1.5. Remote past, passato remoto

The passato remoto is used mostly to talk about actions that took place a long time ago; it is also used to talk about actions that the speaker perceives as psychologically distant.

For example,

Cristoforo Colombo partì con 3 caravelle.

Christopher Columbus departed with his three ships.

Ieri mentre ero in treno vidi la pubblicità di cui parlate.

Yesterday while I was on the train I saw the advertisement you are talking about.

It is also frequently used in history, fairy tales, and literature as the principal past tense, regardless of how long ago the action happened—in this sense it is a preferred past tense ‘tool’ for storytelling.

For example,

Il re disse alla figlia...

The king told his daughter...

We will discuss other uses of the passato remoto below, but the example above speaks to its main use in modern Italian: It is used in the written language in many professional contexts: History, Literature, Biographies, Journalism, etc.  Following is another example, taken from a famous Italian story:

Il burattino Pinocchio diceva sempre le bugie e un giorno il suo naso diventò lunghissimo

The puppet Pinocchio was always telling lies and then one day his nose became very long.

Forms of the passato remoto

Following are regular conjugations for the remote past:

*Regular second conjugation verbs (-ere) have two acceptable forms in the first- and third-person singular, and in the third-person plural. Both forms are commonly used and are correct

Essere and avere are irregular in the passato remoto

Other irregular verbs in the passato remoto

The majority of irregular verbs in the passato remoto are –ere verbs, but their irregularity is only in first-person singular, third-person singular and third-person plural. This is often referred to as a 1-3-3 pattern. The other persons are regular.

Some verbs follow different forms of irregularity in the passato remoto: