🔍 In short. In formal and literary Italian, questi and quegli are singular masculine subject pronouns that refer to a person already named: questi points to the one mentioned closer to the verb (the latter, the more recent), while quegli points to the one mentioned earlier (the former, the more distant). They are not the plurals of questo and quello. You meet them in nineteenth-century novels, in legal prose, in academic essays, in scholarly footnotes. Knowing how italian questi quegli work lets you read formal Italian without stumbling and lets you write a thesis or a formal report in a register that sounds genuinely Italian.
The point of this guide is practical. We will look at when a writer reaches for italian questi quegli instead of lui, il primo, or quest’ultimo; how to tell them apart from the homographic plural adjectives; how they relate to the family of costui, colui and codesto; and which mistakes English speakers tend to make when they translate “the former” and “the latter” too literally. Every example is built around situations a C1 learner actually meets: a university defense, a legal opinion, a literary essay, a conference panel.
Cosa impareremo oggi
👆🏻 Jump to sections
- Questi as “he, the one just mentioned”
- Quegli as “he, the one mentioned earlier”
- The former and the latter in pairs
- How they differ from costui, colui, lui
- Subject only: case, gender, number
- Italian questi quegli in academic writing
- Legal and bureaucratic Italian
- Nineteenth-century prose and beyond
- Where they survive in modern essays
- Mistakes English speakers make
- Cheat sheet for italian questi quegli
- Dialogue: Eleonora and Fabrizio in Padova
Questi as “he, the one just mentioned”
Imagine a footnote in a biography of Foscolo. The previous sentence has just named the poet. The next sentence opens with italian questi quegli in its most common form: Questi nacque a Zante nel 1778. The pronoun questi, the first half of the italian questi quegli pair, picks up the male subject the writer mentioned a moment ago, and saves the reader from rereading the name or from the heavier egli. It works like English he, but it carries a faint scholarly flag: only formal prose uses italian questi quegli forms, and only when the antecedent is a male human already in the discourse.
The trap with italian questi quegli is that questi looks identical to the masculine plural adjective in questi libri “these books”. The difference lives in the syntax. When questi stands alone, with no noun next to it, and occupies the subject slot of a verb, it is the singular literary pronoun. When it agrees with a plural masculine noun, it is the ordinary adjective. Readers tell the two apart by the singular verb that follows the pronoun: questi rispose, never questi risposero.
- Il professor Cattaneo congedò il dottorando dopo la difesa; questi raccolse i fogli e uscì dall’aula senza voltarsi.
- Il bibliotecario di Palazzo Bo accompagnò Fabrizio nella sala manoscritti; questi consultò per ore i taccuini di Foscolo, prendendo appunti a matita su un quaderno a quadretti.
- Il presidente di commissione interruppe il candidato; questi rimase in silenzio, le mani strette sul leggio, e attese che gli venisse riformulata la domanda.
Quegli as “he, the one mentioned earlier”
If questi takes the nearer antecedent, quegli takes the more distant one. The two halves of italian questi quegli operate as a calibrated pair: quegli is the literary cousin of egli, and it has become genuinely rare. Most contemporary writers reach for egli or for a paraphrase rather than risk an italian questi quegli form some readers will not recognise. When quegli does appear, it tends to sit in a paired construction with questi, where the contrast between “the former” and “the latter” needs an elegant solution.
You will also meet the italian questi quegli pronoun quegli standing alone, picking up a male subject from a few lines back. This is the use you find in nineteenth-century narrative, where a paragraph opens with the verb of a character whose name the reader recalls from a previous scene. The effect is to keep the narrative voice formal and to avoid the colloquial flavour of lui. A modern essayist would probably rewrite the sentence with the proper name; an editor preparing a critical edition would leave quegli in place and add a brief gloss.
- Eleonora aspettò il relatore davanti al dipartimento di filologia; quegli arrivò con quaranta minuti di ritardo, scusandosi per un consiglio di facoltà finito oltre l’orario.
- Il magistrato convocò il perito calligrafico in udienza preliminare; quegli depose con voce ferma sul confronto tra le due grafie, mostrando alla corte due lucidi proiettati sulla parete.
- Lo studente fissò il professore di letteratura italiana durante la prolusione inaugurale; quegli non lo notò, assorto nella lettura del proprio testo, e proseguì fino all’ultima riga.
