Anglo-Italian cultural relations “through the lens of translation”. The first Italian editions of William Robertson’s History of Scotland

The Scottish historian William Robertson (1721–1793) was a leading figure in redefining and innovating the paradigms of historical writing in the Enlightenment, and his main works were promptly translated into several European contexts, including Italy. Starting from the assumption that translations are the result of a complex process of cultural and editorial – not only linguistic – negotiation, this chapter aims at exploring the role played by publishers and translators in the Italian reception of the distinctive features of Robertson’s method, language, and ideas. More specifically, it explores the first translations of his History of Scotland (London 1759), published in Siena in 1765 and 1778–1779. The Tuscan political and cultural context, in fact, provides an excellent starting point to investigate the question, mainly because in those same years, during the government of Peter Leopold of Habsburg-Lorraine (1765–1790), translations became at once a remarkable business for the publishers and, not less important, a tool for the policies carried out by the government to provide instruction to all the subjects, and to promote public awareness of ongoing political and cultural changes taking place in the society.