Enclosed below are a few of the most common pasta shapes…
Tagliatelline: Finer than tagliatelle, they're also known as fettuccine.
Fettucine are one of the finer members of the tagliatelle family (the line suffix is a diminutive). The sauces tend in to be creamy (as opposed to chunky) and rather liquid, in part because the pasta will absorb some of the liquid during its journey to the table, and not chunky.
Rigatoni: Slender lined tubes, equally suited to thick sauces and baking.
The word rigatoni means big lined ones, an obvious reference to the ribs running down the sides of the pieces of pasta.
They're perfect with thick chunky sauces that work their way into the pieces of pasta and provide delightful flavour bursts as one chews on them.
Stelline, Letterine, etc: Tiny pasta for broths and clear soups.
One of the pasta shapes every Italian child grows up with, cooked and then drained, though not so completely as to be bone dry, and seasoned with cream cheese or something else that will give a creamy texture.
Spaghetti
Spaghetti is the perfect choice for nearly any sauce.
Spaghettini: Finer than spaghetti; they cook faster and work well with more liquid sauces.
Spaghettini are, as one would expect, similar to spaghetti. However, the ini suffix means thinner, and indeed spaghettini are -- the strands are a little more than half as thick as spaghetti, and they cook in about half the time spaghetti require.
Penne Rigate: Ridged pasta, for thick and chunky sauces, or baking
Penne Rigate are one of the mainstays of the Italian pasta scene, perhaps because they're one of the finest foils imaginable for a chunky sauce, be it meat or vegetable based. They also hold up well to baking, and are therefore one of the standard ingredients in baked pasta dishes.
Penne Lisce: Smooth sided penne, for creamy and chunky sauces
Penne come in two flavors -- rigate, lined or ridged, and lisce, smooth sided. Some people prefer the former and the others the latter; we find that smooth-sided penne work better with creamier sauces, because the cream sticks to their sides nicely.
Pappardelle: Fairly broad strands with wavy edges, which are perfect with hearty meat sauces.
Pappardelle are a classic Tuscan variety of egg pasta, and are a bit wider than fettuccine or tagliatelle -- between 3/4 of an inch and an inch (2.5 cm) in width.
They work nicely with chunky sauces, and are perfect with rabbit, hare or wild boar.
Orecchiette: Little ears, a classic pasta shape from Puglia
Orecchiette are one of the classic pasta shapes from Puglia, and though they were rare elsewhere, they have by now become commonplace. The name, orecchiette, means little ears because they resemble the human ear in shape.
Conchiglie ("Shells") –
Shells make a great addition to soups or as the base of a wonderful salad.
Lasagna: sheets of pasta to make lasagna, the dish.
Square or rectangular sheets of pasta, which are cooked, interlayered with other ingredients and baked. There are many variations.
Fusilli: Corkscrews, for thick, chunky pasta sauces
Fusilli, corkscrews, are one of the most popular short pasta forms in Italy. For good reason; they hold up well to cooking, and do a wonderful job of capturing the sauce.
Farfalle: Butterflies, a shape that's perfect with creamy sauces
Farfalle are butterflies, or bow ties, and one doesn't find them mentioned in older cookbooks, which suggests that the shape is relatively new. It's well thought out, however, because the pinch in the pasta does an excellent job of trapping and holding creamy sauces.
Ditali: Short hollow pasta for hearty soups, especially pasta e fagioli and minestrone
Ditaloni are Neapolitan, and derive their name from the word ditale, which means thimble. They're about that size -- 1/4 inch long and 1/4 inch in diameter, although hollow rather than with a tip, and have ridges down their sides. They can be served with sauce, but are more often added to thick, creamy soups, for example pasta e fagioli.
Cannelloni, or Manicotti: Pasta tubes to be stuffed and baked
They're quite versatile, in that you can stuff them with almost any pasta stuffing.
Cannelloni shells are 3-4 inches long and an inch in diameter; the cooking time for traditionally made ones that must be boiled before they're stuffed will depending upon the manufacturer. There are also no-preboil cannelloni shells that you stuff while still stiff, and then bake smothered in a very liquid sauce, for example a runny béchamel sauce or watery tomato sauce, which will provide the liquid the pasta needs to absorb as it cooks.
Bucatini, thick hollow strands for creamy sauces.
Bucatini are the thickest generally available pasta strands; they're about as thick as a contrabass string, and are hollow, a characteristic that provide an interesting texture variation if you're used to normal strands of pasta. The sauces used are generally chunky, and robust.
The classic sauce for bucatini is all'amatriciana, a sauce that's commonly associated with Lazio and Rome though the town it's named for, Amatrice, is just over the border into Abruzzo.