish house rules. EdCitation, which publishes this guide, builds and checks references from the publisher's record and never composes one.
Every rule below was read in Italian on 26 September 2026, in university guides from Pisa, Padova, Bologna, Palermo, Rome, Florence and Venice and the Associazione Italiana Biblioteche's (AIB) norms. Translations in brackets are ours. UNI ISO 690 is sold; we did not read it. When the bibliografia is done, EdCitation's free Verify references looks every entry up in the records; the last section quotes its results on an Italian list, faults included.
What are the two ways of citing at Italian universities?
A footnote system and an author-date system, and the relatore chooses. Pisa's philosophy degree names them "continentale e anglosassone" ("continental and Anglo-Saxon", our translation), and keeps its rules subordinate to the supervisor's (Amoroso and Paoletti, n.d.). Bologna's modern languages department names them "autore-opera" (author-work) and "autore-data" (Università di Bologna, n.d.-a, n.d.-b).
The split follows the subject, loosely. Padova's library assigns Chicago, notes or author-date, to the humanities, social sciences and law, APA to psychology and sociology, and Harvard to the natural sciences and economics (Sistema Bibliotecario di Ateneo, Università di Padova, n.d.-a). Its thesis manual states the rule every guide repeats: "l'importante è, quando si decide per uno stile, mantenerlo costante" ("what matters, once a style is chosen, is keeping it constant", our translation).
How does the Italian footnote system work?
A raised number leads to a nota a piè di pagina (footnote) with the reference; Pisa and Florence end every note with a full stop. Padova and Bologna put the number after the punctuation, the AIB before a closing full stop.
The first note: the whole reference
The first mention gives the full reference and the page. Florence's law school sets the order: initial and surname, the title in italics with only its first word capitalised, publisher, then place and year together (Scuola di Giurisprudenza, Università degli Studi di Firenze, n.d.). With works checked against their records:
¹ E. Garroni, Senso e paradosso. L'estetica, filosofia non speciale, Laterza, Roma-Bari 1986, p. 165.
² C. Branchini, L. Mantovan (a cura di), Grammatica della lingua dei segni italiana (LIS), Edizioni Ca' Foscari, Venezia 2022.
³ A. Cardinaletti, L. Mantovan, Le lingue dei segni nel Volume Complementare e l'insegnamento della LIS nelle Università italiane, in «Italiano LinguaDue», 14 (2022), n. 2, pp. 113-128, p. 115.
Garroni (1986) is Pisa's own example. The grammar's publisher names Branchini and Mantovan as editors, "a cura di", though the registry record calls them authors (Branchini and Mantovan, 2022): the title page wins. The pages cited show the form only.
Ivi, ibidem and cit.: the repeat notes
Three forms do most of the work:
- Ivi, p. 170. The same work as the note directly before, at a different page.
- Ibidem (or ibid.). The same work and the same page.
- Short title, cit., page. A work cited earlier, not in the note before: "E. Garroni, Senso e paradosso, cit., p. 172." Florence and the AIB write it so; Bologna drops the title: "Umberto Eco, cit., p. 32."
Pisa's philosophy rules add Idem and Eadem for the same author in consecutive notes, and cfr. ("compare") for a reference that is not a quotation. The Latin family in English styles is in ibid., op. cit. and loc. cit. explained.
Where the guides disagree: op. cit.
Padova's thesis manual uses op. cit. alone, "(4) Op. cit. pag.82", for a work cited earlier (Sistema Bibliotecario di Ateneo, Università di Padova, n.d.-b). Florence allows "N. Bobbio, op. cit., p. 58" only where it cannot be misread, and adds "op. ult. cit." for an author's most recently cited work. Venice's law rules write "DE NOVA, op. cit." (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, n.d.). The AIB norms do not mention op. cit. and use the short title with cit. (Associazione Italiana Biblioteche, 2021), the safer choice.
How do Italian universities teach the sistema autore-data?
As surname and year, usually with the page after a colon: "(Bettoni, 2001: 26)" in Bologna's example, where the reference sits in the text and footnotes carry comment only. Pisa's philosophy rules write "Rossi (1996: 14)", "Rossi e Verdi (1952)" for two authors, and a, b for one author's works of the same year.
Author-date inside the footnotes
Some guides keep the footnote and put the short form in it. Palermo's philosophy degrees write "Searle [1983 20]", square brackets and no comma, and say the system needs none of "op. cit., ibidem, ivi" (Università degli Studi di Palermo, n.d.). Sapienza's law library writes "Adams (1965), 25-34" in its notes and calls the form «stile APA» (Sacco, 2024).
Translations and classics
For a translation, Florence and Pisa put "trad. it." before the Italian edition. Ancient authors go by book and line, as in Palermo's "Met. Δ 1021a 25-1021b20".
