This article presents a comparative analysis of figurative language in Italian and Azerbaijani, arguing that idioms operate as semio-cognitive devices linking embodied experience to cultural-historical norms. Integrating conceptual metaphor theory, mental spaces and blending, frame semantics, and semiotics, the study models cross-linguistic mappings across FIRE / HEAT, CONTAINER, JOURNEY, VERTICALITY, and ENERGY. The aim of the study is to identify the semio-cognitive models of figurative language and to determine their similarities and differences within a cultural-historical context, to establish how these models are shaped by the typological structures of both languages, and, ultimately, to develop new theoretical generalizations. The study is based on the synthesis of cognitive-semantic, semiotic, and comparative-historical methods. The corpus concentrates on canonical texts (Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, Manzoni; Nasimi, Fuzuli, Vagif, Zakir) and on established Azerbaijani phraseology. Methodologically, idioms are treated as stabilized sign- packages with layered denotative, connotative, and symbolic values; each item is mapped from source to target domains and situated in discourse frames that mediate social roles and ethical normativity. Findings reveal robust universals alongside salient local filters. Universally, emotional and evalua- tive meanings recruit shared schemas—ANGER IS FIRE / HEAT, MIND / SELF IS A CONTAINER, LIFE / LOVE IS A JOURNEY, SOCIAL POWER IS UP / SUBMISSION IS DOWN, LOVE IS ENERGY / FORCE—realized through language-specific resources: graded thermal lexicons (Italian caldo→bollente→rovente; Azerbaijani isti→qızmar→ yandırıcı→büryan), container states and overflow, and vertical-motion patterns. Locally, Italian discourse foregrounds visual-theatrical staging and intratextual legitimization of folk wisdom as pro- verbio (e.g., Ariosto’s “cader de la padella ne le brage”; Manzoni’s “Ambasciator non porta pena”), encod- ing institutional and juridical norms. Azerbaijani classics privilege mystical-soteriological semantics around can / od / könül and exploit agglutinative morphology to fine-grade intensity (e.g., sinə büryan olmaq, içi yanmaq, can vermək, ayağına düşmək – En.literal “to have one’s breast burned,” “to burn inside,” “to give one’s soul / life,” “to fall at someone’s feet”). Parallel readings align Petrarch’s “picciol foco” with Fuzu- li’s “eşq atəşi,” (the fire of love) and Manzoni’s fuori di sé (to be outside oneself) with Azerbaijani özündən çıxmaq (to go out of oneself). Analytically, idioms function on two interconnected planes. At the psychosemantic level, they crys- tallize embodied experience into portable mappings; at the socio-discursive level, they normalize roles and values, turning proverbs and fixed epithets into interpretive institutions. The proposed three-axis frame- work — (i) source→target mapping, (ii) semiotic stratification, (iii) discursive-cultural embedding—yields a reproducible procedure for comparison. Practical implications span didactics (model-based teaching of idioms), translation (equivalence by mapping rather than lexical parity), lexicography (dictionary fields for conceptual model, discourse function, scalar degree), and NLP (annotation layers such as THERMAL_ SCALE, CONTAINER_STATE, VERTICAL_MOVE, INSTITUTION_ROLE). Limitations include a classical-text fo- cus and the absence of psycholinguistic testing; future work will expand to modern media, broaden Ro- mance/Turkic coverage, and evaluate model-guided annotation in multilingual transformer pipelines. In sum, figurative language in both traditions emerges as a semio-cognitive nexus: universals provide the skeleton (FIRE / HEAT, CONTAINER, JOURNEY, VERTICALITY, ENERGY), while local codes dress it in culturally spe- cific forms. Idioms and metaphors thus act not as ornament but as operational mechanisms that bridge cogni- tion and cultural order, offering a unified account of how poetic form encodes social and ethical meaning. In addition, the article operationalizes its claims with a replicable annotation scheme that links idi- om tokens to explicit source–target mappings, scalar degrees, and discourse functions, enabling quantita- tive corpus work and explainable NLP. By aligning parallel examples (e.g., Petrarch—Fuzuli; Ariosto—Zakir; Manzoni—Vaqif), the study demonstrates how identical conceptual skeletons yield distinct stylistic realiza- tions under divergent cultural constraints. This dual lens—universal templates filtered by local codes—of- fers practical guidance for curriculum design, translator training, and culturally aware language technolo- gies. As such, the framework advances an integrated, testable agenda for future research at the intersec- tion of cognitive linguistics, semiotics, and comparative philology.