The Hidden Reflection: Hermenèia and Rewriting in 19th Century Italian Theory DR Francesco Laurenti

The Hidden Reflection
The Hidden Reflection

Hermenèia and Rewriting in
19th Century Italian Theory
Francesco Laurenti
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Contents
Preface 3
1 Giovanni Carmignani’s Search for

a Systematic and General Theory 9
2 Giovanni De Coureil and the Degradation

of Good Literary Taste 25
3 Luigi Ceretti’s Principles of Rhetoric 39
4 Fortunato Cavazzoni Pederzini’s Ethics

of Hospitality 45
5 Giovanni Battista Zannoni on

the “Risks of a Practice” 53
6 Francesco Cassoli and the Imitation of

Absolute and Relative Beauty 63
7 Michele Colombo’s Almost

Impracticable Perspectives 71
8 Francesco Fuoco and the Art of
Reproducing the Harmony of Poetry 77
9 Giuseppe Ignazio Montanari on the Nature

and Means of Imitation 85
10 Dionigi Strocchi on the Status of Certain

Artistic Creations 93
11 Antonino Carrano’s Responsibility

for Reception 97
12 Emilio Teza and the Unrepeatability

of Poetic Expression 107
References 113
Preface
The word Hermeneutics is derived from the Greek ἑρμηνεύω

(hermeneuō, “translate, interpret”, or rather the art and tech-
nique of interpreting, and the term ἑρμηνεία (hermeneia, “in-
terpretation, explanation”) became known through Aristotle’s
Περὶ Ἑρμηνείας (“Peri Hermeneias”) which was translated in
Latin with the title De Interpretatione and in English with the ti-
tle On Interpretation.
The word is derived from the name of the god Hermes,
the messenger of the gods (the “interpreter”) and, if in antiqui-
ty hermeneutics was meant almost exclusively as the practice
of interpreting the language of the gods, over the centuries,
while still remaining associated with the Bible, hermeneutics
becomes more philosophical and less philological.
It is in the 18th and 19th centuries that, after a long-
standing tradition, hermeneutics moves away from a reflection
on the texts and focuses more on the multiple issues related to
interpretation. It is also in this period that reflection on the in-
terpretation of texts and their transformation in a language
other than the original becomes a predominantly German
question.
With romantic reflection, the idea of the intimate rela-
tionship between hermeneutics and translation is strength-
ened, and a new idea of translation (meant as an act of inter-
4 The Hidden Reflection
pretation and as a mediation between what is foreign and

what is proper) is established.
It is Herder who, understanding translation as an ex-

pression of comprehension of the other, first promotes the
idea of translation not as a reproduction of an identity but as
the creation of a diversity that can take on a revolutionary
character in the receiving culture. Herder had previously theo-
rized the unrepeatable “individuality” of every society, of its
language, and therefore also of its artistic creations: this was
apparently in contradiction with the importance that he will
later attach to the function of translations. In the wake of
Herder, Humboldt would also reveal the unrepeatable individ-
uality of histories and cultures, positioning them as a conse-
quence of the climatic, political and religious conditions in
which they were generated.
Even Humbolt comes back to this “individualistic” vi-
sion of history but, again in this case, without diminishing its
recognized usefulness with regards to the knowledge of for-
eign works (through their interpretation and their rendering in
a language different from the original). The knowledge of the
foreigner and of the works of antiquity, mediated by transla-
tions, would have, rather, an important influence on the pre-
sent and on the enrichment of the “spirit of a nation”, as every
language has, according to Humboldt, the possibility of acquir-
ing and developing the expressions and forms that it does not
yet possess.
Schleiermacher’s interest in the theory of interpreta-
tion then, closely related to the principle of the individuality of
the (mainly spiritual) experience that he formulates, points to
the possibility (already expressed by Chladenius in 1742 and by
Schlegel in 1797) of understanding the text better than the au-
thor himself understood it. The initial unfamiliarity, felt by the
interpreter placed before the text, does not constitute an ob-
Preface 5
stacle for Schleiermacher but represents the motivation for

studying and interpreting the internal organization of philo-
sophical texts and literary works, and translating them, when
originally written in a foreign language.
The theoretical reflection of the 19th century on the in-

terpretation of texts and their transposition into a different
language, that is to say about their translation, is therefore a
German question but, unlike what is commonly believed, not
exclusively German. If, as Flora Ross Amos had already claimed
in 1919, the theory of translation should be updated over and
over again “to include new facts”, it is today useful to initiate a
study of the 19th century Italian theoretical reflections on a se-
ries of texts that have not as of yet been effectively analyzed.
In fact, studies on the Italian theory of translation demonstrate
an almost unjustifiable void and, with respect to the 19th cen-
tury, seem to still be dealing with reflections that for the most
part, while important, have already been widely studied: this
refers for example to the attention given to the reflections of
Leopardi and Foscolo and to certain writings produced along-
side the works translated by various translators, which became
famous also as a result of the celebrity of those who formulat-
ed them. These studies do not take into consideration, howev-
er, many original reflections and an entire branch of essays,
books and articles dedicated to the interpretation of foreign
works, on the role played by them in the receiving culture, and
on their translation. In fact, over the century there was a lively
debate that still deserves investigation - a debate that was cer-
tainly not initiated by Madame de Staël’s essay published in
1816 in «Biblioteca Italiana».
Madame de Staël’s reflection joined a trend of investigations
and essays dedicated to the effect of foreign works in the re-
ceiving culture, of which the open contest held by the Napole-
on Academy of Lucca in 1806 (regarding the risks and benefits
to literature posed by the translation of modern and ancient

languages) is just one example. Chronologically, it is that con-
test that sparked the reflections presented, in order of publica-
tion, in this volume.
Among the peculiarities of these reflections there is certainly
that of no longer being characterized by a limited number of
cited “classical” theorists of the past, as was previously the
case, but rather by an expanded interest that can be traced
back to different fields of knowledge such us linguistics, literary
criticism, philosophy, pedagogy and anthropological studies as
well.
We have attempted to carry out a task, even on a phil-
ological level, of recovering otherwise forgotten texts which al-
low us to place the origins of a conscious and rigorous Italian
theoretical speculation on translation several decades earlier
than previously thought.
Moreover, these reflections, no less original than what was
stated by contemporaries in the rest of Europe, allow us to
outline an Italian “school” of thought which reveals the exist-
ence of an ‘integrated theory’ which is aware of the several
theoretical writings produced in Italy and in the rest of Europe.
In this sense, the widespread belief that translation theory, in
its pre-scientific stage, was characterized by a scattered and
occasional nature, could therefore be re-evaluated, at least in
part. This conviction, which may be valid in some cases, cannot
be considered as generally applicable.
The writings analyzed in this volume demonstrate an

approach that is not only prescriptive, but one that, in an at-
tempt to explain the phenomenon of translation, often be-
comes descriptive. “What happens when a translator trans-
lates?”; “What is lost in the transfer of a literary work from one
culture to another?”; “What remains of the original text and
why?”; “What liberties can a translator take in rewriting a for-
Preface 5
eign work?”; “In what way can translating be compared to the

concept of hospitality?” “Can we have two translations of the
same work that are very dif-
ferent from each other and yet equally valuable?”; “What
space is reserved for the translator’s own creativity?”; “To
what extent is it right for the translator to disappear behind
the original author?”; “What are the skills and competencies
that are required of the literary translator?” “What is the line
between fidelity and infidelity in translation?”; “In what way
does translating mean to bestow citizenship unto foreigners?”.
These are just some of the questions concerning the 19th cen-
tury Italian debate on literary translations. The objective is to
offer an explanation of a phenomenon, describing the different
moments through which, in the transfer from one language to
another, a source text is transformed into a target text.
When the argument focuses on the Italian theories, and more
specifically on those conceived during the 19th century, it be-
comes clear that there are still many gaps in this field of study.
In order to be fully understood, these writings on the
effect that translated foreign works have on the culture that
receives them, and on the way in which they should be trans-
lated, must be contextualized within the debate that marked
the Italian literature of that period.
In the first half of the century, against the background of the
debate between romantics and classicists, almost every cultur-
al and literary discussion is brought back to the question of the
formation of a national culture, and the choice of which mod-
els to imitate thus becomes fundamental.
It is in this period, during which a connectedness with the past
becomes uncertain and complex, as oft happens in similar
moments, that the relationship between hermeneutics and
translation becomes stronger. Framing the discourse mainly in
a hermeneutic perspective of language, these theoretical writ-
ings demonstrate a propensity towards the interpretation of
creative values and consequently they “describe the target-

language inscription in the foreign text, often explaining it on
the basis of social functions and effects.”1
The history of translation theories, at least as far as Ita-
ly is concerned, cannot be separated from the study and dis-
closure of a series of contributions such as those presented
here. These reflections, even if they remained in the shadows
for a long time, have still contributed to building the founda-
tions of contemporary translation theory.
1
L. Venuti (ed.), The Translation Studies Reader, Routledge, London and New
York 2000, 6.
1
Giovanni Carmignani’s Search for a

Systematic and General Theory
The Dissertazione critica sulle traduzioni by Giovanni Carmi-

gnani,1 winner of the open contest held by the Napoleon Acade-
my of Lucca in 1806,2 was later published in 1808 by Molini, Landi
1 Giovanni Carmignani (San Benedetto in Settimo, 1768 - Pisa, 1847) entered

the seminary in Arezzo in 1779, and during his years of seminarian studies he
nurtured a pronounced interest in contemporary and Latin literature, as well as
in theater. In 1786 he began his university studies at the Law School of the Uni-
versity of Pisa, and later published the tragedy Polissena (1789). After earning
his degree, Carmignani launched his legal practice in Florence. During this dec-
ade spent in Florence he frequented, among others, Vittorio Alfieri and in 1806
he published a Critical Dissertation on the tragedies of the same (Dissertazione
critica sulle tragedie di Vittorio Alfieri), which garnered great acclaim and was
also awarded, just as his Dissertazione critica sulle traduzioni (Firenze, 1808)
was by the Academy of Lucca. Carmignani began his academic career in 1803 in
Pisa, where he taught criminal law until 1840. In 1808, he published Elementa
iuris criminalis, which was updated and revised in various editions until 1834,
and which represented an effective educational tool of criminal law. His most
important work nevertheless remains the criminal law dissertation Teoria delle
leggi sulla sicurezza sociale (1831-32).
2 The reasoning given by the contest jurors: «To answer that part of the Problem,
wherein the question was posed whether translations could with exact accuracy
deliver the ideas and sentiments from one language to another, it was necessary
to calculate the value and strength of the methods that a translator might em-
ploy. This naturally led to the metaphysical discussion of arbitrary signs both for
their intellectual effect and for their sentimental effect of speech. This is precise-
ly the path that the author continued on with the great exactitude that was re-
quired by the complexity of the matter. Perhaps some may not be equally con-
vinced of all the segments of his investigation; but while any disagreements can
be brought forth in a secondary investigation, it seems to the Judges that in gen-
and Co.3 in the Atti della Accademia italiana (The Annals of the
Italian Academy).
The contest proposed by the Academy regarded an in-
vestigation into the “risks and benefits to literature posed by the
translation of modern and ancient languages”, and the potential
that translations had to “transport” to a new language “the ideas
and sentiments” held within the original work.
The legal expert and scholar from Pisa won the contest
by presenting a wide-ranging study that relied upon the works of
countless academics, scholars and intellectuals, from both his
time as well as the past.
Within the Dissertazione, in fact, references to the in-
sights on the philosophy of taste of Cesarotti are juxtaposed with
those of the précieux writer George de Brébeuf; observations by
the legal expert and scholar Fontenelle on the effects of poetic
language, and those of the encyclopedist d’Alembert, are bor-
rowed; a few of German philosopher and playwright Lessing’s
theories on the relationship between linguistic signs and ideas
are cited; and these are flanked by reflections by the painter Pré-
vost on fine arts.
A special space is also given to the ideas of the French scholar de
La Harpe who, with Le lycée, ou cours de littérature (1798-1804),
together with the Calvinist pastor Bitaubé, and his Du goût na-
tional considéré par rapport à la traduction (1775), represents
essential support to Carmignani’s argument. Carmignani also
recognizes an important “debt” to the philosopher baron de Gé-
rando, whose theories on the relationship between linguistic
signs and the effects they cause arise often in his study. Further-
more, there are frequent references to observations on the re-
eral the theory put forward by the Author in this Memorandum, and the applica-
tion of that same theory to the question posed, is worthy of the Prize established
by the Sovereign Munificence» (Atti della Accademia italiana, Molini-Landi-
Compagno, Firenze, 1808, III-IV).
3 G. Carmignani, Dissertazione critica sulle traduzioni, in Atti della Accademia
italiana, I, Molini-Landi-Compagno, Pisa, 1808, I, 263-354.

Giovanni Carmignani’s Search for a Systematic and General Theory 11
ciprocal influence between reason and language of Locke and the

Swiss theologian Sulzer, and to certain metaphysical conceptions
of language (suggested by the German philosopher Mendels-
sohn). And to this chorus of opinions he adds those who spoke
more specifically about translation, and at least another dozen,
between philosophers, theologians, novelists, playwrights, histo-
rians, poets, and politicians, who are all cited by Carmignani thus
confirming his international calling and the peculiar “inclusive”
approach to his research, which allowed the Tuscan scholar to
reach original conclusions regarding translation.
The diversity of languages, in a historical perspective, is
perceived by Carmignani as a reflection of the diversity of cli-
mates in which each language was conceived and later devel-
oped. He was not the first amongst his contemporaries to em-
brace this climatological perspective, convinced that, “different
tongues are born under varied climes and skies much as the soil’s
bounties are, which varied sprout from the earth according to
the varied inclination of its axis.”4
Continuing, with regard to the “power” of translations, and to

their ultimate benefit for the reader or the receiving culture,
Carmignani commences by revealing the fruitlessness of the lit-
erary debate that had developed over the centuries on the sub-
ject.
The futility of such a question (which was, among other things,

the same one posed by the same Napoleon Academy of Lucca
that would later recognize his Dissertazione) can be attributed to
the fact that those who devoted themselves to this investigation
would have acted, according to Carmignani, in a way exclusively
4«Nascon lingue diverse sotto clima e cielo diverso a guisa delle produzioni del
suolo, che varie germogliano sulla terra a seconda della varia inclinazion del suo
asse», Ibid., 268.
faithful to their own ideas and views, never once referring to the
observations and “conquests” of the linguistic sciences.
Consequently, within the debate, the “fighters, instead of believ-
ing that the science of signs could extend the olive branch in so
much discord, never once referred back to it, and no other
weapon did they use besides those which placed in each one’s
hands his own unique way of feeling.”5
And so, according to Carmignani, the futility of this debate should
not be blamed on the content, but rather on the approach, lack-
ing in any systematic memory, of those who had previously tack-
led the argument. He therefore protests a lack of a coherent in-
vestigation regarding translations with a tone that preempts cer-
tain critiques of the 1900s, in the field of translation studies, with
regard to the translation theories of the past.
Before examining, as the contest required, the “risks and
benefits” of translations, Carmignani first had to determine the
true meaning of the word “translation,” in order to then analyze
any possible “power” of translations. Only later did a reflection
on the “risks and benefits” of them arise, with the author’s goal
of producing a “systematic work and general theory on the pow-
er of translation itself, and not a criticism of translations.”6
Even with respect to these criteria Carmignani managed to
demonstrate his originality, laying claim to a necessary method
that might define translation studies, adding that these should be
the fruit of a dialogue amongst scholars. In this way, they might
avoid carrying out investigations based solely on personal sensi-
bility and not on the achievements of a shared “science of signs”.
In this respect, Carmignani preempted by over a century the
widespread criticism that Translation Studies later had of past
5 «Combattenti, anziché credere che la scienza dei segni portar potesse l’ulivo
della pace in tanta discordia, a lei pur’una volta non ebbero ricorso, e altr’armi
non usarono che quelle, che a ciascun ponea in mano la sua maniera particolare
di sentire», Ibid., 269.
6 «Un’opera sistematica e una general teoria sul potere della traduzione, non
una critica delle traduzioni», Ibid., 271.

theoretical investigations of translations, whose weakness was its

lack of coherence. He believed a defining premise was necessary
to the very study of the word “translation”, such that he was
convinced that even the act of speaking could be understood as a
form of translation, in a broad sense:
He who speaks, does nary more than translate his own ideas,
not because the words, in this regard, have the power to
transport his ideas into the minds of those listening, but be-
cause analogous ideas to his re-awaken at the sound of the
words he uses.7
He believed it was necessary to create clarity within the family of

new terms and nouns that over the centuries had come to define
the different types of translation:
The commentary, the gloss, the scholium, the interpretation in

the strictest sense of the word, or rather the literal version,
the paraphrase, the periphrasis, the metaphrase, were equal
works that contributed to the formation of translation, and
which were all contained in the most basic meaning of the
word.8
Even while admitting that the idea of determining a precise defi-

nition of a term that was already in frequent use by scholars may
have seemed inadequate, Carmignani maintained that:
7 «L’uom che parla, non fa che tradurre le proprie idee, non perché le parole,
ond’egli a questo effetto si vale, abbiano il potere di trasportare le sue idee nel-
la testa di chi lo ascolta, ma perché idee analoghe alle sue vi si risveglino al suon
delle parole ch’egli usa», Ibid., 303.
8 «Il comentario, la glossa, lo scolio, l’interpretazione propriamente detta, o sia
la litterale versione, la parafrasi, la perifrasi, la metafrasi furono altrettanti lavo-

ri che a formar la traduzione concorsero, e che perciò essa nel suo più generico
significato tutti comprese», Ibid.
The idea buried in such a word is more abstract and complex,

and of a greater number of simple ideas composed. In this
sense, nary a word ever had such a need to see its value set
more than the word “translation”, in light of the great multi-
plicity, and the great complexity, of the means within it, all
employable in putting two languages in that state of mutual
contact, so that the meaning of one might become, without al-
teration, the meaning of the other.9
The lack of definitive clarity would have made it such the “sway-
ing and uncertain [translation] would go wandering between the
two extremes of the tyranny of the letter and the license of an
original production,”10 with inevitable consequences on transla-
tion studies as well.
In this sense, Carmignani acknowledged another limitation of
traductological investigation, which was the dichotomous ap-
proach of the debate between the supporters of literal transla-
tion and those who promoted a freer type of translation.
Carmignani believed that the two different “factions” “could
have almost been, in the literary republic, two daughters of the
same mother, and might have dealt with each other as good sis-
ters would, agreeing that though their faces may not be the
same, they were not so different as to accuse the other of illegit-
imate origins.”11 Carmignani therefore offers an attempt at dia-
9 «La idea che in una tal parola si asconde, è più astratta e complessa, e da un
maggior numero di semplici idee si compone. In questo aspetto niuna parola
ebbe mai tanto bisogno di veder fissato il proprio valore, quanto la parola Tra-
duzione, attesa la grande molteplicità, e la gran complicanza de’ mezzi che in
essa si esprimono impiegabili tutti a porre due lingue in quello stato di mutuo
contatto, onde il significato dell’una divenir possa senza alterazione il significato
dell’altra», Ibid., 272.
10 «Ondeggiante ed incerta, andò vagando tra i due estremi della tirannia della
lettera e della licenza di un’original produzione», Ibid., 274.

