Catalan Translations with Political Implications from young King Alfonso to the Early Printing Press

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6093/2974-637X/11530

Keywords:

Cultural relations between Italy and Catalonia in the fifteenth century, Political education, Translation, Cicero, Manuscript circulation, Printing press

Abstract

This article aims to establish afresh the stages of the evolution (c. 1350-c. 1500) of translations into Catalan of classical works useful for the political formation of the nobility and private citizens. The first stage is centred around the royal family (until 1410), via the courts of northern France and Avignon (section 1). In his youth, King Alfonso of Aragon (r. 1416-1458) endeavoured to recover the earlier translations (and the French manuscripts that originated them), but no new Catalan versions of historical works or moral philosophy through royal patronage are recorded (section 2). Instead, from c. 1425 onwards, we witness the growing dissemination of Cicero’s moral treatises (especially De officiis and Paradoxa stoicorum) thanks to the initiative of private citizens; this stage is characterised both by direct Italian influence and the prominent role played by lawyers and other men with school education (section 3). The following section (4) highlights the central role of the newly established court in Naples in 1443 in the formation of several individuals responsible for the publication in Catalan of some snippets of humanistic knowledge (by Pier Candido Decembrio, Guarino de Verona or the Panormita) from 1480. In section 5 the effect (not always positive) of incunabular printing on this output is noted; as an example, a Catalan version of the Liber de vita et moribus philosophorum (Naples 1499), which includes a fragment from Ambrogio Traversari, remained unpublished.

Author Biographies

Lluís Cabré, Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona

Lluís Cabré has been a lecturer (1990-93) and Visiting Research Fellow (1994-95) at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, and has taught Medieval Catalan literature at the Universitat de Girona (1993-94) and at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (since 1997), in which he was professor of Catalan Philology until August 2024. He is the author of critical editions of Pere March’s poetry (1993) and Bernat Metge’s Llibre de Fortuna i Prudència (2010) and has also co-edited Ramon Llull’s Rhetorica nova (2006). His research focuses on Medieval Catalan poetry (in particular, Ausiàs March’s works), Bernat Metge and Medieval translations, with a secondary research interest in the works of Josep Carner and J. V. Foix. He has directed the collective volume The Classical Tradition in Medieval Catalan 1300-1500 (2018).

Alejandro Coroleu, ICREA-Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona

Alejandro Coroleu is ICREA Research Professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona since 2009. He has taught and researched at the University of Nottingham (1995-2008). He has published on the spread of Italian Latin humanism in sixteenth-century Europe, on the reception of Classical literature in early modern Hispanic literary culture and on Latin political propaganda in the eighteenth century. He has translated into Catalan works by Lorenzo Valla and Leon Battista Alberti. He is the author of Latin political propaganda in the War of the Spanish Succession and its aftermath, 1700-1740 (2024) and Printing and Reading Italian Latin Humanism in Renaissance Europe, ca. 1480- ca. 1540 (2014), and has co-authored The Classical Tradition in Medieval Catalan 1300-1500 (2018).

Montserrat Ferrer, Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona

Montserrat Ferrer is currently a lecturer at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Her research has focused on the study of the reception of classical works in the Crown of Aragon and on medieval translations during the 14th and 15th centuries. She has co-authored the collective volume The Classical Tradition in Medieval Catalan (2018). After holding a FPI predoctoral scholarship at the University of Barcelona (2006-10), she was a Saxl Fellow at the Warburg Institute, London (2010) as well as a Mellon Visiting Fellow at Villa I Tatti, Florence (2012). She has been a member of research project "Corpus digital de textos catalans medievals II: Traduccions" (UAB) preparing the Census of translations in medieval Catalan up to 1500 (ed. L Cabré and M Ferrer, 2011), which subsequently became Translat DB. She has also collaborated in the project "Corpus informatitzat del català antic" (UAB, 2011).

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Published

2024-11-26

How to Cite

Cabré, L., Coroleu, A., & Ferrer, M. (2024). Catalan Translations with Political Implications from young King Alfonso to the Early Printing Press. Cesura - Rivista, 3(2), 239–296. https://doi.org/10.6093/2974-637X/11530

Issue

Vol. 3 No. 2 (2024): CESURA - Rivista, 3/2 (2024)

Section

Discussions (Monographic section)

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Copyright (c) 2024 Lluís Cabré, Alejandro Coroleu, Montserrat Ferrer

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