The expression a gonfie vele conveys optimism, and is typically used to describe a situation where everything is going perfectly well. More specifically, this idiom can be used to refer to an interpersonal relationship or a project that is coming along smoothly, successfully, in the best conceivable way.
The phrase is, recognizably, a nautical metaphor (when their sails are filled with wind, vessels are able to glide over the sea quickly and effortlessly) and traces its roots back to the Latin world. The expression a gonfie vele, very popular now in colloquial Italian, seems in fact to echo the similar Latin expression pleno velo. A metaphor, this one, employed by the Latin poet Virgil in the Aeneid, the celebrated epic poem that tells the story of a Trojan hero named Aeneas, the son of prince Anchises and the Greek goddess of love and beauty Aphrodite.
The phrase is, recognizably, a nautical metaphor (when their sails are filled with wind, vessels are able to glide over the sea quickly and effortlessly) and traces its roots back to the Latin world. The expression a gonfie vele, very popular now in colloquial Italian, seems in fact to echo the similar Latin expression pleno velo. A metaphor, this one, employed by the Latin poet Virgil in the Aeneid, the celebrated epic poem that tells the story of a Trojan hero named Aeneas, the son of prince Anchises and the Greek goddess of love and beauty Aphrodite.