11 «Avrebbero potuto riguardarsi nella letteraria repubblica quasi figlie di una
madre medesima, e da buone sorelle trattarsi, convenendo di non avere in vero

la faccia medesima, ma non sì diversa però da rimproverarsi una illegittima ori-
gine», Ibid.
logue, admitting, however, the impossibility of an unequivocal

definition, both on a theoretical and practical level, of the limit
between fidelity and infidelity of a translation, between a literal
version and an imitation:
What is the rule might lead us to determine where the literal

version ends and the proper translation begins, and where at
this meeting gives way to imitation?12
In the unlikelihood of univocally defining the word “translation”,

Carmignani chooses to interpret it in a broader sense that in-
cludes both the version most faithful to the original and a freer
translation:
We therefore assign to the word translation a far greater

meaning, which serves almost as a sacred branch with which
to safely complete our journey in the midst of a crowd that
could hinder our passage, and to silence the shouts of those
defenders of different opinions through which we, unbiased
and sound, must also carve ourselves a path upon which to
fulfill the scope pre-assigned to our research.13
The objective was to create a theory that might have been con-
sidered general, which would have “silenced the cries of those
defenders of different opinions”14 in order to reach the conclu-
sions offered by the Dissertazione.
12 «Qual è la regola che guidar ci possa a determinare, ove la litterale versione

finisca e cominci la traduzione propriamente detta, e dove questa all’incontro si
arresta per cedere il posto alla imitazione?», Ibid., 276.
13 «Quindi noi assegniamo alla parola traduzione un significato estesissimo che
ci serva quasi di sacro ramo per passar tranquilli nel nostro cammino in mezzo
alla folla che potrebbe contrastarci il passaggio , e far tacere le grida de’ difen-
sori delle varie opinioni, attraverso le quali dobbiam pure imparziali e sicuri
aprirci una strada per giungere allo scopo alle nostre ricerche prefisso», Ibid.,
277.
14 «Tacere le grida de’ difensori delle varie opinioni», Ibid.
Once the scope of the investigation was defined, Carmignani de-

voted the central part of his Dissertazione to the study of the ef-
fects generated by words themselves, in order to determine
whether, through translation, the same effect could be trans-
ferred from one language to another, and “be reproduced with
the same intensity in a different aggregate of signs.”15
The translator who studies a foreign language in order to appre-
ciate its “most exquisite finesse”16 should come to know the “us-
es, ways, opinions, laws, and even the influencing physics of nat-
ural objects, or art, that characterize the nation, to which such
language belongs, because it is of all of these that we find evi-
dence in each work.”17 Only in doing so, by acquiring a deep
knowledge of the culture in which the original work was created,
can we become like fellow citizens and contemporaries of the

authors these works were written by: and all held within them
that produced those happy associations of ideas, everything
that gave place to the detailed and secret allusions, and which
by us through the same vehicle was so deeply felt. 18
To create the kind of effect equivalent to translation, or, as he

called it, a “same” or “proportional effect”, Carmignani finds it
necessary that the translator fully understand the meaning of the
source text, but also the way that it was understood by its origi-
nal readers.
15 «Essere prodotto colla medesima intensità in un diverso aggregato di segni»,

Ibid., 278.
16 «Le più squisite finezze», Ibid., 313.
17 «Gli usi, i modi, le opinioni, le leggi, la fisica influenza perfino degli oggetti
della natura, o dell’arte che caratterizzano la nazione, a cui cotal lingua appar-
tiene, poiché di tutto ciò troviamo le tracce nelle opere», Ibid.
18 «Diveniamo cosi quasi concittadini e contemporanei degli autori che tali ope-
re scrissero: e tutto quel che in essi produsse certe felici associazioni d’idee, tut-
to ciò che dette luogo a fine e segrete allusioni, è di noi con tal mezzo vivamen-
te sentito», Ibid., 314.
But, Carmignani wonders, even if he or she is able to perceive all

of these aspects of the original work, how can the translator ever
create in his own language the “magical fire that unfolds and
slips into the most delicate exquisiteness, or the most energetic
turns of phrase”19 of the original work? Is such alchemy even
possible? And, given that the translator comes almost to “em-
body the soul”20 of the translated author, how could he reconcile
the risk of “acting and thinking as himself,” 21 even with the belief
that he is thinking as the other would think?
Translation, Carmignani acknowledges, while not entirely impos-
sible, is limited to the translation of the ideas contained in the
original work, and may even transfer some emotions of said
work, but not those that depend on the specific quality and form
of the source text. The logical consequence is according to Car-
mignani that,
as much as a translator might be able to graft onto a given

foundation of ideas the effect of a word in lieu of what is con-
tained in the original, all that which is related to taste will in-
herently be the creation of the translator, and nothing will
remain which belonged to the original author’s taste.22
The elements regarding a traceable “taste” in the translation

would have been the result of the translator’s creation and not
that of the original author. It is using this theory that Carmignani
is able to overcome the impasse regarding the translatability of a
literary work, while at the same time allowing for the idea that a
19 «Magico fuoco che si svolge e serpeggia nelle più fine squisitezze, o nelle più
energiche forme del dire», Ibid., 317.
20 «Indossar l’anima», Ibid., 318.
21 «Agire e pensare a modo suo», Ibid.
22 «Per quanto il traduttore innestar possa sopra un dato fondo d’idee un effet-
to di parole in luogo di quello che nell’original si racchiude, tutto ciò che al gu-
sto ha relazione sarà creazione del traduttore, e nulla vi rimarrà che al gusto
dell’autore originale appartenga», Ibid., 319.
translator might also act as an autonomous creator of the trans-

lated work.
Foreseeing a possible criticism of his intuitions, and acknowledg-
ing an inability to delve further into them in the Dissertazione,
Carmignani defers to “other great minds”23 any opinions on the
matter.
He furthermore points out that, although his own conclusions
push him to have little confidence in the potential of translations
in “things regarding taste”,24 he certainly does not disesteem the
better translators who “fought against the difficulty of their un-
dertaking”25 and admits, paradoxically, that one can admire a
certain translator while not being fully satisfied with his transla-
tion.
Carmignani reviews, then, certain metaphors and comparisons
previously used to define translation (sometimes referred to as a
“copy” of a picture or as a “copperplate of a painting”, other
times as the “underside of a tapestry” or as a “struggle”), funda-
mentally distancing himself from them.
The last part of the Dissertazione, which ultimately answers the
first part of the query posed by the Academy of Lucca, is devoted
to the study of the “risks” and “advantages” of translations.
In this regard, Carmignani believes that translations have con-
tributed to the perversion of taste and, simultaneously, to the
diminishment of the study of ancient models:
Not without a great foundation of justice can we reproach

translations for having corrupted taste to the point of caus-
ing us deviate from its true and genuine sources. 26
23 «Altri ingegni», Ibid.

24 «Nelle cose di gusto», Ibid., 320.
25 «Lottarono contro la difficoltà della loro intrapresa», Ibid.
26 «Possiamo non senza un gran fondamento di giustizia rimproverare alle tra-
duzioni di aver pervertito il gusto al segno di averci fatto deviare da’ veri e ge-
nuini suoi fonti», Ibid., 340.
Translations were even responsible, according to Carmignani, for

upsetting the practical rules of literary writing, based on the rules
of taste. In fact, the author states:
In free translation, a new effect replaces the old, leaving the

gaunt, mutilated, emaciated limbs of the dissected poet in
the literal translation.
In literal translation, nothing remains of the original work
but the foundation of the ideas that have essentially served
the enchanting effect of the word, and we have noticed
that, when it comes to matters of taste, the foundation of
the ideas is of little worth compared to the value they ac-
quire in their connection to the material sounds of words,
with the moral and mechanical harmony of speech.27
His criticism is also directed at the “literal” translations usually

placed before the original text, which fueled the “laziness of the
majority of readers” wreaking “havoc on the proper and in-depth
study of the classics.”28
The opinion shared by some, that through translation certain lit-
erary works would have overcome moments of difficulty and up-
held with new ideas and models the receiving culture, is equally
criticized by Carmignani.
He maintains, in fact, that such an attempt to enrich literary tra-
dition would serve little good, least of all with a body of literature
such as the Italian one, which has in its heritage models of taste
27 «Nella libera traduzione si sostituì un nuovo effetto all’antico, e si lasciarono

nella version litterale scarne, mutilate, sparute le membra del dissecato poeta.
Nella litteral traduzione non resta di un’opera che il fondo delle idee che han
servito di materiale all’effetto mirabile della parola, e noi abbiamo avvertito che
nelle cose di gusto il fondo delle idee è poco valutabile in confronto del valor
ch’esse acquistano nella loro connessione co’ suoni materiali delle parole,
coll’armonia morale e coll’armonia meccanica del discorso», Ibid., 341.
28 «Pigrizia della maggior parte dei lettori» arrecando «danno al buono e pro-
fondo studio de’ classici», Ibid., 344.

of such value that simply reading it would be enough to resolve

any moments of crisis regarding taste in a given literary culture.
With regard to this argument, Carmignani, re-invoking Bitaubé,
argues that only in the case where “great writers”29 are doing the
translation could a given language reap benefits, but this only
because such writers would be allowed to integrate only limited
elements or segments of the old authors translated, without hav-
ing to translate the entire works but rather only the parts suita-
ble to them:
This occurs because writers, who transplant into their writings

only certain pieces from the ancients, benefit from many ad-
vantages that translators do not have: on one hand, the ability
to imitate only that which lends itself to imitation and that
which, by weaving a union with their own thoughts, seems to
gifted unto them by the same genius that gifted the original
author, so well as if by memory, as if they met on the same
path the author who they imitate; and, on the other hand, the
ability to not translate or not imitate anything but pieces, and
not the entire works, which hold obstacles that might cool
their genius.30
Here we can recognize a reference to the enriching role of autho-

rial translations that, as opposed to other types of translations,
might be seen as a potential creative resource for the writer-
translator.
A different argument must be made for the translation of mod-
ern languages, which are usually more similar to each other than
they are to ancient languages, and whose delivery in the target
language therefore fares much better. Even with respect to these
translations, however, and especially when it comes to transla-
tions into the Italian language, Carmignani cannot foresee any
possible benefit for the receiving culture and raises the question:
29 «Grandi scrittori», Ibid., 346.

30 Ibid.
Now I will question how our harmonious and gentle idiom,

which after the Greek and Latin languages holds, according to
the unanimous consensus of the most sensible critics of the
modern nations, the first place and undoubtedly the most dis-
tinct place of all the living idioms, could it draw new colors,
new adornments and novel shapes from the style of languages
which are admittedly so inferior to it? 31
In general, according to Carmignani, translating and looking for

models elsewhere would diminish the study of one’s own nation-
al literary models, resulting in the degradation of their literary
tradition, with the consequent drawback of importing foreign
terms that would risk altering the nature of a given language.
It is precisely when dealing with the translation of modern lan-
guages into Italian that the tone of the Dissertazione becomes
downright disparaging:
But the great ease of translations from modern languages, es-

pecially French, is a new source of damage done unto us. Who,
then, can undertake the censoring of those translator plebs of
modern things, that class of mostly mercenaries, paid off by
the speculating spirit of booksellers? Who, then, can under-
take the examination of those works worthy of the curiosity of
the nation, as well as the examination of those which, holding
no worth except as misunderstood and corrupt oddities,
should be rejected as a plague of taste? For as difficult as it is
for vulgar men and well-read tramps to undertake the task of
translating the works of antiquity, it is just as easy for them to
cling to the less strenuous job of translating from French and
English, and not just the masterpieces of those nations, but
31 «Or domando io come potrebbe l’armonioso e gentil nostro idioma, che dopo
la greca e la latina favella ha per unanime consentimento de’ più sensati critici
delle moderne nazioni, il posto primiero e incomparabilmente il più distinto tra i
viventi idiomi, come potrebbe attinger nuovi colori, nuove bellezze e forme no-
velle dallo stil delle lingue che a lui si confessano inferiori cotanto?», Ibid., 347.
those ephemeral and miserable trifles that are equally chil-

dren of a given moment or day, just as it is even easier to pro-
duce them, like some bothersome insects infesting the literary
horizon. 32
Hence the protest regarding the lack of “censure of those transla-

tor plebs of modern things”33 that should be “rejected as a
plague of taste:”34 a regulation and a censorship approach that
brings to mind that which, barely more than a century after the
Dissertazione critica sulle traduzioni was written, during those
twenty years of Fascism, the Ministry of Popular Culture set in
motion, censoring, often pre-emptively, the translation of foreign
works.
Some benefits, according to Carmignani, who assumes a vaguely

sarcastic tone in the conclusion of the Dissertazione, could never-
theless result from resorting to translations.
With a critical examination of his time and the future before him,
Carmignani acknowledges the benefits afforded by scientific
translations that might offer:
32 «Ma la grande facilità delle traduzioni dalle lingue moderne, specialmente

dalla francese, è una nuova sorgente de’ danni ch’esse ci arrecano. Chi è che as-
sumer possa la censura del volgo de’ traduttori di cose moderne, gente per lo
più mercenaria e stipendiata dallo spirito speculator de’ librai? Chi è che assu-
mer possa l’esame delle opere degne di occupare la savia curiosità della nazio-
ne, e l’esame di quelle che, non interessando se non una curiosità mal intesa e
corrotta, dovrebbero essere rigettate come peste del gusto? Conciossiaché
quanto è difficile che volgari uomini e letterati pezzenti assuman l’incarico di
tradurre le opere dell’antichità, tanto è facile ch’essi si appiglino al men penoso
mestiere di tradurre dal francese e dall’inglese, non pur i capi d’opera di quelle
nazioni, ma quelle effimere e miserabili inezie pur anco che figlie del momento
e del giorno, quanto più facili sono a prodursi tanto più a guisa degl’insetti mo-
lesti infettano il letterario orizzonte», Ibid., 349.
33 «Censura del volgo dei traduttori di cose moderne», Ibid., 348.
34 «Rigettate come peste del gusto», Ibid., 349.
the invaluable advantage of freeing those cultivators of good

philosophy from the hindrances, the distractions, and the
squandering of time that the study of so many languages
would cost them, numerous as the nations are from which es-
sential findings, and ingenious scientific theories, derive. 35
A significant conservation of time that would benefit scientific

progress. In this sense, the “wisdom”36 of nature would have
been revealed by “adjusting the means to match their ends”;37
making the translation of “matters of taste”38 impossible would
have prevented their corruption, and making the translation of
scientific works easier would have furthered the advancement
that the sciences in general demand.39
35 «L’inestimabil vantaggio di dispensare i coltivatori della buona filosofia

dagl’imbarazzi, dalle distrazioni e dal dispendio di tempo che costar loro do-
vrebbero gli studi di tante lingue, quante son le nazioni da cui gli utili ritrovati, le
ingegnose scientifiche teorie». Ibid., 351.
36 «Saggezza», Ibid.
37 «Proporzionando i mezzi ai loro fini», Ibid.
38 «Cose di gusto», Ibid.
39 Ibid., 351.
2
Giovanni De Coureil and the

Degradation of Good Literary Taste
Written for the open contest of the Napoleon Academy of

Lucca in 1806, Giovanni De Coureil’s1 Ragionamento ac-
cademico sulle traduzioni was first published in 1819.
1 Giovanni Salvatore De Coureil (1760-1822), was born in Provence and raised

in Tuscany, is still seldom studied today. The roots of this modern lack of inter-
est in him can be traced far back, and might be due, as Dionisotti believed, to
many reasons. In addition to being a “troublemaking critic and journalist” (Di-
onisotti, Un sonetto su Shakespeare, 115) whose short fame was overshad-
owed by the negative judgment expressed by Vincenzo Monti, who described
him as an “braggart [...], a terrible snob, [...] who fell from where in Italy I do
not know to practice dictatorial criticism” (V. Monti, Del cavallo alato
d’Arsinoe, Sonzogno, Milano, 1804, 33ff.), associating him with one of those
“petulant and biting” critics who add to their provocative nature the “rancor of
failed ambition” (these are the terms with which Monti refers to De Coureil).
Reputation aside, De Coureil played an active role in Italian literary culture at
the turn of the century. A curious and witty critic, he even tried his hand,
though with poor results, at poetic writing, but his controversial spirit towards
many authors of the past and others of his own time managed to permeate
even the notes to his compositions, published in the Opere Poetiche (Grazioli,
Firenze, 1790).
He was one of the most active editors of the «Nuovo giornale dei letterati»
founded in Pisa in 1802, and in 1803 he published Parnaso inglese, a small vol-
ume of various translations of poems by Cowley, Denham, Milton and Roches-
ter. The aggression of Vincenzo Monti in the year following the publication of
those translations was crucial in the demolition of De Coureil’s image, and he
was forced to withdraw almost entirely from literary spaces.
The open contest of the Academy of Lucca in 1806 was, for the French critic, a
new cause of confrontation, this time with Carmignani (who would go on to
The entire Ragionamento spawns from the general as-

sumption that the excessive ease in achieving a result, in
any human enterprise and therefore even when it comes
to understanding a foreign body of literature, is always at
odds with the quality of such a result.
For the aspiring writer who finds himself reading works in
translation, the possibility of truly understanding the for-
eign work and, consequently, of benefiting from the en-
richment (both linguistic and creative) that would other-
wise result from reading the originals, would be greatly re-
duced. Translations would, therefore, have their first nega-
tive impact in that way, so much that De Coureil recognizes
“the primitive cause of the current degradation of good lit-
erary taste, in the multitude of translations, which sprung
from every which direction to flood the beautiful country
of Ausonia and to corrupt its poetry.”2 De Coureil then sets
forth the goal to demonstrate that “the translations of ancient
and modern writers alike are equally, though for different rea-
sons, fatal to the progress of modern literature.” 3 Another cause
of his distrust of translations lies in the fact that the irreconcila-
ble distance between the different languages and cultures
win the prize). In 1808, having been dismissed by the Editors of the «Nuovo
giornale dei letterati» for behavior that was considered offensive by most, and
reduced almost to starvation, De Coureil moved to Livorno where he lived for
another fourteen years, publishing the first five volumes, of an expected six-
teen, of his Works (1818-1819 Rosini, Livorno), which assembled contempo-
rary and past critical writings.
2 «La causa primitiva della decadenza attuale del buon gusto letterario, nella
moltitudine appunto di traduzioni, che scaturite sono da tutte le parti ad inon-

dare il bel paese d’Ausonia ed a corrompere la poesia», G. S. De Coureil, Ra-
gionamento accademico sulle traduzioni, in Id., Opere, V, Stamperia della Feni-
ce, Livorno 1819, 254.
3«Le traduzioni degli scrittori antichi e moderni sono egualmente, ancorché
per diverse ragioni, funeste ai progressi della moderna letteratura», Ibid.

Giovanni De Coureil and the Degradation of Good Literary Taste 27
would make “similarly laborious all our efforts, to transport

from one to the other the truly national works, that is to say,
those that carry within them the mark of the particular charac-
ter of those very same nations.” 4
Translations would, according to the scholar from Pro-
vence, make the reading of foreign works far too easy, especial-
ly in the case of ancient literature, so as to ‘enfeeble’ the minds
that would otherwise draw greater benefits from the more chal-
lenging literature in the originals.
As a result, such a predicament would favor the proliferation of
poets and prose writers of low caliber who, exempt from the
need to study ancient languages directly in the originals, would
wind up nurturing a “pasture of the most boorish and uncouth
minds.”5
Moreover, De Coureil asks, can the ancient authors be fully
comprehended in their truest essence solely through the read-
ing of translations?:
will the ancient authors be truly understood or instead only

their modern translators, who, often at every turn, in every
phrase, mutilate them, mutate them in both their expressions
and sentiments?6
The answer is no. At best, the reader of translations might be

able to study a number of surrogates of the original work and,
furthermore, the ease of access to ancient works through such
translations might create a mechanism in which the aspiring
4 «Similmente improba ogni nostra fatica, per trasportare dall’una nell’altra le

opere veramente nazionali, vale a dire, quelle che portano in sé 1’impronta del
particolare carattere delle diverse medesime nazioni», Ibid.
5 «Pascolo delle menti più rozze e grossolane», Ibid., 257.
6 «Si conosceranno veramente gli autori antichi o i loro moderni traduttori sol-
tanto, i quali ordinariamente ad ogni periodo, ad ogni verso li mutilano, li de-

formano e nell’espressioni e nei sentimenti?», Ibid., 260.
writer (who refers back to those translations) would be per-

suaded to not fully understand or absorb them, since
the speed with which we read their disguised works allows us

to quickly forget them, in such a way that nothing more re-
mains in our minds but a cacophony of notions, vague and
badly digested, while if we had studied these same books in
their original language they would have become for us an in-
exhaustible treasure of ideas and fundamental comparisons
between ancient and modern opinions. 7
De Coureil also believes, along with an ample host of predeces-

sors, that the good translator should have a mind equal to that
of the original writer, and that, if such a writer-translator exist-
ed, he would not easily invest his time in translating works of
others but rather in his own writing:
Now who is the man of such genius comparable to Homer,

Virgil, Pindar, Horace, Thucydides, Livy, Demosthenes, and
Cicero, that does not want to make for himself a name as an
original writer, rather than as translator?8
This statement implies, almost as a corollary, that translations

are therefore entrusted to “mediocre talents, to vulgar pens.”9
De Coureil is therefore convinced (with good reason) that since
the proposal of the contest, the scholars of the Royal Napoleon
Academy of Lucca trace “the primitive cause of the current de-
7 «Rapidità colla quale leggiamo le opere loro così travestite, ce le fa ben pre-
sto dimenticare, di maniera che non ci rimane in mente che un caos d’idee
confuse e mal digerite, mentre che se avessimo studiati questi medesimi libri
nel linguaggio loro originale sarebbero divenuti per noi un tesoro inesauribile
di cognizioni ed utilissimi confronti fra le opinioni antiche e moderne», Ibid.
8 «Ora qual è l’uomo di genio paragonabile ad Omero, a Virgilio, a Pindaro ed a
Orazio, a Tucidide ed a Livio, a Demostene ed a Cicerone, che non voglia piut-

tosto acquistarsi la riputazione di scrittore originale che quella di traduttore?»,
Ibid., 261.
9 «Mediocri talenti, a penne volgari», Ibid.
cline of good literary taste, in the multitude of translations”10

that “would inundate”11 the Italian peninsula and corrupt its
taste and eloquence.
De Coureil’s almost derogatory criticism, however, is not
directed at foreign writings and their genius (which through the
study of their originals could certainly enrich other literary sys-
tems), but aims to highlight the risks that derive from their
translation into another language. In some cases, especially if a
writer were to address a translated text, the risk would be com-
parable, De Coureil asserts (drawing on translator-copier meta-
phor), to that of educating a painter by making him train using
prints made by copperplates rather than the original paintings
themselves.
Translations would pose a risk, on one hand by eroding
the treasures of thought and style in the original by modifying
its character, and on the other hand by infusing in the target
language “strange forms of speech, logic, and manners less than
suitable to her genius”12 so as to distort and barbarize it irrepa-
rably. Moreover, translations would encourage the diminish-
ment of the study of ancient languages, with the consequent
risk of causing them to be forgotten.
Italian culture on the cusp between the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries represented, according to De Coureil, a
typical example of a “gothic mixture”13 of Italian taste, already
corrupted and combined with English, French, German, etc.
The metaphor with which De Coureil attempts to explain the
dynamics of certain influences between different literary tradi-
tions is, albeit only partially, original.
10 «La causa primitiva della decadenza attuale del buon gusto letterario, nella
moltitudine di traduzioni», Ibid., 254.
11 «Inonderebbero», Ibid.
12 «Strane forme di dire, giri e maniere poco confacenti al di lei genio», Ibid.,
263.
13 «Gotico miscuglio», Ibid., 272.
By consistently borrowing foreign wonders, our own become

altered; they lose their taste, and we fall into the trap similar
to that unknowing female who, as a result of wanting to imi-
tate and to assume the graces of others, by persisting in deco-
rating herself with foreign ornaments, buries under these her
own natural beauty, and becomes the object of pity or con-
tempt, where there might have been, by preserving her own
naive graces and her own pure charms, one of common admi-
ration.14
The Italian writers, whose taste De Coureil regards as pure and

natural until the end of the seventeenth century, would go on to
see their naturalness and authenticity degenerate, and “soil
themselves with foreign tar.”15
If there are any perceivable benefits to the receiving cul-
ture, De Coureil attributes them only to the most deserving
translations (the “truly admirable” version of Ossian’s poems
delivered in Italian by the “immortal” Cesarotti, for example) 16,
but the damage would be much greater, as some predecessors
predicted:
Men of common sense much greater than my own, and with

much more preponderant authority than I myself can claim,
Manara and Paradisi, at the earliest appearance of Ossian’s or
Macpherson’s poetry translated by Cesarotti, predicted the
coming ruin of good taste in Italy. The prophecy came true,
and even too much so. The Alemannic poems were transport-
ed into our speech by Soave and Bertola. Conti gave us the
14 «A forza di prendere ad imprestito le bellezze straniere, si alterano le nostre