Footnote or author-date: how do the entries compare?
From the guides above, with the checked works:
| Element | Footnote form (nota a piè di pagina) | Author-date form (sistema autore-data) | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| In the text | A raised number, then a note | Surname, year, page in brackets | (Garroni, 1986: 165) |
| A book, first time | Initial, surname, title, publisher, place year, page | Short form; full entry in the list | E. Garroni, Senso e paradosso, Laterza, Roma-Bari 1986, p. 165. |
| An edited book | (a cura di) after the editors | Editors' surnames and year | C. Branchini, L. Mantovan (a cura di), Grammatica della lingua dei segni italiana (LIS), Edizioni Ca' Foscari, Venezia 2022. |
| A journal article | Title, in «Journal», volume (year), n. issue, pages | (Cardinaletti e Mantovan, 2022: 115) | in «Italiano LinguaDue», 14 (2022), n. 2, pp. 113-128 |
| Same work, next note | Ivi, page; Ibidem for the same page | Not needed (Palermo) | Ivi, p. 170. |
| Cited earlier | Short title, cit., page | Surname and year again | E. Garroni, Senso e paradosso, cit., p. 172. |
| Pages | p. and pp. (Pisa, Florence); p. for both (AIB) | After a colon (Bologna) | pp. 113-128 |
| The list | Bibliografia, alphabetical by surname | Alphabetical; a, b for one year | Garroni E. (1986). Senso e paradosso. L'estetica, filosofia non speciale. Roma-Bari: Laterza. |
| Checking it | EdCitation's Verify references, free | The same | See the last section |
Which Italian typographic conventions change a reference?
Small capitals for authors, the order of the publication details, and "p." against "pp.". None is universal.
Small capitals (maiuscoletto)
Florence's law school sets the surname in maiuscoletto, small capitals. Venice's law rules do too, warning "a non confondere il MAIUSCOLO con il MAIUSCOLETTO" ("not to confuse capitals with small capitals", our translation), and add the initial only to tell two authors apart: CAPRIGLIONE, but RESCIGNO P. Sapienza allows capitals, small capitals or ordinary type, used consistently. Pisa's library prints "Luigi PIRANDELLO" in capitals, while Pisa's philosophy rules and the AIB use ordinary type: there is no national rule.
"a cura di", "in" and guillemets
Pisa's library describes an "Italian style": commas between elements, the publisher before the place, journal titles in guillemets, «…» (Sistema bibliotecario d'ateneo, Università di Pisa, 2017). The AIB writes "In:" before the book that holds a chapter, nothing before a journal, and "a cura di" in the language of the work, so an English book takes "edited by".
p. or pp.
Pisa's philosophy rules and Florence write "p." for one page and "pp." for several, and allow "pp. 165-67". The AIB writes "p." for both and wants the last page in full: p. 123-125, not p. 123-5.
What is UNI ISO 690, and do Italian theses use it?
UNI ISO 690:2021 is Italy's adoption of ISO 690:2021, the international guidelines for references and citations. UNI's catalogue lists it as in force since 7 October 2021, titled Informazione e documentazione: Raccomandazioni per i riferimenti bibliografici e le citazioni di risorse informative, and describes "princìpi, direttive e requisiti" ("principles, guidelines and requirements", our translation) for every kind of resource (UNI Ente Italiano di Normazione, 2021). The text is sold; we could not read its examples or punctuation.
It stays in the background. Pisa's library points to the British edition, BS ISO 690, for the elements a reference needs, leaving order and punctuation to the chosen style. None of the thesis guides read here asks for UNI ISO 690 by name. The German and Spanish editions are covered in German citation styles and Spanish citation styles.
What goes in the bibliografia of a tesi di laurea?
Every source cited, alphabetical by surname, and sometimes more.
- Cited only, or everything consulted. Bologna lists only works cited; Pisa's philosophy rules include every text consulted. The English distinction is in reference list, bibliography or works cited.
- One list or several. Pisa's philosophy degree separates primary sources (fonti) from secondary studies, with an optional sitografia; Palermo adds altre fonti; Sapienza lists ancient sources separately.
- Web pages. Bologna puts web sources with no author or date in a sitografia, with the date consulted; a dated online article with an author stays in the bibliografia.
How do law theses cite legislation and case law?
In footnotes, with their own abbreviations. Florence cites an act in full at first, then "D.P.R. n. 752/1976", and an article as "Art. 5, c. 2, D.P.R. n. 752/1976". A decision gives the court, the date, for the Cassazione the section and number, then the law report with part and page; later mentions shorten to number, year and cit. Venice writes "art. 1325 c.c." and lists journal abbreviations such as Foro it.
How do I build and check an Italian reference list?
