🔍 In short. Beyond decimo, italian special ordinals follow one tidy rule: take the cardinal number, drop the final vowel, add -esimo. So undici becomes undicesimo (11th), dodici becomes dodicesimo (12th), venti becomes ventesimo (20th), cento becomes centesimo (100th), mille becomes millesimo (1000th). Two small exceptions keep the vowel: numbers ending in -tré (ventitreesimo) and -sei (ventiseiesimo). For popes, kings and centuries you may still meet older Latin-style forms such as decimoprimo, vigesimoterzo, or Pio undecimo, always placed after the noun. And when you read papa Giovanni XXIII aloud, you say ventitreesimo, never ventitré. This B1 guide walks you through the regular rule, the special Latin forms still in use, and how to talk about popes, kings, centuries and chapters like a confident native reader.
Cosa impareremo oggi
👆🏻 Jump to section
- The one-line rule for italian special ordinals
- From undicesimo to millesimo: the regular list
- Two small traps: -tré and -sei keep the vowel
- Agreement in gender and number
- Popes and monarchs: reading Roman numerals out loud
- The Latin-style forms: decimoprimo, vigesimoterzo
- Centuries: il secolo tredicesimo or il Duecento?
- Where the ordinal sits: before or after the noun
- Cheat sheet
- Dialogue: Eustachio and Velia at the Rieti library
- Mini-challenge
- Frequently asked questions
- Related guides
The one-line rule for italian special ordinals
The first ten italian special ordinals are unique words you simply memorise: primo, secondo, terzo, quarto, quinto, sesto, settimo, ottavo, nono, decimo. From eleven onwards the rule snaps into place and stays the same all the way to a thousand and beyond, and the family of italian special ordinals expands without limit. Take the cardinal, chop the final vowel, glue on -esimo. That’s it. Undici becomes undicesimo, venti becomes ventesimo, cento becomes centesimo, mille becomes millesimo. Once you internalise this small operation, every number you can pronounce can be turned into one of the italian special ordinals without further memorising.
From undicesimo to millesimo: the regular list
Here is the full set of common italian special ordinals a B1 student should recognise on sight. Picture them on the floor buttons of a building, on a calendar at the Rieti town hall, on the table of contents of any book you open in an Italian library. These italian special ordinals are the working vocabulary of every newspaper, every textbook, every guidebook.
- Eustachio abita all’undicesimo piano del palazzo nuovo di via Garibaldi.
- Il dodicesimo capitolo del manuale tratta i papi del Novecento.
- Velia ha finito la tredicesima pagina del saggio prima di pranzo.
- La quattordicesima edizione del convegno si tiene quest’anno a Rieti.
- Stiamo entrando nella quindicesima settimana di lezione.
- La sedicesima fila del teatro romano è la più scomoda di tutte.
- Quest’anno cade il diciassettesimo anniversario della fondazione del corso.
- Per il diciottesimo compleanno Eustachio ha ricevuto un’edizione antica della Divina Commedia.
- Velia insegna nella ventesima aula del dipartimento di storia.
- La centesima lezione del corso sarà aperta al pubblico.
- Per la millesima volta, controlla le citazioni prima di consegnare la tesi.
Notice that the suffix -esimo shared by all italian special ordinals is invariable as a piece of word-formation, but the whole ordinal then behaves like any normal Italian adjective, agreeing in gender and number with the noun it accompanies. We’ll come back to agreement of italian special ordinals in a moment.
Two small traps: -tré and -sei keep the vowel
The rule “drop the final vowel” for italian special ordinals has two stable exceptions. Cardinal numbers ending in -tré (twenty-three, thirty-three, forty-three, and so on) keep the final e: ventitré becomes ventitreesimo, never ventitresimo. Cardinal numbers ending in -sei (twenty-six, thirty-six, forty-six…) keep the final i: ventisei becomes ventiseiesimo. The reason is pronunciation: dropping the vowel would create a cluster Italian ears would refuse to read smoothly. These two micro-exceptions are the only friction in an otherwise transparent system of italian special ordinals.
- Velia festeggia il ventitreesimo anniversario di matrimonio quest’estate.
- Siamo arrivati alla trentatreesima pagina del primo capitolo.
- Il ventiseiesimo piano dell’edificio non ha l’ascensore funzionante.
- Quarantatreesimo posto in classifica: niente male per una squadra di provincia.
- Cinquantaseiesima edizione della Mostra del Cinema, dice il manifesto del 1999.