naturali, se ne perde il gusto, e si cade nell’error medesimo di quella femmina
poco accorta che a forza di voler imitare e far proprie le grazie altrui, a forza
d’abbigliarsi con ornamenti stranieri, seppellisce sotto di questi la naturale sua
bellezza, e diventa un oggetto di compassione o di disprezzo, ove esserlo pote-
va, conservando le ingenue sue grazie e le candide sue attrattive, della comu-
ne ammirazione», Ibid., 273.
15«S’imbrattarono della pece straniera», Ibid.
16 «Veramente stimabile»; «immortale», Ibid., 274.
donative of many Spanish poems, and others familiarized us

with British poets, and since that unhappy time, Italy can no
longer boast to have a true poet.17
De Coureil is very critical when it comes to the translations of

theatrical works as well. The “hunger for foreign productions”18
in Italy would have, in fact, also corrupted the taste of Italian
theater, just as might a real “infection”:
How much has Italian theater been compromised by the mul-

tiple translations of foreign theatrics? The immortal Goldoni
had only just introduced unto our stages true comedy, when
those pestilent translations of feeble French dramas came to
halt Thalia’s progress among us, and introduced a genre of
bastard drama that, by partaking in tragedy and in comedy at
the same time, is neither one nor the other, and offers us cer-
tain theatrical monsters in which all the rules of common
sense and verisimilitude, and all the precepts of art, are vio-
lated and trampled upon with impunity. 19
17 «Uomini di assai maggior senno del mio, e di più assai preponderante autori-
tà di quella a cui posso io pretendere, Manara e Paradisi, fin dalla prima com-
parsa che fecero le poesie d’Ossian o di Macpherson tradotte da Cesarotti,
predissero la prossima ruina del buon gusto in Italia. Il vaticinio si avverò pur
troppo. Le poesie alemanne furono trasportate nella nostra favella da Soave e
da Bertola; il Conti ci fece il donativo di molte poesie spagnuole, altri ci fami-
gliarizzò co’ poeti britannici, e da quell’epoca infelice l’Italia non vanta più un
vero buon poeta», Ibid., 275.
18 Ibid., 278.
19 «Quanto hanno pregiudicato agli avanzamenti del teatro italiano le tradu-
zioni molteplici dai teatri stranieri? L’immortale Goldoni aveva appena intro-
dotta sulle nostre scene la vera commedia, che le pestifere traduzioni dei
drammi flebili francesi vennero ad arrestare i progressi di Tàlia tra di noi, e ad
introdurre un genere di dramma bastardo, che partecipando della tragedia e
della commedia al tempo stesso, non è né 1’uno né l’altro, e ci presenta de’
mostri drammatici ne’ quali sono impunemente violate e calpestate tutte le
regole del buon senso e della verosimiglianza, e tutti i precetti dell’arte», Ibid.,
276.
It is interesting to note that De Coureil takes as good fortune the

fact that the translation of the “monstrous Shakespeare,”20
though attempted in the past, has never been completed (“oth-
erwise only heaven knows what to level of degradation we
would already have descended!”).21 Elsewhere, however, and
demonstrating a very different attitude towards the English
writer, in comments regarding his own translation of Macbeth’s
soliloquy (II, I),22 De Coureil states: “Despite the defects of my
version, I hope that anyone who closely reads this monologue
will confess that no other poet has ever possessed such a tragic
genius and sublime imagination as that of Shakespeare.”23
Even the translations of French works “commissioned by mostly
venal and ignorant people”24 and executed by “mercenary per-
sons, who bring down to the worst level their work in order to
as quickly as possible earn the shameful salary assigned to
them,”25 might have contaminated Italian culture not only “with
incompatible Gallicisms, but also multiple errors, that ignorance
coupled with the ultimate haste”26 of the translators would have
generated.
Nevertheless, De Coureil clarifies that he is not totally against
any enrichment that may arise from an encounter between dif-
ferent cultures. In declaring himself aware of certain “gaps” in
20 Ibid., 279.
21 «Altrimenti sa il cielo fino a qual segno di degradazione saremmo di già per-
venuti!», Ibid.
22 He also translated Hamlet (I, V) and Richard the Third (V, III).
23 «Malgrado i difetti della mia versione, spero che chiunque leggerà attenta-
mente questo monologo, confesserà che nessun poeta ha posseduto un genio

tragico e un’immaginazione sublime come Shakespeare», C. Dionisotti, Un so-
netto su Shakespeare, 127.
24 «Commissionate per lo più da gente venalissima e ignorante», Ibid., 283.
25 «Da persone mercenarie, che tirarono giù alla peggio il lavoro per guadagnar
più presto il vergognoso stipendio che veniva loro assegnato», Ibid.

26 «Di gallicismi incompatibili, ma di molteplici errori, che l’ignoranza unita alla
somma fretta», Ibid.

Italian literature, he admits that literary culture may benefit

from contact with foreign writings:
“Heaven forbid, my lords, that I might dare to condemn that

nation seeking to enhance its literature with foreign treasures.
I do not ignore how many, and which, gaps Italy has in many
branches of poetic art and oratory; I know that we need for-
eign models in the absence of our national ones, in many gen-
res, but I would wish that all that we take from abroad be ac-
quired first hand, not second or third, as unfortunately hap-
pens not uncommonly. I would prefer for us, instead of en-
trusting ourselves to the translations, to consult the originals.
27
In doing so, he states, “the contagion has a much more con-

tained effect, or at minimum the infection advances with much
greater slowness.”28
But translations, while enriching the target body of literature,
would benefit the language alone and not the growth of the
wealth of the ideas of a nation, which, according to De Coureil,
Italy desperately needed (“Translations increase the bounty of
words rather than that of ideas, and we have a need for the ex-
act the opposite”).29
De Coureil later clarifies that his argument pertains exclusively
to literary works, for which, unlike “purely scientific, moral and
27 «Tolga il cielo, signori miei, ch’io pensi a condannare quella nazione che cer-
ca d’arricchire la propria letteratura colle straniere ricchezze. Io non ignoro
quali e quanti vuoti ha l’Italia in molti rami dell’arte poetica e dell’oratoria; so
che abbiamo bisogno di modelli forestieri in mancanza de’ nostri nazionali, in
molti generi, ma vorrei che tutto quello cui dall’estero prendiamo fosse acqui-
sto di prima mano, non di seconda o di terza, come pur troppo accade non di
rado. Vorrei che invece di fidarci alle traduzioni, consultassimo gli originali»,
Ibid., 283-284.
28 «Il contagio è molto minore ne’ suoi effetti, o almeno l’infezione progredisce
con molto maggiore lentezza», Ibid., 284.

29 «Le traduzioni aumentano il tesoro delle parole anzi che quello dell’idee, e
noi avremmo bisogno di tutto il contrario», Ibid., 285.

publicly useful books,”30 translations “rather than benefiting lit-

erature and contributing to the evolution of good taste, pervert
it, corrupt it, and insensibly cause us to lose every trace of its
true literary beauty.”31
The second part of the Ragionamento opens with a broad re-

flection in the linguistic-comparative style regarding the genesis
and evolution of the major European languages: among them
the English language: “free, the enemy of abstractions, energet-
ic, bold, rich in warm, vibrating, and picturesque expressions, as
the British imagination”;32 French: “more cultivated than ener-
getic, more elegant than robust, richer in gracious methods than
sublime ones, excessively timid from an excess of false fragility,
blocked by countless hesitations and restraints, fussy about any
direct approach, unable to bend towards those attitudes which
allow English to assume all characters, and an enemy of both
base expressions and overly-elevated ones alike”;33 Spanish:
“serious, majestic, slow, more susceptible to any beauty of the
grandiose and proud kind than the soft and delicate one, alt-
hough not entirely repulsed by it, rich in cheerful and aural Latin
inflections,” which “lacks nothing in comparison with Italian in
terms of fecundity and flexibility”;34 and then Italian, “the eldest
30 «Libri meramente scientifici, morali e di pubblica utilità», Ibid., 286.

31 «Anziché recar vantaggio alla letteratura e contribuire al perfezionamento
del buon gusto, lo depravano, lo corrompono, ed insensibilmente ci fanno
perdere ogni traccia del vero bello letterario», Ibid.
32 «Libera, nemica degli inceppamenti, energica, ardita, ricca di espressioni
calde, vibrate e pittoresche, come britannica l’immaginazione», Ibid., 292.

33«Culta più che energica, elegante più che robusta, più ricca di modi graziosi
che di sublimi, timida soverchiamente per eccesso di falsa delicatezza, incep-

pata da mille scrupoli e ritegni, schifiltosa d’ogni maniera ardita, incapace di
piegarsi a quelle attitudini che permettono all’inglese di assumere tutti i carat-
teri, nemica ugualmente dell’espressioni troppo basse e delle troppo elevate»,
Ibid.
34 «Grave, maestosa, lenta, suscettibile d’ogni bellezza del genere grande e fie-
ro più che del morbido e delicato, benché non del tutto ripugnante a questo,
daughter of Latin,”35 which has maintained “more than any oth-

er her resemblance to her mother.”36
Precisely because of its own unique nature, no language could,

according to De Coureil, be transferable to another language, as
“each language has a distinct character unique to it alone, which
cannot easily be transmitted to others without disfiguring its
physiognomy, without violently forcing it away from its na-
ture.”37 Adding to the complexity of the situation is the distance
between the contexts in which the various languages devel-
oped, for which “those ideas, those images and, consequently,
those words that to a nation are common and natural”38 could
elsewhere seem “affected and contrived,”39 with the result that
each language might present “an excessive number of turns of
phrases and of expressions of its own, which are not transfera-
ble to another language with all the strength intrinsic to their
meaning.”40
And so there is an attempt by De Coureil at a close examination

of the most appropriate means with which “to transfer the ideas
and sentiments from one language to another,”41 with little orig-
inality to be honest, if not for the fact he focuses not only on the
ricca di felici e sonore desinenze alla latina» alla quale «nulla manca per gareg-
giare coll’italiana in fecondità e pieghevolezza», Ibid.
35 «Figlia primogenita della latina», Ibid.
36 «Più affinità dell’altre colla madre sua», Ibid.
37 «Ogni lingua ha il suo carattere distinto e particolare ad essa, che non può
trasmettersi facilmente in altre senza sfigurarne la fisonomia, senza sforzarla

violentemente dalla sua natura», Ibid., 292.
38 «Quelle idee, quelle immagini, e per conseguenza quelle parole che presso
ad una nazione sono semplici e naturali», Ibid., 295.

39 «Affettate e ricercate», Ibid.
40 «Un numero grande di giri di frasi e di espressioni particolarmente suoi, e
non trasferibili in altra lingua con tutta la forza intrinseca della loro significa-
zione», Ibid.
41 «Per trasportare le idee e gli affetti da una lingua in un’altra», Ibid., 296.
language, but also, and most of all, on the relationships that

each language weaves with “the customs of the nation that
speaks it,”42 and therefore with its culture of origin. Accordingly,
De Coureil maintains, the “ideal” translator should adhere to the
following rules:
First and foremost, he must have studied with the utmost at-
tention the genre in which the author whom he aims to trans-
late is typically distinguished; for it would be decidedly impru-
dent if he who, without understanding all of the rules, all of
the secrets of oratory or poetics, attempted to translate a po-
et or an orator.
Subsequently, it is necessary for the translator to know the
mind and the character of that author he wants to deliver to
another language, to know the circumstances in which he
wrote, the motives that drove him to write, and the objectives
he had in mind.
Third of all, such understanding would be of little use if the
translator does not also possess knowledge of many other less
essential areas, meaning if he does not know all the subtleties
of the language from which he is translating, and the relation-
ships that exist between it and the customs of the nation
where it is spoken, or if he does not fully understand all of its
uses in that nation, and especially those of the era in which
the work was translated. Every thinking man knows that reli-
gion, form of government, rituals, superstitions, and the tradi-
tions of a people have the greatest influence on language; and
how could we perfectly understand it, unless we ourselves
have a deep knowledge of those?43
42«I costumi della nazione che la parla», Ibid., 297.

43 «Primieramente, bisogna ch’egli abbia studiato con somma attenzione il ge-
nere nel quale si è caratteristicamente distinto l’autore cui egli imprende a
tradurre; giacché sarebbe ben imprudente colui che senza possedere tutte le
regole, tutti i segreti dell’oratoria o della poetica, a tradurre imprendesse un
poeta o un oratore. Secondariamente, fa d’uopo che il traduttore conosca a
fondo il genio ed il carattere di quell’autore che vuol trasportare in altra lin-
gua, sappia le circostanze nelle quali scrisse, i motivi che a scrivere lo determi-
If ever such a translator existed, however, De Coureil questions

why he should ever “sacrifice himself to the inferior position as
translator?”44
Before concluding the Ragionamento, De Coureil recognizes as a
peculiar trait of many writers that which they call their “nation-
ality”, which places however literary translations in a sort of
paradox. Because of this characteristic of theirs, and their “na-
tional originality,” these writers “deserve more than others the
honor of translation,”45 but paradoxically would in fact be “the
least translatable.”46
narono, ed il fine ch’egli si propose. In terzo luogo, a poco gioverebbero siffat-

te cognizioni se il traduttore non ne possedesse molte altre non meno essen-
ziali, voglio dire, se non conoscesse tutte le finezze della lingua dalla quale tra-
duce, ed i rapporti che esistono tra questa ed i costumi della nazione che la
parla, se non avesse presente gli usi tutti di tal nazione, e particolarmente
quelli del tempo in cui fu scritta l’opera da tradursi. Ogni uomo che riflette, sa
che la religione, la forma del governo, le cerimonie, le superstizioni, le usanze
tradizionali d’un popolo hanno la più grande influenza sopra la lingua; e come
intenderemo noi perfettamente questa se non siamo profondi nella cognizione
di quelle?», Ibid.
44 «Sacrificarsi al subalterno uffizio di traduttore», Ibid., 298.
45 «Meriterebbero più di altri gli onori della traduzione», Ibid.
46 «I meno traducibili di fatto», Ibid.
3
Luigi Ceretti’s Principles

of Rhetoric
In Della Traduzione , published for the first time in the In-

stituzioni di eloquenza1, Luigi Cerretti2 states the importance of
1 L. Cerretti, Instituzioni di eloquenza, Maspero, Milano, 1811, 177-186. Bibli-

ographical notes on the citations of Cerretti’s essay refer to the 1822 edition
of Instituzioni di eloquenza (Silvestri, Milano).
2 Luigi Cerretti (Modena, 1738 – Pavia, 1808) taught first history and later
rhetoric at the University of Modena. He was president of the Academy of

Fine Arts, successor to Vincenzo Monti as the Chair of Rhetoric at the Univer-
sity of Pavia, and Minister in the Cisalpine Republic. He completed his first
studies under the Jesuits. His youth was tumultuous and troubled, and Cer-
retti was arrested for reckless behavior (it is from his jail-time experience
that certain compositions, and the comedy La casa di correzione would arise.
He was the author of the theoretical writings Delle vicende del buongusto
(Pavia, 1805) and Instituzioni di eloquenza (Milano, 1811), in which the influ-
ence of D’Alembert’s, Batteux’s and Beccaria’s reflections is quite noticeable.
Even Cerretti’s political career was marked, as were his private affairs, by an
arrest. He was condemned to house arrest following an uprising that oc-
curred during a Cispadane Congress held in Modena in 1797. Two years later,
after the Austrians had returned and he had lost most of his manuscripts, he
took shelter in France and, as a result of certain ideological differences,
risked being shot by a military doctor.
He completed some translations from Greek and Latin, and was the author of
a few neoclassical rhymes that, as part of his body of work (which ranged
from pre-romantic novella to tragedy, from ode to erotic folk song), make up
his most successful literary experiment.
In 1805 Napoleon awarded him the Legion of Honor, and the last years of his
life were marked by the lascivious behavior that had characterized much of
his past, which dragged him into tragic events and to the brink of absurdity.
translation as a necessary practice in the apprenticeship of lit-

erary writing, maintaining that “the art of translating is the
most common and necessary to those who wish to progress in
the oratory, poetic profession.”3
Cerretti, in line with was previously asserted by Charles
Batteux (to whom Cerretti owes much), believes that creative
writing and translation have multiple aspects in common, and
additionally recognizes some difficulties common to both
translation and the art of writing (“one of the greatest difficul-
ties of the art of writing, and, fundamentally, of translating, is
knowing to what extent to sacrifice energy for nobility, revision
for ease, rigorous accuracy for the mechanics of style”4).
Literal translation is strongly discouraged by Cerretti because it
is, according to him, impossible. Looser translations, on the
other hand, would give the translator a “dangerous freedom”:
the temperament and diverse nature of languages, which in

no way allow for literary translations, free the translator […]
from the necessity in which he would at times sacrifice the
charms of style for precision, or even precision for those same
charms. But, on the other hand, the helplessness to portray
his original word for word would leave space for a dangerous
freedom. Not being able to give the copy a perfect resem-
blance, he must fear the inability to give it all that it would de-
serve.5
3 «L’arte di tradurre, come la più usitata e necessaria a chi brama di far pro-
gressi nell’oratoria e poetica professione». L. Cerretti, “Della Traduzione”,
175.
4 Una delle somme difficoltà dell’arte di scrivere, e principalmente di tradur-
re, è quella di conoscere fino a qual segno si può sacrificare l’energia alla no-
biltà, la correzione alla facilità, la giustezza rigorosa alla meccanica dello sti-
le», Ibid., 176.
5 «L’indole e il carattere differente delle lingue, non permettendo giammai le
traduzioni letterarie, liberano il traduttore […], dalla necessità in cui si trove-

rebbe talvolta di sacrificare i vezzi dello stile alla precisione, o la precisione ai
vezzi medesimi. Ma, dall’altro canto, l’impossibilità nella quale si trova di
rappresentare il suo originale parola per parola, lasciagli una libertà pericolo-
Luigi Ceretti’s Principles of Rhetoric 41
The risk, given the impossibility of creating exact similarity

through translation, would therefore be that of not expressing
in the translation all the similarities between the original and
the translated work that could possibly be expressed.
This “Cerrettian” belief that the supremacy of the literary pro-
duction of antiquity compared to that contemporary to him
might be mere “superstition”, interesting as it may be, lacks
originality, being entirely borrowed from D’Alembert, from
whose reflections Cerretti draws much material:
The belief in favor of antiquity presumes that the ancients al-

ways expressed themselves in the most fitting way, and our
ignorance stands to benefit the original at the detriment of
the copy. The translator always seems to us not beneath the
idea that the original arouses in us of itself, but beneath the
idea that we ourselves have formed of the original one. 6
D’Alembert, who had as early as the 18th century spoken

about the need to tackle traductological investigation without
basing it on a pedantic approach,7 is also responsible for the
sa. Non potendo dare alla copia una perfetta rassomiglianza, dee temere di
non darle tutta quella di cui sarebbe suscettibile”, Ibid.
6 «La superstizione in favore dell’antichità ne fa supporre che gli antichi si
sieno sempre espressi nella maniera la più felice, e la nostra ignoranza volge-
si a profitto dell’originale e a detrimento della copia. Il traduttore sembraci
sempre non inferiore all’idea che l’originale in noi sveglia di se stesso, ma in-
feriore all’idea che noi ci siamo formata dell’originale medesimo», Ibid., 177.
7 «Etudions l’art dans leurs Ouvrages, & non dans quelques décisions mal as-
surées, sur lesquelles on dispute. Quels préceptes en effet sont préférables à

l’étude des grands modèles? Celle-ci éclaire toujours, ceux-là nuisent quel-
quefois…on voit partout la médiocrité dictant les Lois, & le génie s’abaissant
à lui obéir […. Cette règle si utile au progrès de la Littérature, doit s’étendre,
ce me semble, non-seulement aux ouvrages originaux, mais aux ouvrages
d’imitation même, tels que sont les traductions». Jean le Rond d’Alembert,
Observations sur l’art de traduire, in Id., Mélanges de littérature, d’histoire, et
criticism, referred to in this essay, regarding the universalistic

approach of those who sustained the similarity between dif-
ferent languages:
“But is it really true [...] that languages have a differing charac-

ter?” Many modern scholars, who boast of their philosophical
spirit, and who sometimes actually possess it, maintain the
opposite opinion, an absurdity that cannot be sustained. 8
Even Cerretti’s statements about the richness of a language

that «does not only consist of being able to express similar ide-
as with an abundance of synonyms, but rather every level of
idea with entirely different terms»9 can be traced back to
D’Alembert.
Among writers, the easiest ones to translate would not be
those whose only merit lies in their in style, but rather those
who juxtapose the beauty of style with “the finesse of ideas”:
Writers who combine the excellence of ideas with the charm

of style offer the translator more brevity and ease than those
whose only value lies in their elegant style. In the first case the
translator may be swayed to deliver unto the copy the charac-
ter, if nothing else, of the idea, and consequently at least half
of the author’s spirit; in the second case, if he does not ex-
press the diction, he expresses nothing at all.10
de philosophie. Augmentée de plusieurs Notes sur la Traduction de quelques

morceaux de Tacit, III, Zacharie Chatelain & fils, Amsterdam 1763, 3-32 (3-4).
8 «Ma è poi egli ben vero […] che le lingue abbiano un carattere differente?
Molti letterati moderni, che vantansi di spirito filosofico, e che qualche volta
ne hanno, sostengono la contraria opinione, assurdità che non può sostener-
si». L. Cerretti, “Della Traduzione”, 177.
9 «Non consiste già nel poter esprimere una medesima idea con abbondanza
di sinonimi, ma bensì ogni gradazione d’idea con termini differenti», Ibid.,

178.
10 «Gli scrittori che congiungono la finezza delle idee ai vezzi dello stile, of-
frono maggior brevità e facilità al traduttore, che non quegli il cui solo pregio
sta nella eleganza dello stile. Nel primo caso egli può lusingarsi di far passare
Luigi Ceretti’s Principles of Rhetoric 43
Having expressed these general reflections on translation, Cer-

retti highlights certain principles, or rules, that heavily reflect
the influence of Batteux’s theoretical positions relating to
translation, which can be found in the Cours de belles-lettres,
or Principes de la Littérature from 1747. Cerretti suggests some
guidelines for translating various elements of the phrase
(length, conjunctions, adverbs, metaphors, and proverbs). Del-
la Traduzione concludes with the famous invitation by Batteux:
the translator, it is suggested, should behave like the traveler
who “according to his comfort, sometimes gives a gold coin for
many silver ones, and sometimes many silver ones for a single
gold one.”11
nella copia il carattere, se non altro, del pensiero, e per conseguenza almeno
la metà dello spirito dell’autore; nel secondo caso, se non esprime la dizione,
non esprime cosa alcuna», Ibid., 179.
11 «Giusta il maggior suo comodo, dà talvolta una moneta d’oro per molte
d’argento, talvolta molte di argento per una d’oro», Ibid., 184.

