Francesco Petrarca in other languages

Francesco Petrarca, a cosmopolitan intellectual and universal poetic model, is now read worldwide, as evidenced by the numerous translations of Rerum vulgarium fragmenta and his Latin works into the main foreign languages published in recent years.
Lively initiatives can be noted, in particular, in France,  where, as is well known, the reception of the work of the poet, who lived in this country for a long time, was timely. Think of the recent edition-translation of the Œuvres for Les Belles Lettres, including L’Afrique in two volumes (2006, 2018), the Chansonnier (2009), based on the text established by G. Savoca, and La Correspondance, i.e. the Lettres familières and the Lettres de la vieillesse (2002-2015), with reference, for the first, to the text by V. Rossi and to the edition of U. Dotti, for the second, to that of E. Nota. C. Carraud translated La vie solitaire (1999), the Mon ignorance et celle de tant d’autres (2000), Le repos religieux (2000), Les rèmedes aux deux fortunes (2002) and the Itinéraire de Gênes à Jérusalem (2002) into French for Millon (Grenoble). The same publisher also published Le Sans titre, edited by R. Lenoir (2003).

Petrarca’s work also gained immediate success in Spain, where the poems of the Canzoniere were read in Italian until the sixteenth century, later to become the subject of rewritings, then of translations. The attention of the Spanish public to this text is confirmed by the numerous reprints and re-editions of the works of the three main translators of the 1980s. We refer primarily to Á. Crespo, who, referring to the edition of G. Contini, in 1983 published Sonetos y Canciones for Orbis-Origen and Cancionero for Bruguera (then: Ediciones B, 1988; Alianza Editorial, 1995; Círculo de Lectores, 1998), re-edited by Planeta De Agostini (Cancionero, sonetos y canciones, 2003, with association of the original titles) and Alianza Editorial (Cancionero, 2008). Reprints until 2006 has known the translation Cancionero by J. Cortines (Cátedra, 1989), also based on Contini’s text. Until 2002 were re-edited Sonetos del Cancionero (Bosch, Colección “Erasmo Textos bilingües”, 1976) and El cancionero: edición bilingüe (Ediciones 29, 1992) published by A. Pentimalli. In regards to other writings, in addition to the Obras, Prosa edited by F. Rico (1978), the translation La medida del hombre: remedios contra la buena y la mala suerte by J. M. Micó (1999) should be mentioned.

The recent translations of Petrarch into German were also welcomed, such as Canzoniere, Triumphe, Verstreute Gedichte, edited by K. Förster and H. Grote (Düsseldorf-Zürich, 2002). Waiting for the edition announced by the Commission for the National Edition of Petrarch’s writings, very useful and full of precise notes are Epistulae metricae. Briefe in versen (Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann) of 2004, the year of publication of the Psalmen und Gebete (Augsburg, ERV) and of the Secretum meum for Excerpta Classica (Mainz, DVB), a series which in 2007 also included the translation of Africa.

Also in the European context, important translations have been prepared in the Czech Republic (Mé tajemství. O tajném střetu mých myšlenek, Praha, 2004), Poland (O niewiedzy własnej i innych. Listy wybrane, Gdansk, 2004; Drobne wiersze włoskie, Gdansk 2005) and Denmark (Canzoniere, eller Sangenes bog, København, 2005).

As Petrarca’s translations into English, the editorial proposal for the Canzoniere is broad: new reprints of the works by J.W. Cook (Petrarchʼs songbook, Italian text by G. Contini, Binghamton, 1995) and M. Musa (The Canzoniere, Bloomington, Ind., 1996) were followed by the translation by J.G. Nichols (Canzoniere, Manchester, 2000) and the Open Access text by A.S. Kline.
Many other Petrarch’s works have also been translated into English thanks to international research collaborations, such as those included in the mission of I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, from which originated the translation of D. Marsh of the Invectives ( 2003), the anthology Selected letters by E. Fantham (2017) and My secret book, edited by N. Mann (2016), with whom can be remembered the works of J.G. Nichols (My secret book, London, 2002), C.E. Quillen (The Secret, Boston-New York, 2003) and E. Wilson (A Middle English translation from Petrarch’s Secretum, Oxford, 2018). The translation by A. S. Bernardo and R. A. Bernardo of the Letters on familiar matters (1975-1985) and of the Letters of Old Age (1992), reprinted several times for John Hopkins University Press, was also fundamental. The translation-edition of T. J. Cachey Jr., Petrarchʼs Guide to the Holy Land: Itinerary to the Sepulcher of Our Lord Jesus Christ (Notre Dame, Ind., 2002) is also very rich.

Crucial evidence of Petrarch’s global interest in the word is his recent arrival in the Asian area through the Chinese translation of the Canzoniere by L. Guoqing (2002) and the Japanese translation of the Triumphi by K. Ikeda (2004), published thanks to the collaboration of the National Committee for the Celebrations of the VII Centenary of the birth of the poet.

The investigation into the translations of Petrarch’s works, only sketched in these brief notes, if extended to other languages, will only be able to provide further confirmation of the persistent interest of international publishing for the Canzoniere and other writings of the great poet.