🎯 Mini-challenge: Turn the cardinal in brackets into the matching ranking form.
- Abito al (12) ___ piano di un palazzo di Rieti.
- Per la (1000) ___ volta ti dico di non parlare al telefono in biblioteca.
- Velia è arrivata (23) ___ alla maratona di Roma.
- Il (26) ___ capitolo è il più lungo del libro.
- Stiamo studiando il (20) ___ secolo, quello di Pirandello.
👉 See answers
1. dodicesimo piano
2. per la millesima volta (feminine, agrees with volta)
3. ventitreesima (the -e of -tré stays)
4. il ventiseiesimo capitolo (the -i of -sei stays)
5. il ventesimo secolo
Agreement in gender and number
Italian special ordinals behave like full-blown adjectives. They change ending to match the noun in gender and number: masculine singular -o, feminine singular -a, masculine plural -i, feminine plural -e. This holds for the regular type of italian special ordinals and for the Latin-style type we’ll meet in a moment.
- Il quindicesimo posto in classifica. (masculine singular)
- La quindicesima edizione del festival. (feminine singular)
- I primi quindicesimi posti della graduatoria. (masculine plural)
- Le quindicesime edizioni dei convegni regionali. (feminine plural)
- Una millesima parte della popolazione. (feminine singular: -esima)
- I centesimi anniversari delle fondazioni religiose. (masculine plural: -esimi)
This is the same agreement system you already know from any descriptive word: buono, buona, buoni, buone. There is no extra rule to learn for italian special ordinals, only the reflex to apply.
Popes and monarchs: reading Roman numerals out loud
Here is one of the most useful pieces of Italian general culture for any reader of newspapers, history books, or museum captions. With popes, kings, queens, princes, dukes the name is written with a Roman numeral and read as one of the italian special ordinals, not as a cardinal. Papa Giovanni XXIII is read out loud as papa Giovanni ventitreesimo, never papa Giovanni ventitré. Regina Elisabetta II is regina Elisabetta seconda. Re Carlo III is re Carlo terzo. This is the single most visible application of italian special ordinals in modern news writing.
Two further details make this construction unmistakable. First, the ranking word comes after the proper name, not before: Carlo quinto, not il quinto Carlo. Second, no definite article appears between name and number: Italian does not say Giovanni il ventitreesimo, only Giovanni ventitreesimo. English wraps the number in “the”, Italian leaves it bare.
- Papa Giovanni XXIII (ventitreesimo) convocò il Concilio Vaticano II (secondo) nel 1962.
- Benedetto XVI (sedicesimo) rinunciò al pontificato nel 2013.
- Pio XII (dodicesimo) fu papa dal 1939 al 1958.
- Vittorio Emanuele II (secondo) fu il primo re d’Italia unita.
- Elisabetta II (seconda) regnò sul Regno Unito per oltre settant’anni.
- Luigi XIV (quattordicesimo) costruì la reggia di Versailles.
There is a marginal habit, borrowed from French, of reading these numbers as plain cardinals when talking about styles of antique furniture: stile Luigi quattordici, Luigi quindici, Luigi sedici. It exists, but it is considered borrowed and is generally discouraged for the names of the monarchs themselves. Stick with italian special ordinals and you will always be on solid ground. The Treccani entry on numerals calls the cardinal-only variant sconsigliabile and recommends italian special ordinals for sovereign names.
The Latin-style forms: decimoprimo, vigesimoterzo
Italian holds a second, older set of italian special ordinals inherited from Latin tradition. They were standard until the nineteenth century and are still met today in three precise zones: names of popes in older church documents, chapter and stanza numbers in literary editions, and centuries in elevated prose. These Latin-style italian special ordinals are built by gluing the ranking word for the multiple of ten (decimo, ventesimo, trentesimo) onto the ranking word for the unit (primo, secondo, terzo). They always follow the noun.
- 11th = decimoprimo (or undecimo)
- 12th = decimosecondo (or duodecimo)
- 13th = decimoterzo
- 14th = decimoquarto
- 15th = decimoquinto
- 16th = decimosesto
- 17th = decimosettimo
- 18th = decimottavo
- 19th = decimonono
- 20th = vigesimo
- 21st = vigesimoprimo, 23rd = vigesimoterzo
- 30th = trigesimo, 40th = quadragesimo, 50th = quinquagesimo
- 60th = sessagesimo, 70th = settuagesimo, 80th = ottagesimo, 90th = nonagesimo
You will see these archaic italian special ordinals on the spine of an old volume (Capitolo decimoprimo), inside a museum caption (Pio undecimo), inside an art history essay (L’Italia del secolo decimoterzo). You are not expected to produce them in everyday speech: a Rieti pharmacist sending you to the eleventh floor will say undicesimo piano, not decimoprimo piano. But you should recognise them when reading, because the regular italian special ordinals (undicesimo, dodicesimo) and the Latin forms (decimoprimo, decimosecondo) refer to exactly the same number.
