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L'antiquario ha due belle cornici di legno e tre begli anelli.

L'antiquario ha due belle cornici di legno e tre begli anelli.
The antique dealer has two beautiful wooden frames and three beautiful rings.
From Lesson 137:The adjective beautiful (bel, bello, bei)·Italian

Questions & Answers about L'antiquario ha due belle cornici di legno e tre begli anelli.

Why do we say begli anelli instead of bei anelli?
The adjective bello changes its form before a noun to mimic the definite article (the word for "the") that the noun would take. Because we say gli anelli (since anelli is masculine plural and starts with a vowel), we use the matching form begli.
Does the word belle change if the next word starts with a vowel?
No! Unlike the tricky masculine forms, the feminine plural form of bello is always belle, no matter what letter the following noun starts with. Since cornici is feminine plural, we just use belle.
I thought nouns ending in -i were masculine plural. Why does cornici take the feminine belle?
While many masculine plural nouns end in -i, cornici comes from the singular word cornice (frame). Nouns that end in -e in the singular can be either masculine or feminine, and they all change to -i in the plural. Cornice happens to be feminine, so it takes belle.
Why is "wooden" translated as di legno?
Italian rarely uses adjectives to describe what something is made of. Instead, you use the preposition di (of) followed by the noun for the material. So, di legno literally means "of wood".

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