4
Fortunato Cavazzoni Pederzini’s

Ethics of Hospitality
The Discorso intorno al tradurre in genere, e specialmente dal

greco nell’italiano colla maggiore possibile rispondenza by For-
tunato Cavazzoni Pederzini1 was first published in 18382.
In the opening of this document that, according to Mattioli,

“attests to a consistent, even flexible traductological culture,”3
the author directly quotes De Staël’s renowned statement re-
1 Fortunato Cavazzoni Pederzini (Ravarino, 1799 - Modena, 1864) began his

literary, philological and linguistic studies in Modena and, under the guidance
of Celestino Cavendoni, expanded his study of the Greek language. He pub-
lished his first literary articles and his first translations from the French in the
Catholic periodical «Memorie di religione, di morale e di letteratura». His in-
terests in political philosophy and economic sciences were merged in some
of his publications, such as Considerazioni intorno al governo de’ poveri in Ita-
lia (1847), Discorsi politici e morali (1854), Elettuario contro le sette segrete
(1853), Studi sopra le nazioni e sopra l’Italia (1862). He published an interest-
ing commentary on the Convivio dantesto (1831), which was highly regarded
by the Accademia della Crusca.
He translated from Greek the Six Books of St. John Chrysostom on the Priest-
hood (1837). He taught moral philosophy at the Noble Estense Military Acad-
emy and was appointed a Delegate of the Ministry of the Interior at the Roy-
al University of Modena (Regia Università degli studi di Modena).
2 First published in the «Giornale Letterario-Scientifico» (Modena, Regia Ti-
pografia Camerale, 1838, 135-165), it was later republished in the Dialoghi fi-
losofici con altre prose minori (Modena, Tipografia camerale, 1842, 273-307).
3 E. Mattioli, La teoria della traduzione in Italia fra Settecento e Ottocento in
Catalano G., Scotto F. (ed.), La nascita del concetto moderno di traduzione,

Armando, Roma 2001, 101.
garding the advantage that translations would bring to the var-

ious national literatures that accept them. From his point of
view, Cavazzoni Pederzini, who admits to being a translator
himself and having a deep respect for the work of translators,
recognizes the risk of fully subscribing to the French writer’s
suggestions.
The essay On the Proper Manner and Usefulness of Transla-

tions, written in French by Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (bet-
ter known as Madame de Staël), and translated and published
by Pietro Giordani in January of 1816 in the first edition of the
literary periodical “Biblioteca Italiana”, begins as such:
To translate from one language into another the excellent

productions of human genius, is the greatest benefit which
can be conferred on the world of letters; for perfect works are
so few, and invention is so rare, that were every nation to con-
tent itself with its own products, there is no nation in Europe
which would not deserve to be poor. There is no commerce in
which the risk is so small, and the profit so great, as in the
commerce of thoughts.4
According to Cavazzoni Pederzini, who cautiously distances

himself from Madame de Staël, translations should not be in-
discriminately and generically praised and promoted, but ra-
ther should be considered individually, even in the case of
translations that have a wide notoriety.
The metaphor with which Cavazzoni Pederzini explains the act
of translating is original, and is effective because it was intro-
duced over a century before Antoine Berman’s observations
based on an ontology of the Foreign and on the idea of transla-
tion as an act of linguistic hospitality:
4 English translation in Anne Louise Germaine de Staël, Upon the proper

manner and usefulness of translations, in «Edinburgh Magazine», II Oct.
1817- March 1818, Blackwood’s, Edinburgh, 145-149.
Fortunato Cavazzoni Pederzini’s Ethics of Hospitality 47
The case of the translator is similar in every way to that of the

man who moves to invite and to welcome, into the bosom of
his own family, a foreigner. In that case, if the prudence of the
good father has first and foremost examined his moral quali-
ties, and knowing them to the point of being assured by them,
he will often enough see them repaid with very important ser-
vices; or rather he will at least enjoy fully and sincerely that in-
timate kindness that by law of nature always comes from the
duty of our tenderness toward other men. Because if, on the
contrary, he had acted almost blindly, or even had let himself
become enchanted by the excellence of any part of him, not
being mindful of the wickedness that may have perhaps ac-
companied it, he would soon find himself in such conditions
that would cause strong suffering; and perhaps that suffering
would stay with him without relief. 5
Cavazzoni Pederzini references the concept of hospitality

through this similitude, which he introduces, between the
translator and he who welcomes a foreigner into his family.
The ethics of the hospitality of translation, interpreted as an
act of “tenderness”, would rest on the notion of debt, duty and
responsibility.
5 «Il caso del traduttore è simigliantissimo in tutto a quello dell’uomo che si

muove a chiamare e ad accogliere, dentro al seno della sua propria famiglia,
uno straniero. Nel qual fatto, se la prudenza del buon padre avrà disaminato
in prima e lungamente le qualità morali di colui, e conosciutele da dovere pi-
gliarne sicurezza, bene spesso potrà vedersene retribuiti importantissimi ser-
vigi; ovvero almeno si godrà tutta e sincera quella intima voluttà che per leg-
ge di natura si produce sempre mai dagli uffici della nostra amorevolezza in
verso gli altri uomini. Che se per lo contrario avesse agito quasi alla ceca, ov-
vero anche si fosse lasciato affascinare alla eccellenza d’alcuna delle parti di
colui, non ponendo mente le malvage ond’ella fosse per avventura accompa-
gnata si troverà ben tosto in siffatte condizioni che gliene dovrà dolere for-
temente; e forse che pur troppo il dolere gli rimarrà senza ristoro», Cavazzoni
Pederzini, Discorso, 274.
Cavazzoni Pederzini adds, however, another inescapable as-

pect, that of the “prudence” with which both the father and
the translator should address the foreigner before fully wel-
coming him. And as Zannoni had already done in his 1819 es-
say Sulle Tradizioni (On Translations), with whom Cavazzoni
Pederzini admits to sharing certain opinions, wherein he
acknowledges the usefulness of the translations, he also sug-
gests that they be “approached” with caution.
It is also interesting to observe how the scholar from
Modena (distancing himself from the writer Pietro Giordani
who was convinced that one could not “obtain honors nor
benefit from studying” as a translator)6 does not so much glori-
fy the work of translators themselves, but rather that of those
who throughout history addressed “the studies of translators”,
or those who expressed their comments on translating, among
whom he highlights some of the “noble and splendid talents,
who liked to run such a course.”7
Acknowledging, then, that one might “come into notable
fame through translations,”8 Cavazzoni Pederzini proposes a
theoretical-prescriptive study on translating, pointing out,
however, that in conducting such a prescriptive operation, the
translation theorist must not simply limit himself to the prac-
tice of illustrious translators, nor the insights that those who
expressed theories on translating had in the past. The rules
proposed by the latter, in fact, because of the heterogeneous,
and often antithetical nature of traductological conjecture,
would not allow us to reach conclusions regarding the correct
way to translate.
6 P. Giordani, Nuove prose, Giovanni Silvestri, Milano 1839, 286 («Ottenere

lode ne meritare dagli studi» di traduttore).
7 «Nobili ingegni e splendidissimi, ai quali piacque di correre questo arringo»,
F. Cavazzoni Pederzini, Discorso, 275.

8 «Venire in buona fama per via di traduzioni», Ibid.
Only one characteristic, which Cavazzoni Pederzini did not

agree with, would combine many of the various theoretical re-
flections on translating: the presumption of being universally
valid, when instead they would be more opportune only in
specific cases and situations.
Cavazzoni Pederzini, after having listed some of the most re-

nowned rules for achieving a good translation stated by Pierre-
Daniel Huet and Madame Dacier, by Pietro Giordani and
Charles Batteaux, and while acknowledging their value (“They
seem to me to have to be regarded as special decrees that I
would certainly judge to be very intelligent”),9 admits that he
considers them cautiously (“without, therefore, wanting in any
way associate them with universal laws.”)10
It is interesting to note then that Cavazzoni Pederzini
admits that, following different methods and antithetical ap-
proaches, two translators could still arrive at two translations
of the same text that are very distant from each other but nev-
ertheless of equal value.
The truth is that two [who are] perfectly matched in value and
mastery and diligence, translating into the same language the
same composition, could both arrive at a similar height of
merit, by following entirely different, and even opposing
paths.11
From this point of view, in order to translate a text, there is not

a single approach that is better than the others, but rather it is
9 «Mi sembrano da dover essere stimate come speciali decreti ch’io di buona
voglia riputerò per molto intelligenti», Ibid., 277-78.
10 «Senza perciò volerli in guisa alcuna tenere in quel conto che leggi univer-
sali», Ibid., 278.

11 «La verità si è che due perfettamente pari di valore e maestria e diligenza,
traducendo nella medesima lingua una medesima composizione, potrebbero

condursi ad una pari supremità di merito, con tutto ’l seguitare cammini di-
versi ed eziandio contrari insieme», Ibid.
possible using different methods to come to important and

equally worthwhile translations.
Cavazzoni Pederzini continues his Discorso intorno al tradurre
by reiterating the impossibility, even for him, of formulating
general rules on the right way to translate, and states «We will
certainly not, of course, presume to be able to do something
that no one else has been able to do, which is to understand
the whole variety of the combination of circumstances».12
Regardless, in proposing a tripartite distinction of the original

works, he offers some observations regarding on the potential
possibility of translating such works.
The value of the works written in other languages would lie,
according to Cavazzoni Pederzini, “not in ideas, but in words:
or rather, not in words, but in the single idea: or even in both
parts”.13 It is a distinction of literary works considered depend-
ing on the prevalence of the value of the form over the content
and vice versa, or, as in the case of the third type of works (the
rarest), characterized by an intimate fusion between both the
value of the material and the value of the form.
In the case of the first group of texts, the suggestion of Cavaz-

zoni Pederzini is that “the enjoyment of their beauties will
most often have to be left to those who are knowledgeable
about the originals”14 in order to avoid that the efforts re-
quired to reproduce the formal beauty of the original would
12 «Noi dunque per certo non presumeremo di potere quello che per avven-
tura tornerebbe non possibile a chiunque, cioè di comprendere tutta la varie-
tà degl’incontri delle circostanze, le quali ponno darsi a modificare in mille
guise le ragioni d’ogni particolare divisamento», Ibid.
13 «Non nelle cose, ma nelle parole: ovvero non già nelle parole, ma nelle so-
le cose: ovvero finalmente in amendue le parti», Ibid.

14 «Il godimento delle bellezze loro sarà spessissimo da dover essere lasciato
a chi si conosca degli originali», Ibid.

result in a translation that serves in a “beautiful pitcher a sad

or obscene drink, and worse if ever a kind of poison.”15
Regarding the second group of works, those whose value re-

sides in their content rather than in the beauty of their form,
he who believes himself capable of providing a translation of
them should sidestep the risk of embellishing the form of the
original, in order to avoid acting similar to “those that, knowing
a brave and virtuous person who, by the injustice of men or
even their good fortune, lies disheartened in shameful poverty,
grant him an honest way to appear honorable among the peo-
ple.”16
Ultimately, it is precisely about those works character-
ized by a high value in “words and ideas”, that Cavazzoni
Pederzini paradoxically seems to be more open-minded with
regards to their translation. In that case, in fact, the translator
should not be condemned nor criticized if pushed to frequent
departures from the form and content of the work translated:
it would be precisely this “precious”17 quality of the original
that would allow for the possibility of moving away from it in
its production in a different language.
According to Cavazzoni Pederzini, in addition to the particulari-
ty of individual works, the gap between cultures distant in
space and time would also contribute in making certain literary
works, at the moment of their translation, “extremely full of
difficulties, struggles, dangers, and I will go so far as to say an-
noyances.”18 Cavazzoni Pederzini reveals a relativistic approach
15 «Bellissimo vaso una triste o laida bevanda, e peggio se mai qualche vele-
no», Ibid., 279,
16 «Quegli il quale conoscendo bennata e virtuosa persona che per ingiuria
degli uomini, ovvero della fortuna, si giacesse avvilita in vergognosa povertà,

le concedesse onesto modo d’apparire onorevole infra le genti», Ibid.
17 «Preziosa», Ibid.
18 «Pienissimi soprammodo di malagevolezze, di stenti, di pericoli, e dirò pure
di fastidi», Ibid., 280.

to cultures and languages, and is convinced that “the nations

of the earth, according to the misshapen variety of the causes
influencing them, are divided among themselves for a great di-
versity in feelings, and therefore in expression.”19 The conse-
quence would then be that “of forcing one’s mind to have to
think in line with an entirely different populace, which is not
always possible; many times one does not dare, for the fear of
overwhelmingly displeasing his own readers; and furthermore
it is always very difficult.”20
The last part of the Discorso intorno al tradurre, more
specifically dedicated to certain aspects of translation from the
Greek into the Italian, is fundamentally distinguished by the
author’s attempts to analyze certain apparently peculiar
grammatical constructs of the Greek language which are, how-
ever, depicted in light of the resemblance they have to the lit-
erary Tuscan of the fourteenth century.
The conclusions of the Discorso intorno al tradurre focus on the
“wisest and most discreet judges of translators,”21 and they are
called upon to not always assign as the translator-artist’s re-
sponsibility those errors that would rather exclusively depend
on the “inevitable faults of the material”22 or, in other words,
on the arduous task of translating itself.
19 «Le nazioni della terra, secondo la sformata varietà delle cagioni influenti
in questo fatto, sono tra loro divise per una grandissima diversità di sentire, e
perciò anche d’esprimere le cose», Ibid.
20 «Quel costringere la propria mente a dover pensare con tutt’altro popolo,
alcuna volta non è possibile; molte volte non s’ardisce per lo timore di disag-
gradirne di soverchio ai suoi; ed è poi sempre molto difficoltoso», Ibid., 281.
21 «Più savi e discreti giudici de’ traduttori», Ibid., 307.
22 Ibid.
5
Giovanni Battista Zannoni on

the “Risks of a Practice”
It is with a reflection on the origin of the diversity of languages

that Sulle Traduzioni1 begins. Zannoni2 is convinced that lan-
guages were generated “by the strong influence of external
factors on the soul, and by the need to manifest to others
one’s own needs and one’s own thoughts”.3 Furthermore, he
believes in the non-arbitrariness of the birth of the names of
things.
The peculiar diversity of languages tracing back to their
beginnings would, then, be a result of the differences in “imag-
ination” of the populations in which they were conceived, and
would also be the result of the difference in climates in which
1 Sulle Traduzioni was published in Atti dell’imperiale e reale Accademia della

Crusca, I, Piatti, Firenze 1819, 137-152.
2 Giovanni Battista Zannoni (Florence 1774 - 1832), scholar, archaeologist and
priest, attended the Florentine Pious Schools where he dedicated himself to

the study of letters and Latin. He was an antiquarian at the Uffizi and, from
1811, the perpetual secretary of the Accademia della Crusca, on which he
wrote an interesting history published posthumously (1848) and recently re-
printed (1980). Author of many academic writings, he also studied Greek and
Hebrew. He wrote four lively comedies in the Florentine vernacular (Le gelo-
sie della Crezia, 1819; La ragazza vana e civetta, 1819; La Crezia rincivilita per
la creduta vincita d’una quaterna, 1825; Il ritrovamento del figlio, 1825).
3 «Dalla forte impressione degli esterni oggetti sull’animo, e dalla necessità di
manifestare altrui i propri bisogni ed i propri pensieri», G. B. Zannoni, Sulle

Traduzioni, 138.
languages evolved, in line with the climatologique vision of

Montesquieu.
For translations are more or less alive, just as the imagination

of those who form them is more or less alive: and imagination
is different in different climates; so languages, in conforming
with these, had to have varying natures right from their first
beginnings. This variety, however, had to be preserved by all
even in their progress.4
Climate, therefore, but not that alone. The Florentine abbot is

convinced that contributing to the diversity of languages is the
more or less flourishing state “of commerce, of the arts and
sciences”5 will compete together with other factors unique to
each population.
This would also explain the fact that various languages sprung
forth from one single language, as is the case with some Ro-
mance languages.
Recognizing therefore the origin of this diversity of languages,
and criticizing the ‘delusional’ approach of those who long for a
sole language,6 the Florentine writer maintains the necessity of
translations as an hypothesis from which to initiate his own re-
flection (“being impossible that all men carry the same lan-
guage in their mouths, necessary is it to turn to translations”).7
One example of the originality of Zannoni’s reflection
lies in his attempt to go beyond certain diatribes characteristic
4 «Poiché i traslati sono più o meno, secondochè è più o men viva la fantasia
di chi gli forma: e la fantasia è diversa in diversi climi; così le lingue dovettero
in conformità dei medesimi aver varia indole fino dal loro primo incomincia-
mento. Questa varietà conservar dovettero pur tutte nel loro progresso»,
Ibid.
5 «Del commercio, delle arti e delle scienze», Ibid., 139.
6 «Grati delirj per un bene che non abbiam potuto e non potremo mai conse-
guire», Ibid.
7 «Essendo impossibile che tutti gli uomini abbiano in bocca un medesimo
linguaggio, d’uopo è rivolgersi alle traduzioni», Ibid.

Giovanni Battista Zannoni on the “Risks of a Practice” 55
to the translatological debate of his contemporaries. He criti-

cizes, in fact, the approach of those who condemn translations
by virtue of the abuses that can be done by them.
It has always seemed strange to me that learned men might

have doubted, if translations bring more damage to the letters
than advantages. This and the matters similar to it, such as the
one is commonly done on the usefulness or uselessness of dis-
covery of the press, are in my opinion the disgrace of the hu-
man intellect; Because any given thing, in whose essence is
stored true and great utility, for the abuses that might be
done to it, or are in actuality done to it, in my opinion should
not have its advantages doubted. 8
Translations are useful, and in fact necessary, maintains Zan-

noni, and, even if the use of these requires careful attention in
certain cases, their importance must not be diminished (“The
abuse therefore of such translations is not to be weighed
against the great advantages that derive, in my opinion, from
them”).9
The risks deriving from the abuse of translations would there-
fore not be comparable to the benefits derived from them.
The effects of such benefits would be observed not only in the
translator who, “while above every sentiment, indeed above
every word, when reflecting, takes possession of his original,
and becomes increasingly intertwined in the beauties of his
8 «Mi è sempre paruto strano, che dotti uomini abbiano potuto dubitare, se
le traduzioni apportino alle lettere maggior danno che vantaggio. Questa e le
questioni a lei somiglianti, come quella che suol farsi sull’utile o disutile del
ritrovamento della stampa, sono a parer mio il disonore dell’umano intellet-
to; poiché di qualunque cosa, nella cui essenza riposta sia vera e grande utili-
tà, per abuso che di essa far se ne possa, o se ne faccia in effetto, non può a
mio credere porsi in dubbio il vantaggio», Ibid.
9 «L’abuso pertanto delle traduzioni tale non è da porsi a confronto coi gran-
di vantaggi che derivano a mio parere da esse», Ibid., 140.

own language”10, but also in the nation which welcomes the

translations of gifted translators (expanding, because of these,
the confines of their own language), and to benefit from them
would then be, above all, “the sciences, arts, and letters”.11
Scientific knowledge, art, and literature would make up
a sort of continuum whose advancement and refinement, Zan-
noni insists, are rarely the result of a single man, nation, or sin-
gle era, but are rather the result of contact and exchange,
which inevitably require the use of translations.
At this point, while highlighting “the character and the very di-
verse nature”12 of languages, and implicitly admitting that
some things in translation are unavoidably lost, Zannoni main-
tains that in transposing into another language an original text,
“nothing of it is lost which substantially constitutes it, which is
placed in things, and lies not in its words”.13 In practice, the es-
sence of the work (scientific or artistic) is not lost, because the
‘substance’ remains. Also in this regard Zannoni tries to move
past the positions of those who, reflecting on translation,
tended to focus primarily and sometimes exclusively on what is
lost in translation, rather than on what translation manages to
retain of the original work.
Even in the case of literary works, understanding that, in trans-

lation, many of the qualities linked to the beauty of style are
lost, Zannoni restates their immense usefulness (“Those writ-
ings that come from brilliance and taste, and much of their
beauty reside in their style, so even if in translation they lose
10 “Mentre sopra ogni sentimento, anzi sopra ogni parola, va riflettendo,

s’impossessa maggiormente del suo originale, e più s’interna nelle bellezze
della propria lingua”, Ibid.
11 «Le scienze, le arti, e le lettere», Ibid.
12 «Il carattere e l’indole svariatissima», Ibid.
13 «Nulla a perder viene di ciò che sostanzialmente il costituisce, che riposto
è nelle cose, e non lo è punto nelle parole», Ibid., 141.

their native virtues, they serve as they are an essential purpose

to others”).14
Furthermore, translations would be useful for the poet of any
language who, reading works originally written in languages
that he does not know, would be able to “adorn with new or-
naments”15 his own creations, because “the journeys of imagi-
nation and sublime thoughts of poetic writing are often weak-
ened in translations, but are certainly not extinguished”.16
Reading and studying poetic translations could then be a
stimulus for the creation of one’s own works.
Similarly, turning to translations would benefit scholars of an-
tiquity, even if only for of the large amount of time saved when
reading a translated text as opposed to an un-translated one.
Of course, Zannoni admits, the speed with which translations
would allow one to approach a foreign work should not imply
that scholars should stop translating or studying foreign lan-
guages. On the contrary, only by translating himself can the
scholar of literature recognize inaccuracies in certain existing
translations, more successfully advancing in his own studies. In
this regard, Zannoni proposes a ‘middle ground’ in the use of
translations compared to other contemporaries of his, who
had already reflected on the potential risks of using transla-
tions, perceived on the contrary as a cause of both the decline
in individual progress and of a reduced “impetus to act,” and a
numbness of the intellect (as De Coureil also states in the
Ragionamento accademico sulle traduzioni).
Neither do I mean by this that we must ban from such ranks of

scholars the reading of Greek writers in their source language;
14 «Quelli scritti poi che parto sono del genio e del gusto, ond’hanno molte
delle loro bellezze riposte nello stile, sebbene tradotti assai perdano dei loro
pregi, pure anche cosiffatti sono all’altrui uopo opportunissimi», Ibid.
15 «Ornare di nuovi fregi», Ibid.
16 «I voli di fantasia e i sublimi pensieri d’una poetica scrittura s’indeboliscon
sovente nelle traduzioni, ma non si estinguono affatto», Ibid.