Centuries: il secolo tredicesimo or il Duecento?
Italian has not one but three ways to name a century, and a B1 reader meets all three within the same page. Two of them rely on italian special ordinals. The Roman numeral form (il XIII secolo) is the most neutral and dominates textbooks and museum panels: silently read aloud, the Roman numeral becomes one of the italian special ordinals (tredicesimo). The ranking word form (il secolo tredicesimo or il tredicesimo secolo) writes the same italian special ordinals out in letters, a notch higher in register and typical of older essays. The cardinal nickname form (il Duecento, il Trecento, il Quattrocento) is the favourite of art critics and literary scholars and refers to the same period as the previous Roman-numeral century minus one. Only this third form skips italian special ordinals entirely.
That last point catches everyone out the first time, so let’s say it twice. Il Duecento = the years 1200-1299 = il tredicesimo secolo = il XIII secolo. The cardinal nickname keeps the hundreds digit only, while the ranking word counts the century by its place in history. Six examples to lock the system in.
- San Francesco visse nel Duecento, ovvero nel tredicesimo secolo.
- Dante scrisse la Commedia tra il Duecento e il Trecento, dunque a cavallo tra il XIII e il XIV secolo.
- Petrarca e Boccaccio appartengono al Trecento, cioè al quattordicesimo secolo.
- L’Umanesimo fiorì nel Quattrocento, ovvero nel quindicesimo secolo.
- Eustachio sta preparando un esame sul Seicento, il diciassettesimo secolo, l’epoca di Galileo.
- Il Novecento, il ventesimo secolo, è il periodo che interessa di più a Velia.
If the conversation has stayed in modern times, Italians will often skip the noun secolo altogether and simply use the cardinal nickname instead of italian special ordinals: nel Novecento, negli anni Settanta, la letteratura del Cinquecento. The nickname carries the whole meaning, no italian special ordinals required.
Where the ordinal sits: before or after the noun
The default position for italian special ordinals is before the noun, mirroring the English habit. You say la quinta volta, il terzo piano, la dodicesima edizione. There are three precise zones where italian special ordinals flip and follow the noun instead.
- Names of sovereigns, popes, princes: Carlo quinto, Benedetto sedicesimo, Alberto primo, Vittorio Emanuele secondo.
- Positions in a sequence of texts (chapters, cantos, theatre acts, songs of a collection): capitolo terzo, canto ventesimo, atto primo, scena quarta.
- Centuries when paired with the noun secolo: il secolo tredicesimo (alternative to il tredicesimo secolo, both correct).
And one last useful word at this level. Among italian special ordinals there is ennesimo, literally “the nth”, originally a mathematical term, now widely used in journalism and informal speech to mean “yet another”, “the umpteenth”, usually with a note of exasperation: per l’ennesima volta ti chiedo di chiudere la porta (for the umpteenth time I’m asking you to close the door), ennesimo incidente al cantiere di via Roma.
Cheat sheet
This cheat sheet pulls the main italian special ordinals into one compact view, from the regular eleven-and-up forms to the Latin-style alternatives. Keep it open while you read newspapers or papal history and the most useful italian special ordinals will lodge themselves in memory within a week.
| Number | Regular form | Latin-style form | Used for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | undicesimo | decimoprimo, undecimo | floor, chapter, century |
| 12 | dodicesimo | decimosecondo, duodecimo | chapter, pope (Pio XII) |
| 13 | tredicesimo | decimoterzo | chapter, century (XIII) |
| 14 | quattordicesimo | decimoquarto | century, king (Luigi XIV) |
| 16 | sedicesimo | decimosesto | pope (Benedetto XVI) |
| 20 | ventesimo | vigesimo | century (XX), edition |
| 23 | ventitreesimo | vigesimoterzo | pope (Giovanni XXIII) |
| 26 | ventiseiesimo | vigesimosesto | chapter, anniversary |
| 100 | centesimo | none in common use | anniversary, edition |
| 1000 | millesimo | none in common use | iterative (“for the thousandth time”) |
Dialogue: Eustachio and Velia at the Rieti library
Eustachio is preparing an exam in papal history at the University of Rieti. He bumps into Velia, his thesis supervisor, on the stairs of the central library. Notice how naturally they switch between regular italian special ordinals (undicesimo, ventitreesimo), Latin-style forms for popes (Pio undecimo), and the cardinal nicknames for centuries (il Novecento).
