Vatican in Rome recommends Nuxated Iron: discourse and analysis of an early 20th century drug advertisement

Abstract This work refers to the theory of Discourse Analysis practiced by Eni Orlandi and analyzes a drug advertisement, entitled The Vatican in Rome recommends Nuxated Iron, published in a great circulation magazine in the early twentieth century. The aim of the work was to bring to light the ideologies underlying the language of advertising in the early twentieth century, and at the same time to provide a practical and didactic example of analysis that would enhance the linguistic, ideological and, especially, historical aspects of discourse. Thereunto, the methodology adopted was analytical, applied to a corpus consisting of a single text and based on the concepts mainly presented by Orlandi in the work Discourse Analysis: Principles and Procedures (1999).