nor have I become the patron of inertia or of superficial litera-

ture nor do I consider worthless, as some unfortunately do,
the study of languages; almost the same can be achieved by
way of translation. I am only saying that we can read the
translations of the ancient writers to more quickly gather ma-
terials; and I maintain at the same time that in the moment
that one deals with any scholarly argument it is important to
turn to the originals. 17
Translation is therefore meant as a stimulus to the evolution of

science and art, but also as something to be utilized with
awareness and moderation, to avoid “weakening the intellect”.
So we are offered the solution of daily exercise: “every day
some amount of time should be spent reading a Greek writer
in the source language with the firm objective of overcoming
all difficulties with the help of dictionaries, by comparing other
passages of the same author and of others still; with the total
of his own talents and not that of others”.18
Only in the case of young people who are training for a literary
career would the use of translations be risky, at least up until
they have understood the advantage of actively exercising
their intellect without relying solely on translations: only then
would the use of translations be useful:
17 «Né io intendo già con questo, che si abbia a bandire da tale schiera di stu-
diosi la lettura degli scrittori greci nel loro fonte; né divenuto io patrocinatore
dell’inerzia o della superficiale letteratura reputo inutile, come alcuni pur
troppo fanno, lo studio delle lingue; quasi lo stesso conseguirsi possa col
mezzo delle traduzioni. Dico solo che possiam leggere le traduzioni degli an-
tichi scrittori per adunar più presto materiali; e sostengo nel tempo medesi-
mo che allorquando dessi trattare alcun argomento erudito è mestieri ricor-
rere agli originali», Ibid., 143.
18 «Ogni giorno si impieghi qualche spazio di tempo nel leggere in fonte un
greco scrittore col proponimento fermo di voler superare tutte le difficoltà

coll’aiuto dei vocabolari, col confronto di altri passi del medesimo autore e di
altri ancora; in somma col talento proprio e non coll’altrui», Ibid., 144.
Those who then guide young people in their career in letters

must keep them as far as possible from translations, at least
until they have realized the advantage of exercising with their
own study the intellect, and are convinced that they should
only turn to translations when all their efforts to understand
the original by and for themselves are in vain. 19
Zannoni also understands translation to be a useful didactic

tool, following an approach that partly takes up that adopted
in the Jansenist “Petites Écoles” in the seventeenth century,20
and proposes a method of his own. Educators should read to
their students, after having explained and assigned the transla-
tion of a piece written in a language different from their own,
the translation of the same piece carried out by a good transla-
tor. Through the contrastive analysis between the different
translations one would come to know better both the author
and the foreign work.
Having concluded his reflection on why we should use
translations, and therefore on their usefulness, Zannoni begins
a reflection on the meaning of the word ‘translation’.
He restricts the field of textual typologies that would fall into
the category of translations. Distancing himself from the
statements contained in the De Interpretatione of the French
19 «Quelli poi che guidano i giovani nella carriera delle lettere, debbono tener
loro il più che possono lontane le traduzioni, almeno fino a che essi fatto
senno non comprendano il vantaggio di esercitar col proprio studio
l’intelletto, e non siano persuasi di dover unicamente ricorrere alle traduzioni
allorquando è riuscito vano ogni loro sforzo per intendere da per sé stessi
l’originale», Ibid.
20 Consider for example the precepts of the Jansenist pedagogist Claude
Lancelot (1615-1695), those of the theologian Nicolas Fontaine (1625-1709),

or the approach of Pierre Coustel (1621-1704), also a master in the “Petites
Écoles”, proposed in his Règles de l’éducation des enfants (1687). For these
educators, translation represented a necessary instrument for training young
students, through the learning of the foreign language and the exercise of
their own critical judgment. See F. Laurenti, Tradurre: storie, teorie, pratiche
dall’antichità al XIX secolo, Armando Editore, Roma 2016, 126-128.
philosopher and theologian Pierre Daniel Huet, he maintains

that the ancient works that authors like Terence or Virgil creat-
ed by at times imitating the original Greek ones should not be
considered translations. Even having at times translated to the
letter certain passages from Greek works, these writers would
have been “critical and judicious imitators”21 rather than trans-
lators. For Zannoni, a translation is only that text that repre-
sents as faithfully as possible the feelings and words of the
original:
Therefore it is necessary to call it translation, observing, as is

right, the rigor of the, only that which demonstrates to you
the most faithful copy of any original.22
At this point, considering the difficulty stemming from the dif-

ferences in character of languages, Zannoni offers the only
translation rule of his essay, which is at its core actually a re-
flection on translation and an explanation of the translation
process.
According to the Florentine the translator should:
express, where he can, the word and where he can not he

must find another equally energetic and equally expressive, or
at least of the same thunder, so to speak; so that it neither
raises too much, nor lowers too much, the original. He must
therefore overcome many obstacles and perspire much to
bring such an undertaking to a prosperous end. 23
21 Ibid., 145.
22 «Chiamar si dee pertanto, osservando, come è giusto, il rigor del vocabolo,
traduzione unicamente quella che ti rappresenta la copia il più possibile fede-
le d’un originale qualunque», Ibid.
23 «Rendere, ove può, la parola e dove non può di trovarne altra ugualmente
energica ed ugualmente espressiva, o almeno dello stesso tuono, a così dire;

di modo che né troppo sollevi, né troppo deprima l’originale. Egli è pertanto
mestieri di vincere assai ostacoli e molto sudare per condurre a prospero fine
tale intrapresa», Ibid., 146
To the diversity typical of languages, which makes the work of

the translator difficult, he then adds the stylistic heterogeneity
of writers of any given literature, and it is for this reason that it
is desirable, in order to obtain a good translation, that there be
an affinity between the translator and the translated author.
It is from these things that I seem to be able to deduce that

certain originals will turn out better in one language than in
another, and that every translator must have the same soul,
or at the least a very similar one to that of the author whom
he undertakes transpose. 24
The very same original thought, according to Zannoni, would

not, in fact, be perceived by everyone in the same way.
These observations are followed by a reflection on the mental
processes involved in the act of translation. Zannoni observes
how, in translating from foreign languages, an entirely differ-
ent mechanism is triggered than the one active when speaking
or writing in them.
Occurring in translating from ancient languages or modern

foreign ones is the opposite of what happens when speaking
and writing in them. Anyone who speaks or writes in one of
the languages not his own, more or less, thinks things first in
the way dictated to him by the turn of his own language.25
24 «Dalle quali cose parmi aversene a dedurre che alcuni originali meglio si
volteranno in una lingua, che in un’altra, e che ogni traduttore debbe aver
l’anima stessa, o per lo meno molto somigliante a quella dell’autore che in-
traprende a voltare», Ibid.
25 «Avviene nel tradurre dalle lingue antiche o dalle moderne degli stranieri
l’opposto di quel che accade nel parlarle e nello scriverle. Ognun che parla o
scrive in una delle lingue non sue, qual più qual meno, pensa prima le cose
nel modo che a lui detta il giro della propria lingua», Ibid., 147.
If, in fact, when speaking or writing a foreign language it is

common to first think according to the patterns of one’s own
language, in the case of translating, the original text worries
the translator to the point of “obstructing him” and giving the
impression that he has forgot his own language.
6
Francesco Cassoli and the Imitation

of Absolute and Relative Beauty
Written during the period in which Francesco Cassoli1 was

dedicating himself to translations from Horace, Ragionamento
sulle traduzioni poetiche was in fact published posthumously
for the first time in 1826, in an edition edited by Luigi Cagnoli.
Cassoli’s text is an exception in the panorama of the writ-
ings published at the beginning of the nineteenth century, in
that it maintains the feasibility of translating poetry. Indeed, it
is precisely in the confutation of the positions of those who
would deny this feasibility that the main peculiarity of
Ragionamento lies. Cassoli reveals his in-depth knowledge of
the international debate on translating in numerous references
to foreign academics and scholars (Batteux, Delille, Desmarais,
Huet, Rochefort, Voss).
For Cassoli, translations represent a necessary element in
the exchange between different cultures, and above all for
1 Cassoli Francesco (Reggio Emilia, 1749-1812), studied in the Jesuit college of

Reggio Emilia, actively participated in the political life of the Este Duchy and
was elected deputy at the second Cispadane congress. Considered a promi-
nent exponent of the “Pléiade estense” faithful to classicism (Vittori, 1978),
he translated the Odes of Horace, which he published in 1786 (Davolio, Reg-
gio). His collection of his own Versi dates back to 1802 (Bodoni, Parma).
Among the prose writings, also deserving mention are Discorsi d’un pappa-
gallo e d’una gazza con qualche osservazione (Parma, 1775) and Ragiona-
mento sulle traduzioni poetiche, published posthumously in 1826. The edition
referred to here is the one recently published: F. Cassoli, Ragionamento sulle
traduzioni poetiche, Edizioni RES, Torino 1991.
“matters of taste” rather than those of “rationality”. Through

the studying of foreign literary works, in fact, it would be pos-
sible to approach cultures distant from one’s own (in space and
time) allowing the receiving culture to be enriched:
The translation of a poem may prove more useful than a

translation of a other kinds, if it puts before our eyes the cus-
toms and opinions that dominated through centuries and
countries, which would have either never been known, or
[known] only imperfectly; and even more so, if the advantage
of introducing to us to the fullest extent the genius of a people
is coupled with that of transplanting new models of beauty
from one place to another, fomenting as such and propagating
its seeds, just as copies of good paintings, traveling through
regions without the originals, aid in the development of picto-
rial taste. 2
The translator, never meant by Cassoli to be overshadowed

by the original author, is consequently recognized as having
the charge of introducing new models into the receiving liter-
ary culture, and of contributing to its progress, and for this rea-
son he is therefore deserving of great recognition:
if the work to be transported in another language is itself hap-

py in invention, regular in conduct, splendid in images, instruc-
tive in maxims, rich, in short, in intrinsic and substantial quali-
ties, he who reproduces it in translation becomes meritorious
2 «La traduzion di un poema può esser utile più che una traduzione di diversa
specie, qualor ci ponga sott’occhio usanze e opinion che dominarono in seco-
li e paesi, i quali o non si sarebbero mai conosciuti, o solo imperfettamente; e
molto più qualora al vantaggio di presentarci nella maggior estensione il ge-
nio d’un popolo accoppii l’altro di trapiantare da luogo a luogo nuovi modelli
del bello, fomentandone così e propagandone i semi, come le copie de’ buoni
quadri, viaggiando per regioni prive degli originali, vi aiutano lo sviluppamen-
to del gusto pittorico», F. Cassoli, Ragionamento sulle traduzioni poetiche, 8-
9.
F. Cassoli and the Imitation of Absolute and Relative Beauty 65
of national literature, and similar in a way to that trafficker

who brings to his motherland much gold from foreign mines. 3
According to Cassoli, the good translator is also allowed to per-

fect the original work, provided that a faithful version is given
that does not alter its core.
If the translator can deliver with precision the ideas of the

original, or moreover if he is capable of invigorating and
adorning them without altering their essence, then he adds to
the value of good metal the value of the coin, he solidifies its
respective weight, he facilitates its circulation, and he increas-
es the use and interests of the arisen literary wealth. In doing
so, then, introducing to nations this precious commodity,
while the love of letters begins to take root, the public treas-
ury of ideas grows fatter, tongues become accustomed to us-
ing styles that are not their own, with privileged ardor, and
the advances of the then nascent taste are hastened. 4
Distancing himself from the widespread opinion that transla-

tions are inevitably inferior to the original work, as they are im-
3 «Se l’opera che trasportasi in altro idioma è per se stessa felice

nell’invenzione, regolare nella condotta, splendida per imagini, istruttiva per
massime, ricca insomma di doti intrinseche e sostanziali, chi la riproduce tra-
dotta divien benemerito della nazionale letteratura, e simile in certo modo a
quel trafficante che reca nella patria terra molt’oro da estranee miniere»,
Ibid., 9.
4 «Se il traduttore sa rendere con esattezza i pensieri dell’originale, o molto
più se gli vien fatto d’invigorirli e d’ornarli non alterandone punto l’essenza,
allora egli aggiugne al valore del buon metallo il pregio del conio, ne fissa il
rispettivo peso, ne facilita la circolazione, ed accresce l’uso ed i comodi della
sopravvenuta letteraria ricchezza. Introducendosi dunque nelle nazioni que-
sta merce preziosa, mentre ad allignarvi incomincia l’amor delle lettere,
s’impingua il tesoro pubblico delle idee, le lingue si avvezzano ad usar fogge
non loro con ardir fortunato, e si affrettano gli avanzamenti del gusto allora
nascente», Ibid., 10.
itations and not original creative works, he believes instead

that:
Clearly, for this reason, it appears that the excellent transla-

tion of an eminent poem, far from being something of no
worth as is the opinion of the multitude, begs to be preferred
over a piece that may indeed be original, but considerably far
from perfection.5
The translator must work for compensation and his is a via-

ble path because, Cassoli states revealing a translatological
sensitivity ahead of the times, unlike what was commonly be-
lieved, “an excellent poetic translation is not a metaphysical
being”.6 The almost perfect translation would certainly exist,
however, and would be the result of “certain lucky circum-
stances and in the analogy of the two languages, and in the
ability of he who translates”,7 would therefore be the result of
the exchange between linguistic elements and the translator’s
skills.
Continuing the parallel discussions of practice and theory,
touching upon the fields of rhetoric and philosophy, Cassoli of-
fers a distinction between two different categories of beauty:
“absolute beauty” and “relative beauty,” which are useful then
to affirm the feasibility of poetic translation.
The absolute is nothing but an aggregate of very simple and

unalterable ideas, because they are dependent only on na-
ture; the relative stems from the complicated influence of var-
ious causes, all extrinsic, accidental, mutable. Order, variety,
5 «Laonde chiaro apparisce che l’egregia traduzione d’un poema egregio, ben
lungi dall’esser cosa di niun momento, come è parere della moltitudine, vuol-
si anzi preferire ad un pezzo che pur sia originale, ma lontano per notabil
tratto dalla perfezione», Ibid.
6 «un’eccellente traduzione poetica non è già un essere metafisico», Ibid., 39.
7 «Alcune circostanze felici e nell’analogia delle due lingue, e nell’abilità di chi
traduce», Ibid.
passion, evidence, harmony, all these things taken in the ab-

stract form the absolute beauty of poetry: the way these qual-
ities are applied, depending on the specific circumstances of
climate, government, religion, language, makes up the rela-
tive.8
If the absolute beauty of invention and disposition are more

easily translated, the greatest difficulty lies according to Cassoli
in the translation of the beauty of the elocution, or rather:
that beauty arising from adopting certain voices sooner than

others, and from placing them in an order whereby their per-
ceptions are more quickly reawakened, or subjects are paint-
ed more clearly, or a more delightful concatenation of sounds
is formed in its versification. This is the absolute beauty of lo-
cution, which could easily be confused with the relative, if one
does not remember that one depends on the genius of the
language, and the other largely on the skill of those who han-
dle it.9
In what proportion should the “absolute beauty” and the “rela-

tive beauty” of the original work be maintained in a transla-
8 «L’assoluto non è che un aggregato d’idee semplicissime e inalterabili, per-
ché dipendenti dalla sola natura; il relativo risulta dalla complicata influenza
di molte cagioni, tutte estrinseche, accidentali, mutabili. Ordine, varietà, pas-
sione, evidenza, armonia, tutte queste cose prese in astratto formano il bello
assoluto della poesia: la maniera di applicare al fatto queste qualità, secondo
le particolari circostanze di clima, di governo, di religione, d’idioma, ne forma
il relativo», Ibid., 13. This view was similarly categorized by Pietro Borsieri in
his review of Del Bello e del Sublime by Ignazio Martignoni (in «Annali di
Scienze e lettere», 1810, 3/8, 236-255).
9 «Quel bello che nasce dall’adottar certe voci più presto che certe altre, e
dal collocarle in un ordine per cui con maggiore rapidità si risveglino le perce-
zioni, o gli oggetti vengan dipinti con maggiore evidenza, o si formi nella ver-
sificazione un più giocondo concatenamento di suoni. Questo è il bello asso-
luto di locuzione, che facilmente si potrebbe confondere col relativo, se non
si riflettesse che l’uno dipende affatto dal genio della lingua, l’altro in gran
parte dall’abilità di chi la maneggia», Ibid., 16.
tion? Cassoli believes that the part of the relative beauty linked
to the language of origin need not be maintained, except
where the proximity between the source language and the tar-
get language makes it possible. Also, as regards the other rela-
tive beauties, those that depend instead on the culture in
which the original work was born, Cassoli believes that the
translator need not preserve all of them by translating every
word, unless he wants to make the translation unintelligible. In
this case the translator can freely modify the original by
searching for images and ideas as similar as possible.
It is in the case of absolute beauty that the translator has
more opportunity to remain faithful to the original, in that the
absolute beauty is not, according to Cassoli, subject to exces-
sive alterations, even when languages seem very different
from one another.
Confirming then the feasibility of every poetic translation, after
having indicated what may be abandoned in the translation
and why, the general idea regarding the figure of the translator
that emerges from the Ragionamento is that of a translator in-
tended as an author, a creative entity that benefits his own na-
tional culture:
Thus, since translations, especially poetic ones, are necessary,

and since reason, as well as experience, persuade [us] to be
able to bring this art very close to perfection, we do not scorn
the class of translators, but after having honored, as we must,
those creative spirits that produce every which genre of excel-
lent original poetry, we reserve the second honors for those
subaltern spirits that spread over the nation that beauty
drawn from foreign sources.10
10 «Poiché dunque le traduzioni, specialmente poetiche, son necessarie, e

poiché la ragione, non che l’esperienza, convincono poter ridursi quest’arte
assai vicino alla perfezione, non disprezziamo la classe dei traduttori, ma do-
po aver onorati, come è dovere, quegli spiriti creatori che producono in qua-
lunque-genere di poesia originali eccellenti, riserbiamo i secondi onori a que-
The conviction, expressed by Cassoli in conclusion of

Ragionamento, is that “translating well is truly composing, and
that to happily reproduce a great poet nothing less than a
great poet will suffice.” 11
gli spiriti subalterni che diffondono nella nazione il bello attinto alle sorgenti
straniere», Ibid., 79.
11 «Il tradur bene sia un vero comporre, e che a riprodurre felicemente un
gran poeta nulla meno richieggasi d’un gran poeta», Ibid., 83.
7
Michele Colombo’s Almost

Impracticable Perspectives
In Della difficoltà di tradurre, published in the volume Opuscoli

(Padova, 1832),1 Michele Colombo2 examines the effective
translatability of literary works.
Colombo’s foreword is dedicated to the definition of what is
meant by the “art of translation”. According to Colombo, the
art of translating:
Consists of transporting a given work from one language to

another with loyalty, that is to say, to maintain, even in its
1 M. Colombo, Della difficoltà di tradurre, in Id., Opuscoli, Tipi della Minerva,

