Northern Italy is one of the most rewarding areas for Romance linguistics. At all levels (phonetics, morphology, syntax), the dialects spoken here display specific linguistic phenomena of such remarkable synchronic and diachronic particularity as to make the entire area a mirror of Italian and Gallo-Italian language history.. The international conference "Italia settentrionale: crocevia di idiomi romanzi" (Trento, 21-23 October 1993) was devoted to the subject of North Italian dialects. The papers published here represent an important source of information for all linguists and the volume addresses itself to Italian studies specialists, dialectologists and Romance studies scholars alike.