The former and the latter in pairs
The most distinctive use of italian questi quegli is the paired construction where italian questi quegli together replace “the latter” and “the former”. When a writer has just named two male figures and wants to talk about each, the pair questi … quegli tags them by position in the sentence. Questi refers to the second name (the one nearer to the pronoun, the latter); quegli refers to the first name (the one farther from the pronoun, the former). Many English speakers find this counterintuitive, because English “the former” comes first in the sentence and refers to the first name. Italian flips the linear order: the pronoun closer to the antecedent in the original sentence picks up the antecedent that is linearly closer.
A useful image for italian questi quegli: think of the two names as two columns. Questo always points to the right-hand column, the one nearer in the sentence and therefore last named; quello always points to the left-hand column, the one farther and therefore first named. The same logic governs italian questi quegli in their literary form. Read a paragraph from a humanities journal in which two thinkers or two writers are compared, and you will see the pattern at work.
- Foscolo e Manzoni rappresentano due stagioni del Romanticismo italiano: quegli morì esule a Turnham Green, questi nel salotto di via Morone a Milano.
- Verga e D’Annunzio si contesero il pubblico di fine Ottocento: quegli con la prosa scarna del verismo siciliano, questi con l’opulenza del romanzo decadente.
- Pavese e Vittorini guidarono la narrativa Einaudi negli anni Quaranta: quegli curò la collana americana con traduzioni rimaste celebri, questi diresse i «Gettoni» dopo la guerra.
- Croce e Gentile collaborarono al programma della cultura idealista per oltre vent’anni: quegli rimase liberale anche dopo la rottura del 1925, questi aderì al regime fino agli ultimi mesi del 1944.
How they differ from costui, colui, lui
Italian has a small constellation of demonstrative-flavoured pronouns for human referents, and a C1 learner needs to keep italian questi quegli apart from their cousins. Lui is the everyday subject pronoun, neutral in register, used in speech and in most written prose. Egli is its formal twin, still found in essays and in legal texts. Costui introduces a person physically or contextually present, often with a pejorative or ironic flavour (“this guy here”). Colui appears almost exclusively in relative constructions: colui che parla è il direttore. Italian questi quegli sit in their own corner: they are anaphoric pronouns of formal register, used to pick up a previously named male person, with the additional pair-distinguishing function we just saw.
The choice between lui and the italian questi quegli pronouns is therefore a question of register and of textual cohesion. A novelist writing dialogue puts lui in his characters’ mouths. A scholar writing the introduction to a critical edition reaches for questi when the syntax of formal exposition calls for it. The two are not interchangeable: lui in a footnote of a doctoral thesis sounds out of place; questi in a coffee-bar conversation sounds either pedantic or ironic.
Subject only: case, gender, number
Three constraints govern italian questi quegli and you must respect all three to use the literary pair correctly. First, case: both italian questi quegli forms are subject pronouns. You cannot say *ho parlato a questi to mean “I spoke to him”: the indirect object slot requires a lui, a costui, or a noun phrase. Second, gender: both refer to a male human only. There is no feminine counterpart in standard usage; for women writers reach for costei in old prose or for lei in modern prose. Third, number: both are singular only. A group of male antecedents takes essi or costoro, never *questi with a plural verb.
If you keep these three constraints in mind, you avoid the classic confusion between italian questi quegli pronouns and the plural adjective. Questi libri sono pesanti shows the plural masculine adjective agreeing with libri; Questi sollevò il libro shows the singular literary pronoun governing a singular verb. Italian grammar does not punish the writer who keeps the two apart, but it does flag immediately the sentence that mixes italian questi quegli with the homographic adjective.
Mini-task. Identify whether questi in each sentence is the plural adjective or the literary pronoun, then translate the pronoun cases into English.
- Questi appunti vanno consegnati al relatore entro lunedì.
- Il presidente del seggio chiamò lo scrutatore; questi controllò la scheda contestata.
- Tra Carducci e Pascoli, quegli ottenne la cattedra di Bologna negli anni Sessanta dell’Ottocento, questi la ereditò nel 1905.
- Questi documenti appartengono all’archivio storico del comune di Padova.
- Il giudice di pace ascoltò il querelante; questi espose il fatto in cinque minuti senza esitare.