Padova, 1832, 211-217.
2 Michele Colombo (Campo di Pietra 1747 - Parma 1838), priest, scholar and
intellectual, started his work as a tutor early on, a role that he held for many
years. He wrote works in various genres. In 1812 he published what is con-
sidered his main work, the Lezioni di una culta favella, to which he would of-
ten return during the arc of his entire life, adding to it and publishing it in fur-
ther editions. The work would then be merged in 1824, in the first volume of
the Opuscoli. Among the most important works of the second part of Colom-
bo’s career we must also mention the Catalogo. It contained certain works
regarding the sciences, the arts and other human needs that, though unmen-
tioned in the Crusca vocabulary, deserved on behalf of the language some
consideration (Mussi, Milano 1812), as well as an edited and annotated edi-
tion of the Decameron (Blanchon, Parma 1812-1814). Colombo also collabo-
rated on the publication of an edition of Gerusalemme liberata (Firenze
1824), for which he offered a study of the variations of previous editions. In
1825 he published the lesson Sopra di ciò che compete all’intelletto e alla
immaginativa (Paganino, Parma).
new dress, that which it exposes in the wares it is clothed in

by the author: and this is done by conserving in the newer
version not only the same concepts, but by exercising the
same methods of demonstrating them; to the extent that the
reader has the feeling of interacting not with the translator,
but with the author himself.3
Associating to translations the necessary prerogative of “fideli-

ty”, Colombo imagines a translator who all but vanishes before
the reader of the translated work, thus giving to the same
reader the impression of “interacting” directly with the original
author.
It would be impossible, according to Colombo, to obtain a
“perfect” translation (that is, one in which “the features of the
original, its character, its flow, its behavior”4 are preserved),
considering the insurmountable obstacles that must be over-
come, especially when translating poetry and literature.
Among the major obstacles to address, there would primarily
be the one represented by the specific distinctive features of
each language. To this is added the impossibility for the trans-
lator, on the one hand, to “possess the two languages to their
fullest extent”5 and on the other to succeed in, “stripping him-
self of his way of seeing, thinking, feeling and expressing him-
self,”6 in “wearing”7 the manner of the translated author.
3 «Consiste nel trasportare un’opera da una lingua ad un’altra con fedeltà,

vale a dire nel mantenerla anche nel nuovo suo abito la stessa ch’ella mo-
strasi in quello in cui vestita fu dall’autore: e questo si fa con serbare nella
versione non solo gli stessi concetti, ma eziandio la stessa maniera di esporli;
talché sembri al lettore d’intertenersi non già col traduttore, ma con l’autor
medesimo», Colombo, Della difficoltà di tradurre, 211.
4 «I lineamenti dell’originale, il suo carattere, il suo andamento, il suo fare»,
Ibid., 212.
5 «Possedere le due lingue in tutta la loro estensione», Ibid., 213.
6 «Spogliando sé medesimo della maniera sua di vedere, di pensare, di senti-
re e di esprimersi», Ibid.
7 «Vestirsi», Ibid.
Michele Colombo’s Almost Impracticable Perspectives 73
Additionally, according to Colombo, it was the climatic differ-

ences to significantly influence the differentiation of languages,
and in addition to these there were then the unique historical
events that contributed in shaping the character of different
nations with the result of making the distance between lan-
guages irreconcilable.
Both because of the difference in climate, whose influence re-

garding the different constitution of men in various lands is
immense, and because of the diversity of circumstances in
which nations lived in different countries, they must necessari-
ly have had to contract different habits and have divergent
customs, and consequently, up to a certain point, a different
way of thinking and working: in short, a different manner for
all of their affairs. From this it emerged that each nation found
itself needing to form its own language, that is to say, a lan-
guage made to express the things pertaining to that nation.8
Therefore, questioning himself on the best way to translate

with fidelity, Colombo then distances himself from the differ-
ent approaches to translation proposed time and again over
the centuries.
In fact, he does not agree with the proponents of free transla-
tion, being convinced of the inescapable link that exists be-
tween expression and thought:
8 «Sì per la differenza del clima, del quale grande è l’influenza nella diversa
costituzione degli uomini di varie contrade, e sì per la diversità delle circo-
stanze in cui si trovarono le nazioni vissute in diverso paese, dovettero esse
necessariamente contrarre abitudini differenti ed avere costumanze diverse,
e per conseguente, infin ad un certo segno, un diverso modo di pensare e di
operare: insomma un fare diverso in tutte le cose loro. Da ciò è addivenuto
che ciascuna nazione si sia trovata nella necessità di formarsi un linguaggio
suo proprio, vale a dire un linguaggio fatto per esprimere le cose spettanti a
quella nazione», Ibid., 214.
Some believe that, in order to avoid these difficulties, one

must cling to what they call free translation, meaning that one
must loyally preserve the idea without taking much care for its
expression. But I believe that they are proposing something
even more complex, if not entirely impossible. The expression
is so thoroughly conjoined with the thought that the former
cannot be altered without the thought also receiving a ulterior
modification. [...] Others are of the opinion that it is permitted
for the translator to give the phrase a new order, and to re-
place the author’s expressions with others of greater effec-
tiveness in all those places in which, if he did not use such arti-
fice, the translation would remain inferior to the original. But
this means to bring into another language a remodeled work
of the author, and not a translated one; it means to lack fideli-
ty by taking away from him what is his property, to give him
what is not his. 9
Colombo is, however, also critical when it comes to the propo-

nents of those translations that would claim to perfect the
original (these latter would, in fact, be remakes and “distor-
tions”, and not in fact translations):
And there are still those who think that a translator must
learn, as worthy as he might be, to surpass the author himself
by giving the new version either more vigor, more elegance,
9 «Stimano alcuni che, per evitare queste difficoltà, sia da appigliarsi a quella
che chiamano traduzion libera, vale a dire che debbasi conservar fedelmente
il pensiero senza pigliarsi gran cura dell’espressione. Ma io credo che costoro
propongano una cosa più malagevole ancora, per non dire impossibile affat-
to. L’espressione è talmente al pensiero congiunta, che questa non può esse-
re diversificata senza che il pensiero altresì ne riceva una diversa modifica-
zione. […] Altri sono d’avviso che sia lecito al traduttore dare al periodo altro
giro, e sostituire alle locuzioni dell’autore altre locuzioni di maggior efficacia
in tutti que’ luoghi ne’ quali, s’egli non usasse un tal artifizio, la traduzione
rimarrebbe inferiore all’originale. Ma questo è un recare in un’altra lingua
l’opera dell’autore rifatta, e non già tradotta; è un mancare di fedeltà con to-
glierli quello che è di sua proprietà, per dare a lui quello che non è suo»,
Ibid., 215.
Michele Colombo’s Almost Impracticable Perspectives 75
more vivacity, more vibrancy, than that which is in the original

found.
I do not believe much praise is due to he who does this, since
he thereby distorts the work of the author, rather than trans-
lating it: and the more he is made to increase its strength,
vagueness and verve, the worse it is; because the more dis-
torted it is. Therefore he, in doing so, will deliver to us a stun-
ning piece of work and a terrible translation. The translator’s
duty is certainly not to challenge the author regarding who
can do better, but to present to the reader the author’s work
just as it flowed from his pen. If it is weak, if lacking those
merits which would make it worthy to pass through the hands
of educated men, let it be translated as such; and if it is worth
the expense, equally give us translated that which the author
gave in his original language; because this is his duty. 10
In the nearly impossible prospect of creating a translation that

is worthy of being defined as such, Colombo also considers the
tendencies of the readers, and therefore the reception of the
translated work, which might indirectly influence the form and
style of translations.
It is of little importance to some, when reading the translation

of a work, to know that the author expressed himself in one
10 «Ed havvi ancora chi pensa che debba un traduttore studiarsi, per quanto
vagliono le sue forze, di superar l’autore medesimo con dare alla versione o
più di vigore, o più di eleganza, o più di vivacità, o più di splendidezza, di
quella che nell’originale si trova.
Io non credo che molta lode meriti chi fa questo, stante ch’egli con ciò travisa
l’opera dell’autore, anziché tradurla: e quanto più gli vien fatto di accrescer-
ne la forza, la vaghezza ed il brio, tanto peggio; perciocché tanto più la travi-
sa. Egli, così facendo, ci darà un lavoro bellissimo e una cattivissima traduzio-
ne. L’ufficio del traduttore non è già quello di sfidar in certo modo l’autore a
chi sa far meglio, ma di presentare al lettor l’opera dell’autore quale uscì dal-
la penna di lui. Se debole è, se mancante di que’ pregi che degna la rende-
rebbero di andar per le mani degli uomini colti, lasci di tradurla; e s’essa ne
merita la spesa, tal ce la dia tradotta qual ce la dié l’autor nella lingua sua
originale; ché questo è l’ufficio suo», Ibid., 216.
way or another: it matters to them much more that the book,

which they read, be written with suavity and style.11
In this sense, despite admitting the importance of readability

and fluidity, Colombo maintains that if a translation lacks fideli-
ty it “will always be flawed, and, as a translation, to be taken
with little seriousness,”12 lacking in “its primary and most es-
sential requisite.”13
11 «Ad alcuni nel leggere la traduzione di un’opera poco importa sapere che
l’autor siasi espresso o in un modo o in un altro: importa loro assai più che il
libro, il quale essi leggono, sia scritto con garbo e con leggiadria», Ibid., 217.
12 «Sarà sempre difettosa, e, come traduzione, da farsene poco conto», Ibid.,
218.
13 «Suo primario e più essenziale requistito», Ibid.
8
Francesco Fuoco and the Art of

Reproducing the Harmony of Poetry
In 1835, the scholar and economist priest Francesco Fuoco1

published in his Grammatica Francese2 a text that reintroduced
1 Francesco Fuoco (Mignano, 1774 - Naples, 1841) began his training at the
seminary of Teano, where he was ordained as a priest. After moving to Na-
ples, he earned a degree in mathematics. He dedicated himself to teaching
for a few years, focusing mainly on philology, mathematics, and geography.
Among the first works he published, together with the Saggio di Geografia e
Astronomia (Naples, Tipografia Chianese, 1816) and the Discorso Accademico
sul vero metodo d’istruzione (Naples, Tipografia Chianese, 1816), he present-
ed the small volume Traduzioni in diversi metri italiani (Naples, Tipografia
della Società Filomatica, 1818), a collection of translations by La Fontaine, G.
B. Rousseau, Boileau, Quinault, Demoustier and Florian.
He was forced to move to Paris in 1821 for political reasons, where he began
to broaden his study of economics and published his first economic works.
Following the ascension to the throne of Francis I, he was able to return to
Naples in 1826, where he resumed teaching at the private school he founded
(a few years later the Fuoco Institute was elevated to a “Literary Institute”). It
was in Naples that, during this period, he would return to some of his pre-
viously published teaching manuals and republish them (Corso elementare di
geografia, 1834; Nuovo corso di geografia, 1840; Grammatica francese,
1835; L’arte di pronunciare la lingua francese, 1835; Manuale o guida per in-
segnare e apprendere facilmente e speditamente l’arte di tradurre i classici
latini, 1831; Sistema di filologia elementare applicato alla lingua italiana e la-
tina, 1830; Nuovo corso di filologia latina elementare, 1834-35; Saggio di
eloquenza latina, 1833; Tesoretto di latinità, 1836; Nuovo corso di filologia
italiana elementare, 1834-36).
2 F. Fuoco, Arte di tradurre, o di volgarizzare in nostra favella un testo france-
se, in Id., Grammatica francese che comprende l’arte d’intendere i classici

almost in its entirely Principes de la traduction, originally pub-

lished in 1747 by the French scholar and philosopher Charles
Batteux (1713-1780), without however citing its original source
(to which he added few of his own adjustments).
The subheading of Arte di tradurre, o di volgarizzare in nostra
favella un testo francese, would seem to allude to precise in-
structions regarding the transposition from French to Italian
and, in fact, the arguments refer mainly to these languages.
Fuoco refers to the same “principles” previously presented by
Batteux (who, however, had imagined them as “principles” for
the translation from Latin to French).
Working from the hypothesis that in the Italian language one
must use the same “turns” of the French text when the similar-
ity between the two languages allows to, he presents the fol-
lowing eleven principles to «consider as just as many rules for
the art of translation»:3
Rule I. When translating, one must not change the order of ar-
guments and reasoning. This order, rooted in the very nature
of the idea, is invariable and may not change, as languages
and nations vary.
Rule II. The order of ideas, and of the components that make
up their expressions, must be preserved in the translation.
The Classics had good reason to establish that order rather
than another. Perhaps the reason was harmony, energy, or
other characteristic of style.
Rule III. When translating sentences, however long, they must

be preserved in their length.
A sentence is nothing more than a thought composed of many
other thoughts, which are linked by intrinsic relationships. And
so this bond is the life-force, so to speak, of ideas, and was the
francesi ed i principj fondamentali dell’arte di scrivere ad imitazione de’ me-

desimi, Stamperia Filantropica, Napoli 1835, 372-378.
3 «Tenere come tante regole dell’arte di tradurre», Ibid., 373.
F. Fuoco and the Art of Reproducing the Harmony of Poetry 79
main objective of the writer who wrote it. Parts of a sentence

are linked by harmonic connections. If these parts are cut up
and divided, the ideas will still be present, but without their
bonds of principle, and consequently of proof and of compari-
son, that they possessed in the sentence, and which shaped
their expressiveness. Every sentence of a Classic that is broken
up and divided into pieces will be proof of this argument. Each
of these pieces, ceasing to be part of the sentence, would no
longer have a natural and intrinsic bond, but an external and
artificial one.
Rule IV. All conjuctions from the [original] text must be pre-
served in the translation.
Conjunctions are like the joints of the different parts of the lo-
cution, and changing their meaning and placement would be
the same as distorting these joints. Only where they inhibit
the mind’s free development may they be eliminated.
Rule V. All adverbs must be placed near the verb, either before
or after, according to the demand or the harmony or the
strength of the diction.
The same principles of harmony and strength are those that
determine their placement in French.
Rule VI. Symmetric phrases must be translated with the same

symmetry of the text, or with equivalent symmetry.
Symmetry in speech consists of the relationship between
many ideas or many expressions. The symmetry of expressions
can consist of sounds, of the number of syllables, of the end-
ing or length of words, of the ordering of phrases.
When it is not possible to translate sound for sound, noun for
noun, verb for verb, etc., or words as they appear in the text,
it is necessary to at least substitute with another kind of sym-
metry.
Rule VII. Brilliant ideas must have more or less the same layout
of words.
It is precisely the identity in the layout of words that will up-
hold in the translation the same degree of brilliance. By alter-
ing this layout, the splendor is diminished or augmented, and

in either case the locution will be distorted.
Rule VIII. The shape of ideas must be preserved in the transla-

tion.
Ideas are the same in all minds, and can exist there in the
same order; and so questions, concerns, etc. must be translat-
ed. However, the form of words, just as of metaphors, repeti-
tions, etc., for the most part cannot be replaced with equiva-
lents. When a figure cannot be transported into the transla-
tion, its natural meaning must be recovered and the figure
brought to some other idea that is suited to it, so that the
translated sentence can present the same richness as the orig-
inal in its entirety.
Rule IX. Proverbs must be translated using other proverbs.

Proverbs rely on things, the use of which is often repeated in
society; and different cultures have many in common, if not in
their expression, then at least in their meaning; and therefore
they can always be translated, one for the other.
Rule X. In the translation every paraphrase is vicious.

When relying on paraphrases, one is not translating but rather
commenting. However, when there is no other means of
communicating the meaning of the text, necessity would serve
to excuse the translator.
Rule XI. It is necessary to abandon the manners of the text be-

ing translated, when the meaning demands of it for clarity, for
sentiment, for vivacity, for harmony, for delight.4
4 «Regola I. Traducendo non si dee cangiare l’ordine delle cose e de’ ragio-
namenti. Quest’ordine fondato nella natura stessa del pensiero è invariabile
al pari di esso né può variare, come variano le lingue e le nazioni.
Regola II. Nella traduzione dovrà esser conservato l’ordine delle idee, e de’
membri che ne sono le espressioni. Il Classico ebbe una ragione da stabilire
quell’ordine piuttosto che un altro. Forse questa ragione fu l’armonia,
1’energia, o altra qualità dello stile.
Regola III. Nel tradurre i periodi, benché lunghi, debbono esser conservati
nella loro estensione. Un periodo non è che un pensiero composto di molti
altri pensieri, i quali si legano con relazioni intrinseche. Or questo legame è la
vita, per dir cosi, de’ pensieri, e fu 1’oggetto principale di colui, che scrisse.
Le parti di un periodo sono legate con relazioni di armonia. Se si tagliano
queste parti e si dividono, si avranno i pensieri, ma senza i legami di princi-
pio, e di conseguenza, di prova e di paragone che avevano nel periodo, e che
ne formavano il colorito. Ogni periodo di classico spezzato e diviso in brani,
sarà una prova di quanto diciamo. Ognuno di questi brani, cessando di esser
parte del periodo, non avrebbe più un legame intrinseco e naturale, ma un
legame esterno e artificiale.
Regola IV. Nella versione debbono esser conservate tutte le congiunzioni del
testo. Le congiunzioni sono come le articolazioni delle diverse parti della lo-
cuzione, e cangiarne il senso e il luogo sarebbe lo stesso che snaturare que-
ste articolazioni. Solo quando servissero d’impaccio al libero cammino della
mente, si potranno sopprimere.
Regola V. Tutti gli avverbi debbono esser situati presso al verbo, prima o do-
po, secondo il richiede o l’armonia o la forza della dizione. Gli stessi principi
di armonia e di forza sono quelli che determinano in francese lo stesso collo-
camento.
Regola VI. Le frasi simmetriche dovranno esser tradotte con la simmetria
stessa del testo, o con simmetria equivalente.
La simmetria nel discorso consiste nella relazione di molte idee o di molte
espressioni. La simmetria dell’espressioni può consistere ne’ suoni, nella
quantità delle sillabe, nella terminazione o lunghezza delle parole,
nell’ordinamento delle frasi.
Quando non è possibile tradurre suono per suono, sostantivo per sostantivo,
verbo per verbo etc., o le parole come appunto sono nel testo, bisognerà per
lo meno sostituire un’altra specie di simmetria.
Regola VII. I pensieri brillanti debbono avere presso a poco la medesima
estensione nelle parole. È appunto l’identità nella estensione delle parole
quella che farà conservare nella versione lo stesso grado di luce. Or cangian-
do questa estensione, lo splendore scema o si aumenta, e in ambi i casi la lo-
cuzione sarà snaturata.
Regola VIII. Nella versione sono da conservare le figure de’ pensieri. I pensieri
sono i medesimi in tutte le menti, e possono prendervi lo stesso ordinamen-
to; quindi si dovranno tradurre le interrogazioni, le preoccupazioni etc.. Però
le figure di parole, come le metafore, le ripetizioni etc., per lo più non posso-
no rimpiazzarsi con equivalenti. Quando le figure non possono esser traspor-
tate nella versione, bisognerà ripigliare il senso naturale, e trasportar la figu-
Fuoco recognizes the “art” of translation as the most difficult

of the imitative arts, and places responsibility for the quality of
the translation in the hands of the translator: “The greater or
lesser perfection of the work depends entirely on the character
and the competence of the translator”. On the one hand, he
seems to admit the possibility of obtaining a perfect copy of
the original, with the exception of translations of poetic works,
and on the other hand recognizes a general impossibility of
translating the “things related to the customs, and the tastes
of cultures”, or rather those elements most marked from a cul-
tural point of view.
With regard to the translation of poetic works he defines a
possible way to convey at least some aspects of the original,
and this would lie in the prosaic weight of the original:
The rule for the translation of poets is that a perfect transla-
tion is impossible, whether it is done in verse or in prose.
Prose can express neither the balance, nor the magnitude, nor
the harmony that make up one of the great beauties of poet-
ry. And when the translation is in verses, where the ability, the
magnitude, and the harmony are maintained, there is still an
alteration of the ideas, the expressions, and the thunders.
But if poets cannot be perfectly translated in verse, there is a
way to do so in prose, with at least some success. The poetic
tone that makes up the fundamental character of the verse
ra su di qualche altra idea che ne sia suscettibile, acciocché la sentenza tra-

dotta possa presentare nella sua totalità la stessa ricchezza dell’originale.
Regola IX. I proverbi debbono esser tradotti per altri proverbi. I proverbi ca-
dono su cose, 1’uso delle quali sovente si ripete nella società: e i diversi po-
poli ne hanno molti comuni, se non per l’espressione, almeno per lo senso; e
perciò possono sempre tradursi gli uni per gli altri.
Regola X. Nella versione ogni perifrasi è viziosa. Quando si ricorre alle peri-
frasi non si traduce, ma si commenta. Però, quando non vi fosse altro mezzo
da far conoscere il senso del testo, la necessità servirà di scusa al traduttore.
Regola XI. Bisogna abbandonare le maniere del testo che si traduce, quando
lo esige il senso per la chiarezza, pel sentimento, per la vivacità, per
l’armonia, per lo diletto», Ibid., 374.
can very well be conveyed, when the following three things

are aimed for: 1) to convey the ideas exactly as they are, or at
least their equivalent, and that the translators precision rely
mainly on this; 2) To leave the ideas, or at least the partial
phrases, in the same position that they occupy in the original,
especially because this order, being fundamentally ideological,
is the same in all languages because it is the same in all men.
And upon this depends the genesis of ideas, as it took place in
the mind of the Classic, and therefore in following it we must
walk with him, with him we must run, and with him hold cer-
tain poses; 3) Lastly, to connect the ideas in the same way as
the original, to convey sentence for sentence, to not divide
the phrases except for when he divides them, and further-
more to follow the same structure.5
The partial impossibility of arriving at a translation that is per-

fectly faithful, even for Fuoco6 (who references in this sense
the ideas already presented, in addition to very similar words,
5 «Regola per la versione de’ poeti è che la traduzione perfetta è impossibile,

o che si faccia in versi o in prosa. La prosa non può rendere né il numero, né
le misure, né l’armonia che fanno una delle grandi bellezze della poesia.
Quando si fa la traduzione in versi, se si ottiene il numero, le misure,
l’armonia, vengono però alterati i pensieri, le espressioni e i tuoni. Però se i
poeti non si possono tradurre perfettamente in verso, vi ha un mezzo di farlo
in prosa, almeno con qualche successo. Si può benissimo rendere il tuono
poetico che fa il carattere principale del verso, quando si tengono di mira tre
cose cioè: 1) di rendere le idee tali quali sono o almeno 1’equivalente, e da
ciò dipende principalmente la fedeltà del traduttore; 2) Di lasciar le idee, o
per lo meno le frasi parziali nel posto stesso che hanno nell’originale, tanto
più che quest’ordine essendo all’atto ideologico, è lo stesso in tutte le lingue
perché è lo stesso in tutti gli uomini. Da ciò dipende la genesi delle idee, co-
me appunto ebbe luogo nella mente dal classico, e perciò nel seguirla si
cammina con lui, con lui si corre, e con lui si fanno le pose; 3) Infine di legare
i pensieri allo stesso modo del classico, di rendere periodo per periodo, di
non divider le frasi che quando egli le divide, e seguire financo la medesima
puntatura». Ibid., 376.
6 Fuoco aveva letto il saggio di Luigi Cerretti nel quale si parlava proprio di
«libertà pericolosa». (See L. Cerretti, Della Traduzione, in Id., Instituzioni di

eloquenza, Maspero, Milano, 1811, 177-186).
by Cerretti in his Della Traduzione) would mean, for the trans-

lator, a «dangerous freedom»:
The impossibility of following the text piece by piece offers the

translator a dangerous freedom. Not being able to give his
version a perfect resemblance, he must be wary of not giving
it as much it could have.7
As a whole, Fuoco’s text, which the author intended as a guide

to translation for use in schools, presents few original ideas,
but can serve as an interesting example of a widespread di-
dactic approach to translation.
7 «L’impossibilità di seguire il testo tratto per tratto lascia al traduttore una

libertà pericolosa. Non potendo egli dare alla sua versione una perfetta ras-
somiglianza, deve temere di non dargliene tutta quella che può avere», Fuo-
co, Della Traduzione, 676.
9
Giuseppe Ignazio Montanari on the