- 👨🏼🦰 Eustachio: Velia, scusi il disturbo. Sto cercando il volume sull’undicesimo capitolo della storia papale moderna, ma sullo scaffale non c’è.
- 👩🏽🦱 Velia: Lo hanno spostato al ventiseiesimo scaffale, secondo piano. La nuova classificazione l’hanno fatta il mese scorso.
- 👨🏼🦰 Eustachio: Ah, ecco perché non lo trovavo. Mi serve per il paragrafo su Pio undecimo e i Patti Lateranensi del 1929.
- 👩🏽🦱 Velia: Stai citando la forma latineggiante, bene. Ricorda però che nel testo principale conviene usare la forma corrente. Pio undicesimo nel corpo del saggio, Pio undecimo solo nelle citazioni dei documenti d’epoca.
- 👨🏼🦰 Eustachio: Una distinzione che non avevo colto. E per Giovanni ventitreesimo cosa mi consiglia?
- 👩🏽🦱 Velia: Forma normale, ventitreesimo. La variante vigesimoterzo si trova solo nei documenti vaticani in latino tradotti. Nel tuo capitolo, che parla del ventesimo secolo, restiamo sul registro corrente.
- 👨🏼🦰 Eustachio: Quindi quando parlo del Novecento posso scrivere indifferentemente Novecento o ventesimo secolo?
- 👩🏽🦱 Velia: Sì, ma alterna le due forme. Tre Novecento di fila stancano l’orecchio del lettore. E ricorda che il Trecento copre gli anni 1300-1399, quindi è il quattordicesimo secolo, non il tredicesimo. È l’errore più frequente nelle tesi del primo anno.
- 👨🏼🦰 Eustachio: Me lo segno subito. Senta, per la millesima volta le devo chiedere scusa, ma ho perso le note sul Concilio Vaticano secondo. Le ha lei la fotocopia che mi aveva passato?
- 👩🏽🦱 Velia: Ce l’ho nello studio. Passa al ventunesimo piano del rettorato verso le quattro, te ne stampo una copia nuova. E porta il caffè.
- 👨🏼🦰 Eustachio: Affare fatto. A più tardi, Velia.
- 👩🏽🦱 Velia: A più tardi. E non perdere anche questa, mi raccomando.
What to notice in the dialogue
- Undicesimo capitolo, ventiseiesimo scaffale: ordinary regular forms, placed before the noun.
- Pio undecimo vs Pio undicesimo: Velia explains the register split. Old Latin-style form only in document citations, regular form in modern academic prose.
- Giovanni ventitreesimo: regular ranking word, no article between name and number.
- Vigesimoterzo: the Latin alternative, mentioned as a recognition item, not as a production target.
- Novecento and ventesimo secolo: the cardinal nickname and the ranking-word phrase, both refer to 1900-1999.
- Il Trecento copre 1300-1399, quindi è il quattordicesimo secolo: the classic trap. Cardinal nickname keeps the hundreds digit; the ranking-word count is always one higher.
- Per la millesima volta: idiomatic exaggeration, like English “for the thousandth time”. Note feminine agreement with volta.
- Concilio Vaticano secondo: events too take ranking words placed after the noun, just like sovereigns.
Mini-challenge
🎯 Final challenge: Translate into natural Italian, paying attention to position and agreement.
- Pope Benedict XVI resigned in 2013.
- We live on the twelfth floor of a building in Rieti.
- For the thousandth time, close the door of the office.
- Saint Francis lived in the thirteenth century, that is to say in the 1200s.
- King Louis XIV transformed Versailles.
- Velia is reading the twenty-third chapter of the manual.
- It’s the umpteenth time I tell you the same thing.
