As well as being the oldest linguistic academy, which institution is the most important in regulating the Italian language?

The Accademia della Crusca ("Academy of the Bran"), generally abbreviated as La Crusca, is an Italian society for scholars and Italian linguists and philologists established in Florence. It is the most important research institution on the Italian language as well as the oldest linguistic academy in the world.

The Accademia was founded in Florence in 1583. It has been characterized by its efforts to maintain the purity of the Italian language. Crusca means "bran" in Italian, which conveys the metaphor that its work is similar to winnowing as it is well explained by the emblem of the Accademia della Crusca that depicts a sifter that is straining out corrupt words and structures (as wheat is separated from bran). The academy motto is "Il più bel fior ne coglie" ('She gathers the fairest flower'), a famous verse of the Italian poet Francesco Petrarca. In 1612, the Accademia published the first edition of its Dictionary, the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, which also served as the model for similar works in French, Spanish, German and English.

The academy is a member of the European Federation of National Linguistic Institutes.