“La fortuna aiuta gli audaci”

The Story Behind It

This proverb has impeccable classical credentials: it is a direct adaptation of the Latin 'Audentes fortuna iuvat,' which appears in Virgil's Aeneid (X.284), where the warrior Turnus speaks it as a battle cry. The phrase also appears in Pliny the Elder's Natural History and in the writing of Terence. The Italian humanists of the Renaissance, steeped in Virgil, adopted the expression enthusiastically, and it became one of the most popular of all classical quotations to enter Italian vernacular use. The condottieri — the mercenary military commanders who dominated Italian warfare in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries — were particularly associated with this philosophy: their entire profession depended on calculated boldness in the face of military uncertainty. The proverb was also embraced by Italian explorers, merchants, and later by Risorgimento patriots. In contemporary Italy it is used in a wide range of contexts from entrepreneurship to personal relationships, wherever someone is hesitating at the threshold of a bold action. The English 'Fortune favors the brave' is a direct translation of the same Virgilian source.

Direct adaptation of Virgil's 'Audentes fortuna iuvat' (Aeneid X.284); widely adopted by Italian Renaissance humanists and condottieri.

Examples in Use

Themes