👉 See answers
1. Papa Benedetto sedicesimo rinunciò nel 2013. (ranking word after the name, no article)
2. Abitiamo al dodicesimo piano di un palazzo a Rieti.
3. Per la millesima volta, chiudi la porta dell’ufficio. (feminine agreement with volta)
4. San Francesco visse nel tredicesimo secolo, ovvero nel Duecento. (the Duecento = 1200-1299 = the 13th century)
5. Re Luigi quattordicesimo trasformò Versailles. (or Luigi quattordici in the French-borrowed habit, discouraged for sovereigns)
6. Velia sta leggendo il ventitreesimo capitolo del manuale. (the -e of -tré stays)
7. È l’ennesima volta che ti dico la stessa cosa.
Mastering italian special ordinals is mostly a matter of exposure. Read history captions, museum panels, table of contents, and newspaper headlines about anniversaries and editions. Each fresh page reinforces the small mechanism: drop the vowel, add -esimo, agree with the noun, and remember which three zones flip the position. Within a few weeks of attentive reading, italian special ordinals will feel natural rather than effortful. Pair this guide with the quiz below and come back to it after a week to check what stuck.
Test your understanding
Take the quiz below to test what you’ve learned about italian special ordinals.
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Frequently asked questions
These questions about italian special ordinals come from real exchanges among Italian learners online. The rules and the alternative Latin-style forms for italian special ordinals are documented in the Treccani entry on numerali.
How do I form Italian ordinals beyond decimo?
Take the cardinal number, drop the final vowel, add the suffix -esimo. So undici (11) becomes undicesimo, dodici (12) becomes dodicesimo, venti (20) becomes ventesimo, cento (100) becomes centesimo, mille (1000) becomes millesimo. Two stable exceptions keep the vowel: numbers ending in -tré keep the e (ventitreesimo, not ventitresimo), and numbers ending in -sei keep the i (ventiseiesimo). The rule then applies all the way up. Quattrocentotrentaduesimo, milleottocentosessantesimo, the operation is identical.
Why is Papa Giovanni XXIII read ‘ventitreesimo’ and not ‘ventitré’?
Because Italian names of popes, kings, queens, princes and dukes always take a ranking word, never a plain cardinal. The Roman numeral on the page is just a writing convention. The pronunciation is always the ordinal: papa Giovanni ventitreesimo, regina Elisabetta seconda, re Carlo terzo. Also notice two further details. The ranking word follows the name (Giovanni ventitreesimo, not il ventitreesimo Giovanni), and no definite article appears between name and number. Italian does not use ‘il’ here, unlike English which says ‘John the XXIII’.
When do I use ‘decimoprimo’ or ‘undecimo’ instead of ‘undicesimo’?
Only in literary, formal, or elevated contexts, and almost always for three specific zones: names of popes in older church documents (Pio undecimo, Leone duodecimo), chapters and stanzas in literary editions (Capitolo decimoprimo), and centuries in elevated essay prose (il secolo decimoterzo). In normal modern Italian, including academic writing at university level, you use undicesimo, dodicesimo, tredicesimo. The Latin-style forms are a recognition item, not a production target. A pharmacist in Rieti sending you to the eleventh floor will say undicesimo piano.
What’s the difference between ‘il Duecento’ and ‘il tredicesimo secolo’?
They mean exactly the same century, but the maths catches everyone out. The cardinal nickname keeps the hundreds digit only: il Duecento = the years 1200-1299. The ranking-word count is always one higher: 1200-1299 = il tredicesimo secolo = il XIII secolo. So San Francesco lived nel Duecento, which is the 13th century, not the 12th. Petrarca and Boccaccio belong to the Trecento, the 14th century. The Novecento is the 20th century, the years 1900-1999.
Do Italian ordinals agree in gender and number?
Yes, fully. They behave like any descriptive word and change ending to match the noun: il quindicesimo posto (masculine singular), la quindicesima edizione (feminine singular), i quindicesimi posti (masculine plural), le quindicesime edizioni (feminine plural). The same agreement applies to the Latin-style forms: il capitolo decimoprimo, la stanza quadragesimasesta. The suffix -esimo is invariable as a piece of word-formation, but the whole word then bends to fit the noun.
What does ‘ennesimo’ mean?
Literally ‘the nth’, from the algebraic letter n. It started as a mathematics term and is now widely used in journalism and informal speech to mean ‘yet another’ or ‘the umpteenth’, usually with a note of exasperation. Per l’ennesima volta ti chiedo di chiudere la porta (for the umpteenth time I’m asking you to close the door). Ennesimo incidente sulla statale 4 (yet another accident on highway 4). Like all ranking words, ennesimo agrees in gender and number: ennesima volta, ennesimi ritardi, ennesime polemiche.
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