Nature and Means of Imitation
Published for the first time in Istituzioni di rettorica e belle let-

tere, tratte dalle lezioni di Ugo Blair by Francesco Soave1, the
essay Sull’arte del tradurre can be attributed to Giuseppe Igna-
zio Montanari2 who, in the 1836 edition of Soave’s work, add-
1 Francesco Soave (Lugano 1743 - Pavia 1806), who was for a time also a
mentor of Alessandro Manzoni, was a translator of literary and philosophical
works from the Latin, the Greek and from English, as well as those from edu-
cational texts in German.
2 Giuseppe Ignazio Montanari (Bagnacavallo, 1801 - Osimo, 1871) initially
studied in the seminary of Faenza, the same where Monti and Strocchi had
also studied, but for health reasons was obligated to move to Ravenna and to
study at the Collegio dei Nobili.
He later continued his studies first in Bologna and then in Roma, where he
received a degree in law.
Immediately after obtaining his degree, in 1823, he became the chair of
“Humanities and Rhetoric” at the Ginnasio di Solarolo, where he remained
for four years and married Giuseppina Mainardi. In 1824 he wrote the lyrical
poetry of Christian inspiration (Rime sacre, Faenza).
In 1827 he became the chair in Savignano, immersing himself in various fields
of study, including rhetoric, translations from the Latin, and the study of
religious works. A natural classicist, he often entered the debate of the time
against the romantics. From 1832 he taught in the ginnasio di Pesaro and
collaborated with numerous literary magazines («L’Utile-Dulci», «Il Museo
scientifico letterario», «Il Poligrafo», «L’Istitutore», «Il Giornale scientifico»).
He is remembered mainly for his contribution to the Istituzioni di rettorica e
belle lettere (Institutions of rhetoric and fine letters), which he expanded, and
revised in some parts, from a classicist perspective. In the last years of his life
he moved to Osimo to teach rhetoric in the Collegio Campana, and wrote
ed some additional, and until then unpublished, parts to Soa-

ve’s work.3
In 1801 the Italian-Swiss educator Francesco Soave
published, for the first time, in Parma, the volume Istituzioni di
rettorica e belle lettere, tratte dalle lezioni di Ugo Blair
(Institutions of rhetoric and fine letters, taken from the lessons
of Ugo Blair). Being an Italian translation of a work on rhetoric
originally conceived for the English reader, Soave’s work on the
English text was remarkable. Besides the inclusion of numerous
notes and additions, it also consisted of an acute and original
substitution of numerous examples (originally taken from
English literature) with examples and quotations from Italian
literature. For this reason, it is not easy to clarify where his
observations end and where those traceable to Hugh Blair
begin. In the editions of the Italian work, starting with the one
published in 1836, Montanari (whose role was to adapt the
institutions for the use of Italian schools) inserts his own text
Sull’arte del tradurre.4
Positioning Italian literary tradition as an offshoot of those
of Greek and Latin, Montanari begins by stating the utility of a
works linked to his time teaching (L’arte di scriver lettere, Firenze 1840) as
well as translations from the Latin such as l’Arte poetica di Orazio ( Parma
1849), Il Catilinario and Giugurtino di Sallustio (Firenze 1850).
3 In the past, Sull’arte del tradurre was erroneously attributed to Soave’s pen
(See F. Laurenti, Tradurre. Storie, teorie, pratiche dall’Antichità al XIX secolo,

Armando Editore, Roma 2015, 227-232, partially revisited for the drafting of
this introduction to Sull’arte di tradurre). A footnote (page II) of the second
edition of the Istituzioni di rettorica e belle lettere, that of 1839, indicates the
actual authorship of Sull’arte di tradurre, and traces it back to Giuseppe Igna-
zio Montanari. It was indeed Professor Montanari who dealt with the expan-
sion of the various editions (starting with the 1836 edition) of Soave’s work
with examples, appendices and chapters, including the one presented here.
4 G. I. Montanari, Sull’arte del tradurre, in F. Soave, Istituzioni di rettorica
e belle lettere, tratte dalle lezioni di Ugo Blair, Tomassini, Foligno 1836. The
text quoted here from Sull’arte del tradurre is the one published in the sec-
ond edition of the work printed by Ricordi and Compagno in Firenze in 1839,
(vol II, 260-284).
Giuseppe I. Montanari on the Nature and Means of Imitation 87
reflection regarding the art of translation, with the conviction

that his observations “will set the standard for examining the
translations of others and the rules for fashioning new ones.”5
A dual purpose therefore, regarding both the reader of
translations and to the translators themselves.
For Montanari, to translating meant, “to transport a work
from one to another with fidelity, maintaining the features, the
colors, the movements, and the spirit of the original.”6 It is
enough that only one of these qualities fails for a translation to
no longer be defined as such, especially in the event that the it
is the spirit of the author which is lacking. The translator,
therefore, must possess specific abilities: “the power of
ingenuity and an exquisiteness of feeling [...] to penetrate the
artifices of a work that is not ours, nor does it speak in our
tongue; the exquisiteness of feeling which reveals its beauty in
such a way that all the secret movements of affection impress,
and the development of ideas matches that of ideas
themselves.”7 Precisely for these reasons, good translators
would be rare and worthy to be equated, for their value, with
the original writers, in that translators must “conceive ideas
with the same clarity, and with the same ease express them
and make them appear with that nobility of word and form
which from their first father they were conceived, and
expressed.”8
5 «Daranno norma ad esaminare le traduzioni altrui e regola nel foggiarne di

nuove» (Montanari, Sull’arte del tradurre, 260).
6 «Trasportare un’opera da una ad un’altra favella con fedeltà, mantenendo i
lineamenti, i colori, le movenze, e lo spirito dell’originale», Ibid.

7 «Forza d’ingegno e squisitezza di sentire [...] per penetrare negli artifici
d’una scrittura che non è nostra, né parla in nostro dettato; squisitezza di

sentire a rilevarne le bellezze a modo che sugli animi facciano impressione
tutti i segreti movimenti degli affetti, e l’andamento delle idee conforme a
quello delle idee», Ibid.
8 «Concepire colla medesima chiarezza le idee, con la stessa facilità esprimer-
le e farle comparire con quella nobiltà di parole e di forme che dal primiero
lor padre furono concepite, ed espresse», Ibid., 261.
The first step required of the translator would be to “bring

himself before his author and see if he has an equally balanced
soul and fantasy equal to his.”9 Having verified such an
“affinity”, the translator should ascertain that he is capable of
dealing with the specific genre of writing that he is preparing to
translate because, as Montanari observes, “there are many
writers who are quite worthy in one genre, and in another
not.”10 To illustrate this concept, the case of Annibal Caro’s
translation is used. Although he might be able to convey Virgil,
abundantly in fact, Caro would not be able to convey the
nobility that is unique to the Latin writer. Montanari goes on to
quote certain phrases from the translation in question, and
then places them side by side with the same verses translated
by Tasso, sharply illustrating his position through this
contrastive analysis of the two translations.
The prerogative of a good translation would be, then, the
harmony of the language but, in order to be faithful to the
original, the translator would also have to reproduce, at least
partially, the defects of the original text because, “forming,
these, a special quality of style, removing them altogether
would result in altering its nature.”11 He adds that if “it is good
that the reader glimpses the defects of the author [...] it would
be very bad if he perceived”12 those of the translator, because
“he who reads a translation wants to recognize who the author
is, and wants that the art of the translator makes it pleasant
even with those same defects.”13 The way proposed by
9 «Recare sé innanzi al suo autore e vedere se egli ha l’anima contemperata

egualmente che lui e eguale fantasia», Ibid.
10 «Molti scrittori vi ha, che ben valgono in un genere, e in un altro no», Ibid.
11 «Formando questi una speciale qualità dello stile, col toglierli al tutto, si
verrebbe ad alterarne il carattere», Ibid., 268.

12 «Bene sta che il lettore intravveda i difetti dell’autore [...] starebbe assai
male che intravedesse», Ibid., 269.

13 «Chi legge una traduzione vuole riconoscere qual è l’autore, e vuole che
l’arte del traduttore glielo renda piacevole anche negli stessi difetti», Ibid.
Montanari is therefore an approach that is halfway between

source-oriented translation and target-oriented translation.
Montanari then returns to the “classic” metaphor of the
copyist, proposing an original interpretation of it. In fact, unlike
the copyist, who “uses the same material that was used in the
original,”14 the translator would use a “different material,”15 as
distant from the original as “the nature of one language is from
that of the other”16. According to Montanari, unlike the
copyist, whose sole task would be to choose colors and use
them, the translator must instead “create” his own colors
himself, and “his ingenious searches for them, finds them,
subdivides them in a suitable way, and applies them with
subtle expediency.”17
In the face of the apparently insurmountable difficulties of
translating Montanari suggests a solution, and he does not
despair at the admission of the irreducibility of one language to
another. This also occurs when he deals with the translation of
proverbs, notoriously unique to a given language. The solution
suggested by Montanari, in addition to being concerned with
the profound knowledge of both languages, and with a nearly
fundamental identification of the translator in another cultural
context (that of the original work), is based on the assumption
that in order to translate well “the comforts of rules are
certainly not enough, but it takes extensive practice, and
indefatigable study.”18
On the other hand, freer translation would come with not
minor dangers as, being an expression intimately linked to
ideas, it could not be altered without affecting the ideas of the
14 «Usa la materia stessa che fu usata nell’originale», Ibid.

15 «Diversa materia», Ibid.
16 «L’indole d’una lingua da quella dell’altra», Ibid., 270.
17 «Il suo ingegno li cerca, li trova, li comparte in un modo confacente, e li
applica con sottile accorgimento», Ibid.

18 «Non bastano sicuramente i conforti delle regole, ma ci vuole lunghissima
pratica, ed indefesso studio», Ibid., 271.

original. With regards to the free output in another language,

according to Montanari it does not have to do with translation
in the true sense of the term, and the consequence would be
that “in every freedom of translation the author always loses
much, and the translator gains very little.”19 Concluding the first
part of the essay, Montanari addresses the youth and urges
them to not be intimidated by the reflections he has just
revealed, instead encouraging them to translate also as a
means of learning foreign languages.
The discussion continues by focusing on the translation of
poetry. In this regard, Montanari maintains that poetry cannot
be translated with poetry. When this happens, explains
Montanari, it would be more appropriate to think of it as
imitation rather than translation.
In the case of the poetic translation, in fact, contrarily to the
translation of prose, the translator would face further
difficulties due to the unique elements of the poetic language
with its “greater boldness, more vivid color of figures, more
agitated and often imitative harmonies”20 which differ from
language to language.
To support these statements Montanari offers the
comparison of the specifics of every language, in attempts to
show, for example, precisely the impossibility of translating
some aspects of Latin and Greek into Italian. From this point of
view, “the reason of the meter, or the yoke of the rhyme,” 21
would force us to distance ourselves from the original but,
Montanari adds, “it is still certainly possible to make poetry of
poetry, and that which we call poetic translations must have a
19 «In ogni libertà di traduzione molto ci perde sempre l’autore, poco il tra-
duttore ci acquista», Ibid.
20 «Ardimenti maggiori, più vivi colori di figure, armonie più concitate e spes-
so anche imitative», Ibid., 273.

21 «La ragion del metro, o il giogo della rima», Ibid.
title more fitting as imitations.”22

Good translations, therefore, should uphold the “delight”
generated by their originals, a delight that should be stimulated
in the reader of the translated text. In this sense, in avoiding
outputs that are too faithful, imitations should be favored that,
though concealing the original, succeed in “delighting” the
reader. The former, in fact, would risk being referred to as “the
greatest sin in the art of translating”, and the latter as the only
ones worthy of representing certain authors. The first group
would include Alfieri’s translation of Virgil, and the second the
translation, also of Virgil, by Annibal Caro, which Montanari
analyzes by explicitly calling upon the reflections of Bondi, of
Algarotti, and Delille’s statement: “I have always observed that
great fidelity becomes a great infidelity.”23
He ends his discussion on poetic translation by reaffirming the
didactic purpose of translating as a practice to be used to learn
the foreign language. In such a case, the option of translating
[poetic] verses with prose would also be permitted.
22 «Resta che ben si possa fare poesia di poesia, e che quante noi chiamiamo
traduzioni poetiche debbano aver titolo più proprio d’imitazioni», Ibid., 275.
23 «Io ho sempre veduto che una grande fedeltà diventa una grande infedel-
tà», Ibid., 276.

10
Dionigi Strocchi on the Status of

Certain Artistic Creations
In his discourse Delle traduzioni1, in the wake of the eight-

eenth-century debate between anciennes and modernes, Dio-
nigi Strocchi2 reflects on the relationship between original text
and translation, and on the concept of fidelity in the transla-
tion. From the beginning of his discussion, the Romagnol
scholar, an acute supporter of the authorial conception of
translation, deeply criticizes the “literary republic” that attrib-
1 There are two versions of the Discorso. The first version is that presented at
the Collegio dei Nobili di Ravenna in 1836 and published in Dionigi Strocchi,
Elogi discorsi accademici del cavaliere Dionigi Strocchi faentino (Fiaccadori,
Parma 1836, 101-117). The second version, which consists of a re-working of
the discourse presented in Ravenna, is the one published in Dionigi Strocchi,
Poesie greche e latine volgarizzate dal cavaliere Dionigi Strocchi faentino
(Conti, Faenza 1843, I-XVI). The version published here is the first, in the se-
cond edition from 1840 (Dionigi Strocchi, Elogi e discorsi accademici del cava-
liere Dionigi Strocchi faentino, Fiaccadori, Parma 1840, 101-117).
2 The scholar Dionigi Strocchi (Faenza, 1762 - Ravenna, 1850), after spending
a number of years in Roma and attaining his degree, returned to live in his
native Faenza. He was given prominent positions in the Cisalpine Republic
and, later, in the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. Following the fall of Bonaparte
he was forced to take refuge in San Marino before being imprisoned in Bolo-
gna. He was appointed senator in 1848 by Pope Mastai. He wrote several col-
lections of his own verses, but his fame is mainly due to his translations from
Greek and Latin. He translated the Hymns of Callimachus, which he published
in various updated and expanded editions, and of Virgil he translated the
Ecloques and the Georgics (1834).
utes to translators “poor ingenuity” and “sterile imagination,”3

for not being capable of producing original works, but rather
only mechanical reproductions.
As evidence of the fallacy of certain statements, and in support
of the creative side of literary translation, Strocchi reminds us
that many authors since ancient times have turned to transla-
tion as a resource for their own creative writing (Cicero, Virgil,
Dante, Poliziano, Tasso and Ariosto) and, contrary to the domi-
nant opinion, he becomes the spokesman of an innovative
view of translation as a “fine art”4 of dignity equal to that of
original artistic creation. In the wake of the Horatian statement
“Detrahere ausim / Haerentem capiti multa cum laude coro-
nam” he states that:
being something for the very few, translating [...] requires ex-
pertise and a rare ingenuity to bring from one langauge to an-
other excellent works of excellent ingenuity [...] [it is] to be of
the greatest benefit, which can be done to the letters. He who
esteemed it a way of amplifying patrimony, and providing for
the maternal sermon new riches, new graces, was he who
deemed translations profitable to the letters just as travels are
to genius.5
According to Strocchi, an amount of dignity at least equal to

that of the original artistic works should therefore be afforded
to translations. To support his statements, he reminds us of a
3 «Povero ingegno» e «sterile fantasia», D. Strocchi, Delle Traduzioni, in Id.,

Elogi e discorsi accademici del cavaliere Dionigi Strocchi faentino, Parma, Pie-
tro Fiaccadori, 1840, 101.
4 «Arte bella», Ibid., 107.
5 «Essere da pochissimi il tradurre […], domanda perizia e ingegno raro recare
d’una in altra favella opere eccellenti di eccellenti ingegni […] è il maggior

beneficio, che far si possa alle lettere. Chi lo stimò modo di amplificarne il pa-
trimonio, e di provvedere al materno sermone nuove dovizie, nuove grazie,
fu chi disse le traduzioni profittevoli alle lettere, come i viaggi agl’ingegni»,
Ibid.
Dionigi Strocchi on the Status of Certain Artistic Creations 95
few opinions that are in line with his own: “Mr. D’Alembert be-
lieved a good translator was due the highest honors alongside
the author. That clever and subtle genius of Count Magalotti
could not be sure about which, between composing and trans-
lating, was the greatest job. Bettinelli judged the first easier.”6
Consequently, even the relationship between author and
translator should be imagined in a different light from that of
the absolute “dependence” of the second on the first. To the
translator Strocchi attributes an almost authorial identity and
he therefore expects the translator to not remain “invisible” in
the translated work.7 On the contrary, he should be able to
overcome, in terms of skill, the original author by whom “he
will not be beaten and will sometimes know how to come out
victorious.”8 By virtue of his own active role, the translator can
preserve, transmit, balance, and sometimes refine the source
text, freeing himself from the linguistic limits of the original au-
thor.
6 «Il sig. d’Alembert pensava doversi a buon traduttore comunemente con

l’autore i primi onori. Quell’acuto e terso ingegno del conte Magalotti era in
forse quale del comporre e del tradurre fosse maggior negozio. Il Bettinelli
giudicò più facile il primo», Ibid., 108.
7 See F. Falchi, In margine ai discorsi. Delle traduzioni di Dionigi Strocchi, in A.
Battistini, A. Bruni, I. R. Pintor (ed.), Filologia e critica nella modernità lettera-

ria, CLUEB, Bologna 2012, 169-188. We refer to Falchi’s essay for a detailed
analysis of Strocchi’s discourse.
8 «Non sarà vinto e saprà talvolta uscir vincitore», (Strocchi, Delle Traduzioni,
112).
11
Antonino Carrano’s Responsibility

for Reception
With Della difficoltà e prestanza del tradurre, published in 1862

in Reggio Calabria, Antonino Carrano1 sets out to provide cer-
tain rules about the duties of the translator, as well as an origi-
nal reflection regarding the merits that this figure would bring
in the enrichment of a given receiving culture. Carrano con-
ducts an acute analysis of the concept of fidelity in translation,
and provides principles to which the translator should adhere.
If translating means “to transport one work from one language
to another with fidelity,”2 Carrano believes that it should be
maintained “in its new dress, that which it exposes in the
wares it is clothed in by the author,”3 thus revisiting the meta-
phor of the “dress” previously dear to Ludovico Castelveltro (c.
1 Antonino Carrano, originally from Reggio Calabria, was an erudite student

of the professor of Italian literature at the University of Messina Felice Bisaz-
za (1809-1867). He published the epigraphic collection Una Centuria
d’iscrizioni italiane (Siclari, Reggio Calabria, 1865). His friend Francesco Mi-
nervini (1833-1880) wrote a consolatory ode titled Ad Antonio Carrano
(1866) and then, following the death of Carrano due to cholera (December
17, 1867), the long epicedium in quatrains In morte dell’egregio Professore
Antonio Carrano.
2 «Trasportare un’opera da una lingua ad un’altra con fedeltà», A. Carrano,
Della difficoltà e prestanza del tradurre, Tipografia Siclari, Reggio Calabria

1862, 4.
3 «Anche nel nuovo suo abito la stessa ch’ella mostrasi in quello in cui vestita
fu dall’autore», Ibid.
1505-1571)4 and later in vogue with reference to the transla-

tion in the nineteenth century.5
Carrano’s observation, as he himself points out by recognizing
a debt to past scholars, concerns a “topic that is fecund and se-
rious, like the art of translation; laudably handled by solemn
writers both ours and from beyond the Alps”6 whose “fruitful
and inexhaustible truth”7 he intends to reiterate. He admits
that among his contemporaries “a sewerage of illiterates scrib-
bles translations,”8 so much so that he considers it useful “to
spell out the main rules.”9
He is convinced that translation is not only “art”, but al-
so “science” (“it is science and art”)10 and, with regard to the
skills that the translator should possess, he adopts the wide-
spread belief that to carry out a good translation it is necessary
to have a perfect knowledge of the two languages worked
with. In the event that this condition is not satisfied, the art of
translating would become “a hilarious comedy,”11 thus creating
disgrace for the translator, but also, more importantly, for the
national culture in which the translation is produced. There-
fore, for Carrano, translating is also an act of responsibility with
respect to the receiving culture.
4 See A. Cardillo, Ludovico Castelvetro: sul traslatare, in «Misure critiche», 2,

2010, 5-21.
5 See V. Monti, Lettera del 23 febbraio 1805, in Id., Opere inedite e rare, V,
Società degli editori, Milano 1834, 33; M. Colombo, Della difficoltà di tradur-
re e del modo da doversi tenere più che si può, Id., Opuscoli dell’arte, Tipi del-
la Minerva, Padova 1832, 211-217; E. Teza, Tradurre?, «Atti del Reale Istituto
Veneto», Tomo LI, serie VII, tomo IV, Venezia, 1893, 972-988.
6 «Argomento si fecondo e grave, come l’arte del tradurre; lodevolmente
trattato da solenni scrittori sia nostri che d’oltralpe», Carrano, Della difficoltà
e prestanza del tradurre, 3.
7 «Feconde e inesauribili verità», Ibid.
8 «Una colluvie d’illetterati scribacchia traduzioni». Ibid., 4.
9 «Dettarne le precipue regole», Ibid., 5.
10«È scienza ed arte», Ibid.
11 «Ridevolissima commedia», Ibid.
Antonino Carrano’s Responsibility for Reception 99
Not being sufficient an exclusively grammatical and lexi-

cal knowledge of the language, the translator should also know
profoundly “the nature of both, the strength and features, so
that he is able to penetrate and embrace the character such
that it appears original the new version,”12 and “fully under-
stand its character and genius, its most vivid and genial locu-
tions, the adverbial and proverbial ways,”13 together also with
the history of its literary tradition (“The knowledge of a lan-
guage also requires that of its literature and its history, from
which it cannot be extrapolated”).14
According to the author, these traits do not seem to
characterize most of the contemporary translations of his time.
For most of these, in fact, the original would seem to serve on-
ly as a basis for a new work, whose novelty would lie, however,
“in a fading of phrases and concepts”15 so unacceptable that it
results in “more harm done to art than advantage.”16
Contrarily, good translations, even scientific ones (which would
additionally require a familiarity with the science in question),
provide a “noblest service” to the literature and culture that
receive them.
Carrano’s attention, however, is primarily focused on literary
translations and, in this sense, he is on the same page as
Cavazzoni Pederzini and Zannoni, and like them he opines
about the advantages of translations, which would, however,
only remain as much if the translations meet certain qualitative
criteria.
12 «La natura d’entrambe, la forza e proprietà, in guisa che ne penetri e ab-

bracci l’indole in modo che originale si rilevi nella versione», Ibid., 6.
13 «Conoscerne a fondo l’indole e il genio, le più vive e geniali locuzioni, i mo-
di avverbiali e proverbiali», Ibid.

14 «La cognizione di una lingua suppone quella della letteratura e della storia
di essa dalla quale non può scompagnarsi», Ibid., 7.

