The Italian translator’s art and craft in the long eighteenth century

This article seeks to contribute to our knowledge and understanding of the role played by translators in the circulation of ideas and texts in eighteenth-century Europe, with a focus on the Italian context. Over the past few years, historians have begun to carefully consider translations as sources for analysing historical phenomena, drawing on methodological insights from fields such as Translation Studies and Cultural Transfer Studies. More specifically, notable attention has been directed toward all those actors involved in the translation process, including publishers, editors, patrons of publishing projects, and, of course, the translators themselves. After a historiographical introduction aimed at highlighting theories and methodologies of potential interest to historians, the article first sets out the debate on the significance of the translator’s “craft” for the controlled transmission of knowledge of “public utility”. Secondly, it explores some examples of strategies of paratextual intervention adopted by translators to adapt various genres of texts. In doing this, the article suggests implications of the study of the translators’ biography and activity in approaching the intellectual and cultural history of the Italian Enlightenment.