Italian Past Anterior Tense (Trapassato Remoto)

The past anterior tense, also called the preterite perfect tense, is used to talk about:

• an action which took place before an action in the past definite tense (passato remoto)

To make the past anterior tense we use:

The past definite form of the auxiliary verb essere or avere
+
The past participle of the main verb

Examples:

Dopo che ebbi cucinato, pulii la cucina.
(After cooking, I cleaned the kitchen.)

Finché non ebbi finito di studiare non uscii a giocare.
(I didn’t go out to to play until I had finished studying.)

Dopo che la casa fu costruita ci andarono ad abitare.
(After the house had been built we went to live there.)

Solo dopo che gli fu fatto notare l’errore trovò il coraggio di scusarsi.
(Only after he had been made aware of his mistake did he find the courage to apologise.)

Non appena fui giunto a casa cominciò a piovere.
(As soon as we reached the house it started to rain.)

The past anterior forms of the verbs mangiare, credere e partire:

Mangiare (to eat)
io ebbi tu avesti lui/lei/Lei ebbe noi avemmo voi aveste loro/Loro ebbero	mangiato

Credere (to believe)
io ebbi tu avesti lui/lei/Lei ebbe noi avemmo voi aveste loro/Loro ebbero	creduto

When the past perfect is used with the auxiliary verb essere, the past participle of the main verb must agree with the gender and number of the subject.

Partire (to go away)
io fui tu fosti lui/lei/Lei fu	partito/a
noi fummo voi foste loro/Loro furono	partiti/e

The past anterior forms of the verbs essere and avere.

Essere (to be)
io fui tu fosti lui/lei/Lei fu	stato/a
noi fummo voi foste loro/Loro furono	stati/e

Avere (to have)
io ebbi tu avesti lui/lei/Lei ebbe noi avemmo voi aveste loro/Loro ebbero	avuto

Note that in spoken Italian the past anterior tense is not very common.

See also:

Italian Exercises The past perfect tense – Group nouns