Build from the record, adjust by hand, check last.
- Ask the relatore: footnotes or autore-data, small capitals or not, cit. or op. cit. EdCitation's free Check your paper turns a brief into a checklist, but reads Italian poorly (below).
- Search in Italian with Find sources.
- Take each work's details from its record with Cite a source.
- Check names and roles against the title page: editors are sometimes recorded as authors.
- Rewrite each entry in your department's form, with Italian capitals.
- For checking, paste a copy in the author-date list form ("Garroni E. (1986)…"): in our test it verified a book the footnote form missed.
- Run it through Verify references and look into every "check this" and "not found".
Which EdCitation tools help with Italian references?
For the final check, Verify references is the best tool: it compares each entry with the publisher's record and the library catalogues rather than its punctuation, which no chatbot can do. The four tools below cost nothing and need no account, and none of them writes any part of a student's paper: EdCitation looks references up, it does not compose them.
Cite a source: no Italian forms yet
Cite a source offers six styles (APA 7, Harvard, MLA 9, IEEE, Vancouver and Chicago 18 author-date) and none of the Italian forms: no footnotes, no autore-data, no UNI ISO 690. From the DOI of Cardinaletti and Mantovan (2023), APA returned:
Cardinaletti, A., & Mantovan, L. (2023). Le lingue dei segni nel “Volume Complementare” e l’insegnamento della LIS nelle Università italiane. Italiano LinguaDue, 14(2), 113–128. https://doi.org/10.54103/2037-3597/19575
MLA returned:
Cardinaletti, Anna, and Lara Mantovan. “Le lingue dei segni nel ‘Volume Complementare’ e l’insegnamento della LIS nelle Università italiane.” Italiano LinguaDue, vol. 14, no. 2, Jan. 2023, pp. 113–28, https://doi.org/10.54103/2037-3597/19575.
The accented à survived, and the record's capitals were put right. "Volume Complementare" and "Università" follow the authors' own capitals. The journal files the article in its 2022 issue, published online on 18 January 2023, and the record says 2023: check which year your style wants. For the AIB's own example article (Bertrand, 2013), APA left out pages 109-116, which the AIB gives, because the DOI's record has none: add them by hand.
Verify references on an Italian list
We pasted five footnote-form entries, then four list-form ones. Verify references returned:
- Cardinaletti and Mantovan, dated 2022: "check this", "The work was published in 2023, not 2022; the record has no date in 2022." Fair, given the issue year.
- Bertrand, as the AIB prints it and with a comma after the surname: verified, "The DOI resolves to this record and the title matches."
- Garroni, in Pisa's footnote form, as "GARRONI, Emilio" and as "Garroni E. (1986)": verified each time, "Title, author and year match a library catalogue record."
- Bobbio's L'età dei diritti, dated 1992 as in Florence's example: "check this", "A book with this title and author is catalogued, but no edition from 1992 is recorded. Check the edition and year." Open Library lists only the Einaudi edition of 1990; as "Bobbio N. (1990)" it was verified.
- "N. Bobbio, L'età dei diritti, cit., p. 58.": could not be checked, "This note points back to an earlier one (cit., ibid.), so it is not a full reference. Check the full entry it refers to."
An Italian book the catalogue does not hold comes back "not found" and may still be real: search a library catalogue such as the national OPAC SBN before dropping it.
Find sources in Italian
Find sources searches about 300 million published works. "insegnamento della lingua dei segni italiana" reported 181,528 records; the first eight were on Italian Sign Language, the grammar above among them, before a 2011 thesis on teaching Italian in Greece. There is no language filter.
Check your paper on an Italian brief
Check your paper does not read Italian rules yet. Given Palermo's philosophy guidelines, it returned no rules: it missed Times New Roman 12, 1.5 spacing, margins of 2 and 3.5 cm and the 30-cartelle limit, and set nothing aside. Translate the brief into English first, and read the checklist against the original.
Pro at $8 a month adds References from a file; Theoretics QA, in Max at $24 a month, judges a paper against its brief. See pricing, and French citation norms for French notes.
Quick questions
What is the difference between ivi and ibidem?
Ivi means the same work as the note directly before, at a different page, so it takes a page number. Ibidem means the same work and the same page, and stands alone.
Can I use op. cit. in an Italian thesis?
Some guides allow it: Padova for any earlier work, Florence only where it cannot be misread. The AIB and Florence also use the short title with cit., which is the safer choice.
Do I have to use small capitals for authors?
Only if your department asks. Florence's and Venice's law rules want the surname in maiuscoletto; Pisa's philosophy rules and the AIB use ordinary type.
Does EdCitation build Italian references or UNI ISO 690?
No. EdCitation's Cite a source gives English-language styles only; take a work's details from its APA entry, rewrite it in your department's form, then check the list with Verify references.
