Traduire les livres De familia de Leon Battista Alberti

Abstract

The publishing of the Alberti’s books De Familia by les Belles Lettres had never been attempted before. They are a multi-faceted work in many ways: dates of their writing, fragmented structure; tones, topics, dialogue form. These stylistic discrepancies necessarily call for the translator’s caution, uncertain about the multiple paths to follow: respect, elegance, elucidation. The prominent difficulties are first and foremost lexical, then syntactic since the translation of Alberti’s work brings into light a pattern of reading and interpreting the world consistent with the merchants’ culture as well as with the best educated humanists of the Quattocento: the modernity of an expanding economic universe goes along with the imitation of the ancient model. Ultimately, in the face of a complex and even confusing text, it is legitimate to wonder if translation should be an elucidation of meaning.