Median

The Median culture covers the people of central Italy, in Lazio, Umbria and the Marche, whose vernaculars, the Central Italian dialects or dialetti mediani, descend from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman countryside. Romanesco, the speech of Rome, is its best-known member.

In 1337 these lands formed the core of the Papal States, although the popes then resided at Avignon; feuding baronial families dominated Rome, where in 1347 Cola di Rienzo briefly set up a popular republic. Medieval Romanesco had its own literature, including the chronicle of the Anonimo Romano, though Dante judged it the coarsest of Italy's vernaculars.

After the papal court returned to Rome in 1377 and the city became a Renaissance capital, Romanesco was deeply reshaped by Tuscan, the basis of the emerging standard written Italian, while smaller town dialects kept their older features. The Napoleonic years brought the short-lived Roman Republic of 1798 and French annexation from 1809 to 1814, after which papal rule was restored.