15 «In uno slavamento di frasi e concetti», Ibid.
16 «Più il danno che se ne cava per l’arte che il vantaggio», Ibid., 3.
In this regard, Carrano suggests avoiding certain atti-

tudes that, in his view, characterized many Italian translations
in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Addition-
ally, lamenting the “sewerage of illiterates that scribbles trans-
lations”17 and the “sordid stain of excessive imitation of French
ways and foreignisms and lying translations that stand in the
way of art’s supreme aims, and form the shame of our Penin-
sula,”18 he suggests avoiding neologisms, forestry, archaisms,
and improper syntactical constructs to prevent causing dam-
age to the receiving literary culture:
Noblest and distinguished service is bestowed upon his litera-

ture by he who translates into his own language a scientific
and resolute work, and especially that regarding natural sci-
ences, which abound with rich and radical terminology, and a
phrasing and movement of language unique to them, and ab-
solute turns of phrase, which can be acquired only after a
lengthy experience with science.19
In addition to the use of explanatory notes to illuminate the

points most difficult to understand, it is also interesting to note
the promotion in Della difficoltà e prestanza del tradurre of re-
lying on the parallel text which, because of the potential criti-
cisms that the translation might attract, would force the trans-
lator to pay more attention with regards to his work:
17 «Colluvie d’illetterati che scribacchia traduzioni», Ibid., 3.

18 «Sordido imbratto di gallicume e forestierismi e bugiarde traduzioni che
avversano i fini supremi dell’arte, e formano la vergogna della nostra Peniso-
la», Ibid.
19 «Nobilissimo e segnalato servigio presta alla sua letteratura chi traslata
nella propria lingua un’opera scientifica e di gran polso, e segnatamente

quella di scienze naturali, che abbondano di doviziosa e radicale terminolo-
gia, e un fraseggio e movimento di linguaggio loro esclusivo, e forme di dire
assolute, che possono acquistarsi dopo lunga dimestichezza colla scienza»,
Ibid.
A very special debt is owed then to those who translate, and,

finding the original text obscure or unintelligible, to attach at
the bottom of the page or at the end of the work certain ex-
planatory notes, suitable to clarify the passage with the help
of other authors.20
According to Carrano, the task of the translator is not to pro-

duce “a more sumptuous and beauteous version of the origi-
nal, [nor] to endeavor to challenge the author on who can do
better; but to give us the same work of the author as it came
out of his pen,”21 thus avoiding the creation of “a beautiful
work and a bad translation.”22 Implicated in the scant value of
a given translation would also be the short success of certain
books in the literary target culture.
Dreadfully and heinously converted books have a short life in

literature; if it can even be called life, that of a book that is
unburdened of any merit: solemn proof of this is the scarcity
of prints, in that good books want only to be reproduced. 23
At this point Carrano, a supporter of faithful and “genuine”

translation, attempts to define the concept of fidelity in trans-
lation, which must not always coincide with the fidelity to the
letter of the original, or to a word-for-word rendering.
20 «Corre pure specialissimo debito a chi traduce, che quando trovi scuro o
inintelligibile l’originale testo, di allegare in piede o in fine dell’opera delle
noterelle giustificative e acconce a chiarire il passaggio col soccorso di altri
autori», Ibid., 6.
21 «Una versione più sfarzosa e venusta dell’originale, e di adoperarsi a sfida-
re l’autore a chi sa far meglio; ma a darci l’opera dell’autore medesimo tal

quale uscì dalla penna di lui», Ibid., 8.
22 «Un lavoro bellissimo e una pessima traduzione», Ibid.
23 «I libri pessimamente e scelleratamente convertiti hanno vita breve nella
letteratura; se pure può vita chiamarsi quella di un libro che va sfornito di

ogni pregio: n’è solenne riprova la scarsità delle stampe, già che i buoni libri
vogliono soltanto essere riprodotti», Ibid., 11.
In fact, a faithful translation would be that which, “having re-

gard for the brilliance of its language, will try to reproduce, in
the minds of the readers, through another appropriate meth-
od, the effects that the words of the text have on him.”24 In
practice - and in this sense a certain level of originality of Car-
rano’s affirmation is admirable - it would involve generating in
the reader of the target language an “equivalent effect” to that
generated in the reader who was the original beneficiary of the
work.
Not always, however, Carrano admits, in the transposi-
tion of the original contents is it possible to preserve the same
strength and harmony that would be required. To solve this
difficulty, the proposed solution is to work through compensa-
tion, improving the original where the target language allows
for it. He suggests, to the translator “forced by the impotence
of the one [language] to remain here and there behind in the
blatancy of the phrase of the original author,”25 to at times
perfect those points where the original work is less beautiful
and less powerful in its expression (“can often for that same
reason match it and take it even further.”)26
Citing Pietro Giordani in this regard, Carrano maintains that it
does not matter “that you give us the same features in the por-
trait one by one, provided there an equal beauty throughout”27
and, mirroring some statements by Puccini, adds: “works of
genius do not easily lend themselves to transfuse into other
languages all of their graces; but therefore the translator must
not be discouraged because if hard are the obstacles, he can
24 «Avendo riguardo al genio della sua lingua, cercherà di produrre per altro
convenevol modo negli animi de’ lettori gli effetti che le parole del testo in lui
operano», Ibid., 8.
25 «Costretto dall’impotenza dell’una [lingua] di restare qua e là indietro
nell’evidenza della frase all’autore originale», Ibid.

26 «Potrà sovente per la stessa ragione pareggiarlo e avanzarlo ancora», Ibid.
27 «Che tu ci dia nel ritratto gli stessi lineamenti ad uno ad uno, purché ci sia
nel tutto una eguale bellezza», Ibid.

compensates entirely, or at least in part, the damage, provided

that in his soul lies a particle of that divine aura that agitates,
that inflames the poets.”28
If in translations “fidelity is the cake, and elegance the ic-
ing on them,”29 Carrano specifies that fidelity, in fact, does not
consist of “converting the words of the text such that the orig-
inal would inevitably fall into the dark, and would be un-
dressed of all grace and elegance: but faithful can be called
that version that integrally and entirely, with punctuality and
precision, sculpts the concepts of the author, with that same
vivacity and certainty which offered themselves to his mind.”30
In order to be faithful, Carrano suggests, the translator must in
some way act autonomously with respect to the original au-
thor, towards whom he should not have an attitude of embar-
rassment:
But it is also true that excessive veneration and attachment to

one’s original, often degenerates into superstition: and super-
stition, we repeated with Monti, never made for good ad-
vances in the letters; on the contrary, it aims to make us serv-
ants inside our brain31.
28 «Le opere di genio non sì facilmente si prestano a trasfondere in altre lin-

gue tutte le loro grazie; ma non perciò debbe il traduttore scorarsi perché
duri gli ostacoli e si compensi interamente o almeno in parte del danno,
sempre che sia nell’anima sua una particella di quell’aura divina che agita,
che infiamma i poeti», Ibid.
29 «La fedeltà è l’alimento, e l’eleganza condimento di esse», Ibid., 11.
30 «Nel convertire le parole del testo che così cadrebbesi inevitabilmente nel-
lo scuro, e spoglierebbesi di ogni grazia ed eleganza l’originale: ma fedele

vuolsi appellare quella versione che tutti ed interi con puntualità e precisione
scolpisce i concetti dell’autore, con quella stessa vivezza ed evidenza che si
offersero alla sua mente», Ibid., 10.
31 «Ma è pur vero che soverchia venerazione e attaccamento al proprio origi-
nale, sovente in superstizione degenera: e superstizione, ripetiamolo con

Monti, non fece mai buoni avanzamenti nelle lettere; anzi mira a farci servi
fin dentro al cervello», Ibid., 9.
Also very interesting is the paragraph (XI) that Carrano devotes

to the usefulness of translation as a practice for those writer-
translators who decide to use translation as a source of en-
richment for their own original writings. For the writer who de-
cides to translate a foreign work, translation in this sense rep-
resents the necessary instrument for attempting to overcome
certain linguistic obstacles, the overcoming of which repre-
sents a useful training for the writer that is not otherwise of-
fered by original creative writing:
The translator has this great advantage over original writing:

man is often discouraged by some settings of his author to
which he does not so quickly have the words ready, nor the
corresponding ways. So he is put in the position of having to
strengthen himself to expose them wherever they might be;
and by rummaging and thinning them out, he many times
finds them: and this is not a small gain. This gain would fail by
writing for oneself, because in order to say something for
which one does not have the word and the verb ready, he
turns to another concept, for which it is easier to find words or
so that it responds well. Now, he who loves to master his lan-
guage well, and to make it serve his every need, does not dis-
dain any effort, and places himself in the necessity of having
to test his strength. And this makes translating endlessly. 32
32«Il traduttore ha questo gran vantaggio sopra lo scrivere a capo, che spes-
so l’uomo s’abbatte a tali luoghi dell’autor suo ai quali non ha le parole così
pronte, né i modi corrispondenti. Allora egli è messo al punto di dovere isfor-
zare sè stesso a sbucarli donde che sia; e frugando e assottigliandosi le più
volte li trova: e ciò non è picciol guadagno. Questo guadagno gli fallirebbe
scrivendo a sua posta, perché occorrendogli dir cosa, alla quale esprimere
non ha pronta la voce ed il verbo, egli per cessar fatica si volge ad un altro
concetto, cui gli sia agevole trovar vocaboli o modo che ben risponda. Ora,
chi ama di ben padroneggiare la sua lingua, e farla a ogni suo uopo servire,
non ischifa travaglio, e si mette da sé medesimo nella necessità di dover ci-
mentare le sue forze. E ciò fa senza fine il tradurre.», Ibid., 18.
It is in the final part of Della difficoltà e prestanza del

tradurre that we again hear the statement that translating well
a particular author into another language is equivalent to giv-
ing him a new “citizenship”, that of the nation for which he is
translated, and that translating “the excellent works of human
brilliance, is the greatest benefit that can awarded to native
writings.”33
33«Le opere eccellenti dell’umano ingegno, è il maggior beneficio che far si

possa alle patrie lettere», Ibid.
12
Emilio Teza and the Unrepeatability

of Poetic Expression
There are two letters, published in the Atti del Rea-

le Istituto Veneto1, and addressed to the secretary of the Vene-
to Institute Paulo Fambri from Emilio Teza,2 which represent a
1 E. Teza, Tradurre? Due lettere al segretario dell’Istituto, in Atti del Rea-

le Istituto Veneto, LI/VII, IV, Venezia, 1893, 972-988.
2 Emilio Teza (Venice, 1831 – Padua, 1912), philologhist and translator, edu-
cated between Padua and Vienna, was a lecturer on classical, romantic, and
eastern literature at various Italian universities. He taught Indo-European
philology at the University of Bologna and there associated with Carducci,
with whom he collaborated on a few translations (See T. Ortolani, Giosue
Carducci ed Emilio Teza: amicizia e collaborazione (a proposito della versione
di un’ode tedesca, «Nuova Antologia», 16 novembre 1930, 173-187; Un bra-
no dell’Elettra tradotto da Giosué Carducci e da Emilio Teza, in «La Stampa»,
3 agosto 1929, 3). He was a prolific scholar (he wrote numerous pamphlets
and articles) and a connoisseur of many languages. He translated throughout
his entire life, making his debut in 1855 with Curtius’ volume of Greek scho-
lastic grammar (See C. Tagliavini, Gli studi ungheresi e Ungro-finnici di Emilio
Teza, in «Corvina», V/10, 1942, 545). He later published the volume
Traduzioni: Goethe Voss, Groth, Puskin, Tennyson, Longfellow, Heine, Petofi,
Burns (Milano, Hoepli, 1888). By 1863 he had already published a pamphlet
in Bologna (which was never put into circulation) titled Traduzioni di Emilio
Teza, which includes translations of poems by Petófi, Heine, Mickiewicz, and
Valaoritis. Additionally, he translated other writings from German (Goethe,
Groth), from English (Coleridge), from Portugese (Antero de Quental), from
Czech (Vrchlický), and from Sanscrit (Bhartṛhari). In 1891 he was elected as a
partner of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. The words that Pio Rajna
wrote in his honor after he died accurately portray the relationship with for-
eign languages and translation of Emilio Teza, who was mourned by the
part of the debate regarding translation which was started by

Teza and Fambri3 in 1893; Francesco Cipolla also made contri-
butions to the discussion in 1897, again in the pages of the Atti
of the Veneto Institute, with his article Intorno al tradurre: ri-
flessioni.4
Teza demonstrates a theoretical approach to translation
based on the unrepeatability of a given poetic expression
(“That poet of harmonies only once uttered his song; he can
sing it on his own, but then sings a different one: he gives and
takes, he unfolds and embellishes, but the arrow is fired”),5
and which precedes by a number of decades the notable
Crocean positions on the untranslatability of works of art as a
consequence of the unrepeatable nature of artistic expres-
sion.6
He asserts, in fact, that “every poem is a creature, born
only once: he who translates isn’t doing, but redoing”7 and
when it comes to literary creation, translation would therefore
be impossible. The substitution of one word (from a different
nation or from a different time) transforms, according to Teza,
the original creation into something else, and this by virtue of
Lombard philologist as “the most marvelous polyglot that [Italy] has ever
had”, (P. Rajna, Emilio Teza, in «Il Marzocco», XVII/14, 7 aprile 1912).
3 A part of the debate was formed with the writing of Paulo Fambri, Intorno
all’utilità e alla possibilità del tradurre, considerazioni e disgressioni a propo-

sito di una pubblicazione di E. Teza (in «Atti del Reale Istituto Veneto», LI, IV/
VII, Venezia 1893, I-XV). Such a reflection, however, though indicated in the
index of the volume in question, was not actually included, perhaps by error
of the editor, in the pages of the Atti.
4 F. Cipolla, Intorno al Tradurre: riflessioni, in Atti del Reale Istituto Veneto,
LV/VII, VIII, Venezia 1897, 487-496.

5 «Quel poeta delle armonie disse una volta sola la sua canzone; da sè può
cantarsela, ma ne ricanta un’altra: dà e ruba, sfoglia ed infiora; la freccia è

scoccata», Ibid., 975.
6 See B. Croce, Estetica come scienza dell’espressione e linguistica generale.
Teoria e storia, Adelphi, Milano, 1990, 12.

7 F. Cipolla, Intorno al tradurre, 974.
Emilio Teza and the Unrepeatability of Poetic Expression 109
the fact that even seemingly equivalent words might represent

differing ideas:
Every word copies from the ideal field many inches... Take it
away and place there another, from a different era, from a dif-
ferent people, and when it seems that it eases in, if you are
careful of the margins, you will see that it protrudes or turns
back: if you shrink or stretch it out, it is no longer the same:
and there is no exception: the dendron is not the arbor, just as
haus is not the maison, nor the donna the woman: without
moving to count the inches of the words of Arabia. 8
The distinctiveness and unrepeatability inherent to poetic cre-

ation is reasserted by Teza as a preamble to his own reflection
on the potential of translation (“the true song, from a true po-
et, comes from his mouth only once: it comes through recrea-
tion, without altering its parts, almost stiffened on the page,
but breathing new life into it each time: then it leaves him and
falls into the mouths of minstrels”). 9
Given the impossibility of recreating a harmony identical to

that of the original work, Teza anyway recognizes within the
8 «Ogni parola copia del campo ideale tanti pollici… Levala via e mettine
un’altra, di un altro tempo, di un’altra gente, e quando pare che ci si adagi, se
badi ai margini, vedrai che sporge o rientra: se la scantucci o se la stiri, non è
più lei: ed eccezione non c’è: il dendron non è 1’arbor, né haus è la maison,
né woman è la donna: senza tirarsi a contare i pollici delle parole d’Arabia»,
975. The echo of these examples seems to be traceable also in the reflections
of Susan Bassnet on the untranslatability resulting from cultural distance. In
Translation Studies Bassnett, drawing on Saussurean structuralism, asserts
that “butter” is not “burro”. S. Bassnett, Translation Studies, Routledge, New
York 1980 (2014), 29-30.
9 «La canzone vera, del poeta vero, gli esce di bocca una sola volta: viene ri-
creandola, non toccandole le membra, quasi irrigidite sul foglio, ma spiran-

dovi ogni volta un’anima nuova: poi esce da lui e casca nelle bocche dei me-
nestrelli», 975-976.
“resemblance” with the text-source a conquest on the transla-

tor part.
Translations, and in this Teza admits to being in agreement
with Fambri, would have at least a threefold function making
them almost necessary.
First, they would allow for the “induction” of writers; then,

they would perfect the target language by pushing it to “ex-
pose everything of those hidden treasures and to buy, rather
than steal or pilfer, what is missing from it”;10 and they would
ultimately employ many poets of lower quality, thus avoiding
the proliferation of banal poems and those of bad taste.
The wish of Teza for the future was, therefore, that younger
generations might devote themselves to translating in order to
“bestow citizenship unto foreigners”:11 this practice would, in
fact, prevent the undesirable multiplication of imitations “from
Italian to Italian”.
Teza also hoped for healthy level of criticism of such transla-

tions (obviously criticism not entrusted to friends or inexperi-
enced critics) that might illuminate which path to follow when
translating foreign literatures.
In addition to the benefit that the receiving literature might

draw from translations, Teza suggests the path of translation
also because he imagines that, in translating literary works,
one can occasionally do even better than the originals (if the
translator’s skills exceed those of the original writer).
With regard to the reception of translations in a given national

literature, Teza already seems to be aware of some of the dy-
10 Ibid., 977.
11 «Donare cittadinanza ai forestieri», Ibid.
Emilio Teza and the Unrepeatability of Poetic Expression 111
namics that would, about a century later, be illustrated by

Even-Zohar with the concept of the “literary polysystem”.
Teza is conscious of how “in the younger, or newly reinvigorat-

ed literatures, the foreigner infiltrates from below, pushes the
side, and from on high rains over the national”12 influencing
literary culture. In this regard, Teza’s concern has to do with
the risk that models assimilated through translations might not
regard only the “divine” ones, but others that would run the
risk of having negative effects on the receiving literature. Once
again, Teza attributes an important role to the “wise and
thoughtful” criticism that should influence the modes and
models of translation.
12 «Nelle letterature meno vecchie, o rinsanguate di fresco, lo straniero infil-

tri di sotto, prema di fianco, e dall’alto piova sopra il nazionale», Ibid., 981.
References
Ambrosoli F., Cenni intorno alla vita e alle opere di Giovanni

Carmignani, in Elementi, Sanvito, Milano 1863.
Bassnett S., Translation Studies, Routledge, London and New
York 1980.
Beltrani P., Dionigi Strocchi e la scuola classica romagnola, Ba-
ragiola, Menaggio 1898.
Bertuzzi G., Immagini di vita modenese. Vita ed attività nella
Modena fine ‘800 primi ‘900, Edizioni Aldine, Modena
1979.
Bollnow O. F., What does it mean to understand a Writer better
than He understood Himself, in «Philosophy Today» 1/4,
1979, 10-22.
Cagnoli L., Notizie biografiche e letterarie degli scrittori degli
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The Hidden Reflection: Hermenèia and Rewriting in 19th Century Italian Theory DR Francesco Laurenti

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The Hidden Reflection

The Hidden Reflection

Published in 2018 by Chartridge Books Oxford

ISBN print: 978-1-911033-38-7

© Francesco Laurenti, 2018

All rights reserved Chartridge Books Oxford.

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The publishers, author(s), editor(s) and contributor(s) make no representations or warranties

1 Giovanni Carmignani’s Search for

2 Giovanni De Coureil and the Degradation

3 Luigi Ceretti’s Principles of Rhetoric 39

4 Fortunato Cavazzoni Pederzini’s Ethics

5 Giovanni Battista Zannoni on

6 Francesco Cassoli and the Imitation of

7 Michele Colombo’s Almost

9 Giuseppe Ignazio Montanari on the Nature

10 Dionigi Strocchi on the Status of Certain

11 Antonino Carrano’s Responsibility

12 Emilio Teza and the Unrepeatability

The word Hermeneutics is derived from the Greek ἑρμηνεύω

pretation and as a mediation between what is foreign and

It is Herder who, understanding translation as an ex-

stacle for Schleiermacher but represents the motivation for

The theoretical reflection of the 19th century on the in-

to literature posed by the translation of modern and ancient

The writings analyzed in this volume demonstrate an

eign work?”; “In what way can translating be compared to the

creative values and consequently they “describe the target-

Giovanni Carmignani’s Search for a

The Dissertazione critica sulle traduzioni by Giovanni Carmi-

1 Giovanni Carmignani (San Benedetto in Settimo, 1768 - Pisa, 1847) entered

italiana, I, Molini-Landi-Compagno, Pisa, 1808, I, 263-354.

ciprocal influence between reason and language of Locke and the

Continuing, with regard to the “power” of translations, and to

The futility of such a question (which was, among other things,

una critica delle traduzioni», Ibid., 271.

theoretical investigations of translations, whose weakness was its

He believed it was necessary to create clarity within the family of

The commentary, the gloss, the scholium, the interpretation in

Even while admitting that the idea of determining a precise defi-

la litterale versione, la parafrasi, la perifrasi, la metafrasi furono altrettanti lavo-

The idea buried in such a word is more abstract and complex,

lettera e della licenza di un’original produzione», Ibid., 274.

madre medesima, e da buone sorelle trattarsi, convenendo di non avere in vero

logue, admitting, however, the impossibility of an unequivocal

What is the rule might lead us to determine where the literal

In the unlikelihood of univocally defining the word “translation”,

We therefore assign to the word translation a far greater

12 «Qual è la regola che guidar ci possa a determinare, ove la litterale versione

Once the scope of the investigation was defined, Carmignani de-

can we become like fellow citizens and contemporaries of the

To create the kind of effect equivalent to translation, or, as he

15 «Essere prodotto colla medesima intensità in un diverso aggregato di segni»,

But, Carmignani wonders, even if he or she is able to perceive all

as much as a translator might be able to graft onto a given

The elements regarding a traceable “taste” in the translation

translator might also act as an autonomous creator of the trans-

Not without a great foundation of justice can we reproach

23 «Altri ingegni», Ibid.

Translations were even responsible, according to Carmignani, for

In free translation, a new effect replaces the old, leaving the

His criticism is also directed at the “literal” translations usually

27 «Nella libera traduzione si sostituì un nuovo effetto all’antico, e si lasciarono