The traditional devices of the catalogue aria include a solidly neutral opening, a section of rising comic excitement full of rapid patter and an emphatic final cadence, normally closing with an epigram.
[1]: 311 Common features include asyndeton, anaphora,[1]: 301 rhyme schemes, and complete phrases stacked two to a line,[1]: 311 typically expressed with joy, anger, excitement or fear, routinely fast declamation of patter in a generally mechanical and often impersonal way.
[1]: 302 "Madamina, il catalogo è questo" from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Don Giovanni is the most famous example, and is often referred to as "the catalogue aria".
The Bertati aria, "Dell' Italia ed Alemagna" uses punch lines such as "ve ne sono non se quante" (there I know not how many) while Da Ponte uses specific numerical figures to add to the humor (e.g. "ma in Espagna, son già mille e tre" (But in Spain he had one thousand and three).
Headington, Westbrook, and Barfoot in Opera: A History (1987) say that "Ho viaggiato in Francia, in Spagna" "must surely be ranked as the forerunner of Leporello's... aria",[3] but they seem to have gone to the next most familiar piece of music rather than digging into research.