👉 Show answers
1. plural adjective (“these notes”) · 2. literary pronoun, “he checked” · 3. literary pronouns in pair: quegli = Carducci (the former), questi = Pascoli (the latter) · 4. plural adjective (“these documents”) · 5. literary pronoun, “he laid out”
Italian questi quegli in academic writing
Open a recent issue of a humanities journal published by a university press, and you will still meet italian questi quegli pronouns at work, especially in articles on philology, history, and law where italian questi quegli replace cumbersome paraphrases. The reason is economy. A scholar discussing two thinkers needs a way to refer back to each without repeating the surnames every two lines and without resorting to the bland il primo … il secondo. The pair questi … quegli solves the problem in one move and signals to the reader that the text belongs to a tradition of careful prose.
You will also find questi alone, opening a sentence that picks up a male subject from the previous one. This usage is more common in historiography than in literary criticism. The reader expects it; the writer relies on it. If you are drafting your tesi di laurea or your tesi di dottorato in a humanities department in Padova, Bologna, or Pisa, italian questi quegli are tools to know and to use sparingly, once or twice per chapter, where the antecedent is clear and the register justifies the choice.
Legal and bureaucratic Italian
Legal Italian preserves italian questi quegli more faithfully than ordinary prose does. A sentenza of the Corte di Cassazione, an avvocato’s pleadings, a notaio’s atto pubblico: all may reach for the italian questi quegli pronouns to refer to a party already named in the opening clause. The reason is the same as in academic writing, with an added layer: legal style values precision of reference, and a pronoun like questi that unambiguously points to “the male party just named” is more economical than restating the proper name.
If you are reading a contract or a court decision in Italian, do not assume that questi is a typo for questo. Check the verb: a singular verb tells you the pronoun is the literary subject form, picking up the masculine actor of the previous clause. Some bureaucratic genres in regional administrations still produce documents in this register; institutional usage notes, including the entry on questi e altri pronomi soggetto from Treccani, list questi/quegli as acceptable in formal writing, alongside the more transparent il sopracitato and quest’ultimo.
Nineteenth-century prose and beyond
The italian questi quegli pair flourished in the nineteenth century, when Italian prose was consolidating its standard form and writers like Manzoni, Verga, and De Amicis worked out the syntactic moves that would become the literary norm. Open the Promessi Sposi at almost any chapter and you will find italian questi quegli doing the work of textual cohesion. Manzoni uses them often when two male characters interact and the narrative needs to alternate between them without losing the reader. By the early twentieth century, Pirandello and Svevo still use quegli for distant subjects, though less often than their predecessors did.
If you study Italian literature as a C1 learner, italian questi quegli become a reading aid rather than a writing tool, and spotting italian questi quegli quickly is part of the C1 reading skill set. Recognising them in Manzoni saves you from rereading the page twice; recognising them in Foscolo or in Pirandello lets you follow the chain of male subjects across long passages. Treccani’s grammatical entries note that quegli is now considerably rarer than questi, both in modern reprints of nineteenth-century classics and in contemporary critical apparatuses.
Where they survive in modern essays
Beyond university journals and law courts, italian questi quegli survive in a handful of modern genres where italian questi quegli still carry stylistic weight. Long-form essays in cultural magazines like il Mulino or Limes occasionally use the pair when comparing two thinkers, two statesmen, or two writers. Critical introductions to scholarly editions of classics use them as a matter of course. Some columnists, especially those trained in classical philology, still reach for questi as a stylistic mark of careful prose. You will not find them in newspapers’ general news pages, nor in marketing copy, nor in online journalism.
The Accademia della Crusca, which monitors evolutions of contemporary Italian, lists questi/quegli as a literary register feature whose survival depends on the genre. A writer who chooses them today is making a deliberate stylistic statement: the prose is meant to sound formal, learned, and continuous with the tradition of nineteenth-century narrative. A reader who recognises the pronouns receives the message and reads accordingly.
Mistakes English speakers make
The first mistake an English speaker makes with italian questi quegli is to read questi as a plural every time it appears. Sometimes it is; usually, in formal prose, it is not. The verb tells you. The second mistake is to invert the mapping with “the former” and “the latter”: English readers expect questi to mean “the former” because it sounds like “this one”, but in Italian the convention is the opposite. Questi = the latter, the more recent, the one closer in the sentence; quegli = the former, the earlier, the one farther in the sentence. Burn this into memory before drafting a thesis chapter.
The third mistake is to extend italian questi quegli to women, to inanimate objects, or to plural antecedents: italian questi quegli reject all three contexts. They cannot do any of these jobs. The fourth mistake is to slot them into a non-subject position: *ho visto questi ieri is not Italian; ho visto costui ieri or l’ho visto ieri are. The fifth and gentlest mistake is to overuse them: even a humanities scholar in Padova would write at most one or two paragraphs per chapter where the pair earns its place. If you find yourself reaching for questi in every other sentence, the prose is showing off, not communicating.
