In his early career, he concentrated on the Italic dialects, including among his published work, Der Vocalismus der oskischen Sprache (1892), The Oscan-Umbrian Verb-System (1895), and Grammar of Oscan and Umbrian, with a collection of inscriptions and a glossary (1904), and a précis of the Italic languages in Johnson's Universal Cyclopaedia.
This was largely based on the later works of Giunta Pisano but also shows the influence of such Umbrian artists as Rainaldetto di Ranuccio, Simeone and Machilone and of contemporary manuscript illumination, for example the Gospel Book of Giovanni da Gaibena (Padua, Bib. Capitolare).
Today climbers reach it from the Umbrian side from Norcia, or, on the Marche side, from Ascoli Piceno.
Gregory Nagy, Greek Mythology and Poetics, he says, citing the linguist Émile Benveniste in his Origines de la formation des noms en indo-européen, that the Umbrian "trifu" (tribus) is apparently derived from a combination of *tri- and *bhu- where the second element is cognate with the 'phu-' of Greek 'phule', and that this was subdividing the Greek polis into three phulai.