Translating the Classics into the vernacular in sixteenth-century Italy

Whilst early- and mid-fifteenth-century Italian humanism had concentrated on ambitious new translations from Greek into Latin, rather neglecting the vernacular, the sixteenth century is characterized by a proliferation of vernacular works in all fields and, especially from the 1530s on, intense activity in translating classical works into Italian. This article discusses some material features of the original and translated publications under consideration, but especially explores linguistic choices and translation techniques used by three translators in a variety of classical texts: Antonio Brucioli (1487–1566), who translated among other things the texts discussed here, the Rhetorica ad He…

I codici in scrittura latina di Alessandro Farnese (1520-1589) a Caprarola e al Palazzo della Cancelleria nel 1589

This article analyses the contents of the manuscripts in Latin script found at the Villa Farnese of Caprarola and the Palazzo della Cancelleria of Rome at the death of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (1520-1589). They were inventoried by Claudio Tobalducci, librarian to the Cardinal; the inventories were edited by Francois Fossier. Although the manuscript collections seem neither organic nor systematically constituted by the Cardinal (the volumes were mainly borrowed from the great Farnese library in the Palazzo Farnese in Rome), the manuscripts were used by the Cardinal in the last years of his life. They shed light on at least some of the personal interests of this important ecclesiastical, p…

Classical and humanist works in the libraries of early modern Finland between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries

This article examines the presence of classical, humanist and neo-humanist works in the libraries of the Magnus Ducatus of Finland between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. In this period, Sweden went from being a member of a Scandinavian union dominated by Denmark to an imperial power administering large areas of north-central Europe, only to be subsequently demoted to the role of a regional player increasingly tossed about by her neighbours, especially Russia. Despite economic, political, religious and cultural turbulence, international trends seem to have reached the Magnus Ducatus Finlandiae, both through Finns studying at key centres of learning and culture, and through reading b…

"Iam nouus in terras alto descendit Olympo Iuppiter” : Patronage and propaganda in the time of Leo X (1513–1521)

Giovanni de’ Medici (1475–1521), son of Lorenzo il Magnifico, was destined to a brilliant ecclesiastical career that eventually led him to the Holy See as pope Leo X (1513–1521). His reign, marked by wars and the emergence of protestantism, was also a period of intense artistic activity in Rome, with Raphael, Michelangelo, Sangallo as well as a plethora of humanist authors engaged in celebrating Leo’s feats. This article explores Leo’s patronage and propaganda, in particular through an analysis of one of the numerous poems dedicated to him by Giano Vitale Castalio of Naples (Ianus Vitalis Castalius, c. 1485–c. 1560) at the beginning of his pontificate. peerReviewed

The Historiae Florentini populi by Poggio Bracciolini. Genesis and Fortune of an Alternative History of Florence

During the last years of his life, Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459), former Apostolic Secretary and Chancellor of Florence, was working on a long text that he characterized, in a letter written in 1458, as lacking a well-defined structure. This was most probably his history of the people of Florence (Historiae Florentini populi, the title given in Jacopo’s dedication copy to Frederick of Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino), revised and published posthumously by Poggio’s son, Jacopo Bracciolini (1442-1478). Contrary to what is often assumed, Poggio’s treatise was not a continuation, nor even a complement, to Leonardo Bruni’s (1370-1444) official history of Florence. It concentrates on the most recent…

Niccolò de’ Conti in India : visioni filtrate di culture orientali nel Quattrocento romano

Nel 1447-1448 uscì una delle opere più ampie e più importanti di Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459), allora segretario apostolico alla curia di Niccolò V, il De varietate fortunae1. Oltre ad un trattamento spesso polemico della storia recente nei libri II e III, l’opera presenta una descrizione, documentata con citazione di iscrizioni, delle rovine di Roma all’inizio del libro I e un resoconto dei viaggi di Niccolò de’ Conti, Nicolaus Venetus, nell’Oriente, corredato da ulteriori informazioni sull’Africa, nel libro IV. La narrazione dei viaggi di Conti si contraddistingue per la sua sobrietà e l’assenza quasi totale del ‘meraviglioso’; si tratta tuttavia dell’elaborazione a cura di Poggio di in…

Terranovam natale meum solum : remarks on the textual history of Poggio Bracciolini’s Historiae Florentini populi

Poggio Bracciolini’s last work, the Historiae Florentini populi, was edited and dedicated to Federico di Montefeltro by Jacopo di Poggio in 1472. Jacopo also translated the work into the volgare and had it printed in Venice in 1476. In the light of the manuscript tradition, Jacopo’s editorial changes were more considerable than has hitherto been thought. The propagation of his edition and translation would seem to be intimately connected with his political aspirations ending in his unfortunate participation in the Pazzi conspiracy of 1478. peerReviewed

Scripsi manu mea Hartmann Schedel in Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, clm 490

The Padua-trained medical doctor Hartmann Schedel (1440–1514) of Nuremberg is today perhaps best known for his Liber Chronicarum, printed in Latin and German (Weltchronik) in 1493 with an ambitious programme of xylographies. Thanks to his well-spent study years in Padua (1463–1466), he also played an important role in the dissemination of Italian humanism north of the Alps, as witnessed, for example, by his important collection of inscriptions and Humanist texts. His rich library, consisting of manuscripts, both autographs and written by others, and printed books, was bought from his family by H. J. Fugger of Augsburg (1531–1598) in 1552. Fugger’s library was passed to the Bavarian Court Li…

The Twelfth-century Manuscript of Constantine the African's Theorica Pantegni at the National Library of Finland

Mani principesche

Questo lavoro esaminera dal punto di vista paleografico gli autografi di tre figure femminili di alta nobilta dell’ultimo Quattrocento e del Cinquecento politicamente e culturalmente importanti, Isabella d’Este, Lucrezia Borgia, e Renata di Francia. Due gli obiettivi: 1) risalire all’educazione grafica delle personalita in questione e 2) individuare gli usi che fecero della scrittura autografa.

Paratext in the Manuscripts of Hartmann Schedel

De usu diversitatis linguarum : Linguistic past (and present) in the dissertations supervised by Carl Abraham Clewberg (1712–1765) at the Academia Aboensis

Book production and collection

The impact of the modalities of book production on the transmission of texts is still often ignored by editors of texts with little interest in book history, including palaeography, codicology, and library history. The subsequent media revolutions (passage from the rotulus to the codex form, introduction of the Carolingian minuscule, invention of the art of printing, and so on) have, however, deeply influenced what was transmitted and in what form. This chapter will outline the development of book production and collection from Antiquity to the modern period. peerReviewed

"Musta minä muiden nähden / walkia oman emännän, id est niger ego aliis, candidus propriae uxori videor". Daniel Juslenius zur finnischen Kulturgeschichte

Daniel Juslenius (1676–1752), Sohn eines Pfarrers, stieg nach einer abwechslungsreichen Studienzeit an der Königlichen Akademie von Turku (Academia Aboensis/Aboica, 1691–1700), während der er sich als Hauslehrer bei Adeligen und sogar Seemann auf den Handelsschiffen seines Bruders verdingt hatte, zunächst zum Professor der orientalischen Sprachen (1712–1727), später der Theologie (1727) an der Akademie und schließlich zum Bischof von Skara (1744) auf. 1745 gab er ein Lehrbuch der finnischen Sprache, Suomalaisen Sana-Lugun Coetus, heraus. Juslenius ist bekannt für seine gothizistischen – oder »fennizistischen« – Stellungnahmen zur Geschichte und Sprache der Finnen. In diesem Artikel wird die…