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Roma, antico santuario, accoglie i pellegrini.

Roma, antico santuario, accoglie i pellegrini.
Rome, an ancient sanctuary, welcomes pilgrims.
From Lesson 465:Dropping articles in appositives (Roma, capitale...)·Italian

Questions & Answers about Roma, antico santuario, accoglie i pellegrini.

Why is there no article before antico santuario?
In Italian, when a noun phrase is placed between commas to describe or define a proper noun (like Roma), you must drop the article. This grammatical structure is called an apposition. While English requires an article here (an ancient sanctuary), Italian leaves it out entirely.
Does this rule also apply to definite articles, like if I wanted to say Rome, the ancient sanctuary?
Exactly! Whether the English equivalent uses a definite or indefinite article, Italian omits it in these descriptive appositions. For example, Rome, the capital of Italy translates to Roma, capitale d'Italia, dropping the la.
What is the infinitive of accoglie, and does it have any tricky conjugations?
The infinitive is accogliere (to welcome or receive). It is part of the -cogliere family. While the present tense is relatively straightforward (io accolgo, tu accogli, lui/lei accoglie), you will need to watch out for its irregular past participle, accolto.
The English translation says welcomes pilgrims without an article. Why does the Italian sentence use i pellegrini?
Italian generally requires a definite article before plural nouns when talking about a category of people or things in a broad, general sense. English often drops the article in these cases, but Italian needs that i before pellegrini to sound grammatically correct.

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