Is UNI ISO 690 the Italian citation style?
No. UNI ISO 690:2021 is Italy's edition of the international guidelines, and none of the university guides read here asks a thesis to follow it.
References
- Amoroso, L., & Paoletti, G. (n.d.). Alcune norme tipografiche per la redazione dell'elaborato di tesi [PDF]. Corso di studi in Filosofia, Università di Pisa. https://www.cfs.unipi.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/CDS-FIL-Norme-Redazione-Tesi.pdf
- Associazione Italiana Biblioteche. (2021). Norme per le citazioni bibliografiche e la bibliografia finale. AIB WEB. https://www.aib.it/pubblicazioni/libri/norme-redazionali-citazioni/
- Bertrand, A.-M. (2013). Le biblioteche pubbliche in Francia oggi. AIB studi, 53(1), 109–116. https://doi.org/10.2426/aibstudi-8877
- Branchini, C., & Mantovan, L. (Eds.). (2022). Grammatica della lingua dei segni italiana (LIS). Edizioni Ca' Foscari. https://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-645-9
- Cardinaletti, A., & Mantovan, L. (2023). Le lingue dei segni nel “Volume Complementare” e l’insegnamento della LIS nelle Università italiane. Italiano LinguaDue, 14(2), 113–128. https://doi.org/10.54103/2037-3597/19575
- Garroni, E. (1986). Senso e paradosso: L'estetica, filosofia non speciale. Laterza. https://openlibrary.org/works/OL2374390W
- Sacco, L. (2024). La tesi di laurea, le note & le citazioni bibliografiche: Criteri redazionali [Slides]. Biblioteca Interdipartimentale di Scienze Giuridiche, Sapienza Università di Roma. https://bisg.web.uniroma1.it/sites/default/files/download/Tesi%20di%20laurea,%20note%20e%20citazioni%20bibliografiche.%20Criteri%20redazionali%20%2027.09.2024.pdf
- Scuola di Giurisprudenza, Università degli Studi di Firenze. (n.d.). Linee guida per la stesura della tesi di laurea [PDF]. https://www.giurisprudenza.unifi.it/upload/sub/scdidattica/per-laurearsi/vademecum-laureandi/6.pdf
- Sistema bibliotecario d'ateneo, Università di Pisa. (2017). Citazioni bibliografiche: Lettura e scrittura [PDF]. https://www.sba.unipi.it/sites/default/files/attached_page_documents/citazioni_bibliografiche_2017.pdf
- Sistema Bibliotecario di Ateneo, Università di Padova. (n.d.-a). Gestione bibliografie. https://biblio.unipd.it/strumenti-di-ricerca/gestione-bibliografie
- Sistema Bibliotecario di Ateneo, Università di Padova. (n.d.-b). Suggerimenti per la scrittura della tesi (manuale scaricabile). Moodle SBA. https://elearning.unipd.it/sba/mod/book/tool/print/index.php?id=357
- UNI Ente Italiano di Normazione. (2021). UNI ISO 690:2021 Informazione e documentazione: Raccomandazioni per i riferimenti bibliografici e le citazioni di risorse informative [Catalogue entry]. UNI Store. https://store.uni.com/uni-iso-690-2021
- Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Dipartimento di Economia. (n.d.). Norme redazionali per le tesi a contenuto giuridico [PDF]. https://www.unive.it/web/fileadmin/user_upload/dipartimenti/DEC/doc/tesi/Norme_redazionali_per_la_tesi_a_contenuto_giuridico_carta_intestata.pdf
- Università degli Studi di Palermo. (n.d.). Norme redazionali per le tesi di laurea [Corsi di studio in filosofia, PDF]. https://www.unipa.it/dipartimenti/scienzeumanistiche/cds/studifilosoficiestorici2184/.content/documenti/Norme-per-lediting-delle-tesi-di-laurea-dei-Corsi-di-Studio-in-filosofia.pdf
- Università di Bologna, Dipartimento di Lingue, Letterature e Culture Moderne. (n.d.-a). Sistema autore-data. Vademecum: norme per la redazione della prova finale. https://lingue.unibo.it/it/didattica/progetti-e-metodologie-didattiche/percorsi-permanenti-di-didattica-innovativa/vademecum-norme-per-la-redazione-della-prova-finale/sistema-autore-data
- Università di Bologna, Dipartimento di Lingue, Letterature e Culture Moderne. (n.d.-b). Sistema autore-opera. Vademecum: norme per la redazione della prova finale. https://lingue.unibo.it/it/didattica/progetti-e-metodologie-didattiche/percorsi-permanenti-di-didattica-innovativa/vademecum-norme-per-la-redazione-della-prova-finale/sistema-autore-opera