Cheat sheet for italian questi quegli
| Form | Meaning | Example | Register |
|---|---|---|---|
| questi | he, the one just named; the latter (closer in the sentence) | Il rettore salutò il neoeletto preside; questi rispose con un breve discorso. | formal / literary |
| quegli | he, the one named earlier; the former (farther in the sentence) | L’allievo attese a lungo il maestro; quegli arrivò solo a sera. | literary, increasingly rare |
| questi … quegli | the latter … the former (in a paired construction) | Foscolo e Manzoni: quegli morì esule, questi in patria. | academic / literary |
| lui / egli | he (neutral / formal) | Il professore entrò in aula. Lui ci salutò con un cenno. | spoken / formal |
| costui | this man (often pejorative or ironic) | Ma chi si crede di essere costui? | formal, expressive |
| colui | the one who (in relative constructions) | Colui che parla è il direttore di dipartimento. | formal |
Dialogue: Eleonora and Fabrizio in Padova
Eleonora and Fabrizio are doctoral students at the Università di Padova. They meet in the cortile of Palazzo Bo after a seminar on nineteenth-century Italian prose, and they discuss a passage from a critical introduction that left Eleonora puzzled. The register is formal but conversational, the kind of Italian you hear among C1+ speakers in a humanities department.
👱🏼♀️ Eleonora: Senti, sto leggendo l’introduzione critica a un’edizione dei Promessi Sposi e a un certo punto trovo quegli aveva già preparato la risposta. Mi è toccato rileggere mezza pagina per capire a quale personaggio rinviasse.
👨🏽🦱 Fabrizio: Perché ragioni in chiave moderna. La prosa formale segue la convenzione ottocentesca: quegli rinvia al soggetto più lontano nel periodo precedente, non a quello appena nominato.
👱🏼♀️ Eleonora: Quindi quegli sarebbe il personaggio menzionato due o tre righe prima, non l’ultimo del paragrafo.
👨🏽🦱 Fabrizio: Esatto. Se l’autore avesse voluto riferirsi all’ultimo nominato, avrebbe scelto questi, oppure avrebbe ripetuto il sostantivo. La distinzione non è ornamentale: il curatore conta sul lettore che la conosca.
👱🏼♀️ Eleonora: Ammetto che nei testi del Novecento questa precisione si è persa quasi del tutto. Calvino, che pure era attentissimo al ritmo della prosa, non avrebbe scritto così.
👨🏽🦱 Fabrizio: Calvino aveva un’altra musica in testa. Però se sfogli Gadda, o le pagine critiche di Pavese sui narratori americani, troverai ancora il pronome letterario, magari mediato dall’ironia. E nei saggi di filosofia idealista, dove si confrontano Croce e Gentile, lo trovi quasi a ogni pagina: quegli rimase liberale, questi aderì al regime.
👱🏼♀️ Eleonora: Allora per la mia tesi sulla pubblicistica risorgimentale dovrò abituarmi a riconoscerlo, non solo a parafrasarlo.
👨🏽🦱 Fabrizio: Riconoscerlo è il primo passo. Usarlo nella tua prosa critica è il secondo: il relatore se ne accorge, e il lettore della commissione anche. Ma con misura: una o due volte per capitolo, dove la sintassi lo richiede davvero.
👱🏼♀️ Eleonora: Ieri sera ho riletto una pagina di un saggio di filologia su Foscolo in cui questi e quegli si alternavano nel giro di tre righe, e mi è parso di assistere a un dialogo silenzioso tra due figure storiche.
👨🏽🦱 Fabrizio: È proprio quello l’effetto. La prosa formale costruisce uno spazio in cui i soggetti maschili si rincorrono senza che il narratore debba mai ripetere i nomi. Una volta che hai l’orecchio, lo apprezzi.
👱🏼♀️ Eleonora: Mi suggeriresti un esercizio per allenarmi?
👨🏽🦱 Fabrizio: Prendi un capitolo di Manzoni in cui due personaggi maschili si confrontano, evidenzia ogni occorrenza di questi e di quegli, e ricostruisci l’antecedente. Dopo dieci pagine, il meccanismo ti sarà chiaro.
🎯 Mini-challenge. Rewrite each sentence replacing quest’ultimo, il primo or il secondo with the literary pronoun questi or quegli. Mind the linear order in the sentence.
- La commissione convocò il dottorando di filologia romanza. Quest’ultimo si presentò con la tesi sotto il braccio.
- Carducci e Pascoli segnarono due epoche bolognesi: il primo inaugurò la cattedra negli anni Sessanta dell’Ottocento, il secondo la occupò dal 1905.
- Il rettore chiamò il preside di facoltà nel suo studio. Quest’ultimo entrò e si accomodò di fronte alla scrivania.
- Foscolo e Manzoni vissero in due Italia diverse: il primo morì esule a Turnham Green, il secondo restò in patria fino al 1873.
- Il presidente di seggio si rivolse allo scrutatore. Quest’ultimo annuì e firmò il verbale.
👉 Show answers
1. … questi si presentò … · 2. … quegli inaugurò la cattedra negli anni Sessanta dell’Ottocento, questi la occupò dal 1905 · 3. … questi entrò … · 4. … quegli morì esule a Turnham Green, questi restò in patria fino al 1873 · 5. … questi annuì …
Test your understanding
Take the quiz below to test what you have learned about italian questi quegli and their literary use.
Frequently asked questions
The following questions gather the doubts that most often surface in C1 classes and in editorial offices when italian questi quegli enter a text. The institutional entry on questi e altri pronomi soggetto from Treccani and the Accademia della Crusca’s notes on literary register provide the framework; the answers below translate that framework into practical advice for learners and writers.
Is questi the same word as the plural these?
No. The literary pronoun questi is singular and refers to one male person already named in the discourse. The homographic plural adjective questi agrees with a masculine plural noun, as in questi libri. The verb following the form tells you which one is at work: a singular verb signals the literary pronoun.
When should I use questi instead of lui?
Use questi only in formal written Italian where the antecedent is a male human just named and the register justifies a literary choice. In speech, in journalism, in informal prose, lui is the right form. In academic writing, in legal documents, in critical editions, questi sounds appropriate.
Can quegli refer to a woman or to a thing?
No. Both questi and quegli refer exclusively to a male human being. For a female subject use lei in modern prose or costei in older formal prose. For an inanimate or plural antecedent, use the appropriate demonstrative or personal pronoun.
What is the difference between questi-quegli and costui-colui?
Costui is deictic and often pejorative, pointing to someone present or in view, while colui appears almost exclusively as the antecedent of a relative clause. Questi and quegli are anaphoric pronouns of the formal written register: they pick up a male subject already named, with no necessary ironic or relative flavour.
Do contemporary writers still use these forms?
Yes, in restricted genres. You meet them in humanities journals, in critical introductions to scholarly editions, in legal decisions, and in long-form essays in cultural magazines. They are absent from general news, marketing copy, and online journalism. A modern writer who chooses them is making a deliberate stylistic statement.
Why does questi mean the latter and quegli the former?
The convention reflects linear position in the sentence. Questi points to the antecedent closer to the pronoun, which is the one named most recently, the latter. Quegli points to the antecedent farther from the pronoun, which is the one named earlier, the former. English speakers find this counterintuitive because in English the former comes first; in Italian the pronoun nearer to its antecedent picks up that antecedent.
Ready for the next step?
All our classes are live on Zoom with a native Italian teacher, in small groups. If this lesson matches your level, take it further with real practice.
Quattro Chiacchiere
Corso di gruppo B2-C1 · in diretta su Zoom
Immersione totale in italiano con un insegnante madrelingua. Solo in italiano, niente inglese: lettura, conversazione e sfumature della lingua reale.
- Piccoli gruppi, massimo 4 studenti — lezioni settimanali su Zoom
- Lettura, vocabolario, grammatica e ascolto, tutto in italiano
- Cicli di 4 lezioni, ci si può unire in qualsiasi momento
- Compiti dopo ogni lezione, corretti dal tuo insegnante
Individual classes
One-to-one · any level · live on Zoom
Private lessons with your dedicated native Italian teacher, fully tailored to your goals and schedule, from absolute beginner to advanced.
- 55-minute individual Zoom lessons, your dedicated teacher
- Personalised level assessment included
- Interactive online materials — homework after each lesson
- Flexible weekly schedule or pay-as-you-go package
Related guides
Italian questi quegli sit inside a family of formal demonstrative pronouns. If you want to round out your C1 reading toolkit, the following guides cover the closest relatives and the broader system. The entry on demonstrative pronouns at the Treccani Enciclopedia complements these reads with examples drawn from classical Italian literature.
