Just returned to England by the mid-1570s after achieving his intellectual and linguistic education on the continent, the well-known anglo-italian lexicographer and translator John Florio spent several years at Oxford as a language teacher, around the time of the publication of his famous didactic dialogues, Firste Fruites, in 1578. In this period of his early career, Florio also developed a collaboration with the English geographer Richard Hakluyt (1553-1616) (Divers Voyages 1582, Principall Navigations 1589, 1598-1600), a translator himself, a go-between, a key figure in promoting English colonial and commercial expansion in the early modern period. Hakluyt commissioned and paid Florio’s translation of the account of the first two voyages of the French explorer and geographer Jacques Cartier (1494-1554), concerning the 1530s French exploration of Canada. However, Florio –Montaigne’s future translator!- did not work on Cartier’s reports, but on the Italian version translated from French by the Italian humanist Giovan Battista Ramusio. Two Navigations is clearly another typical example of transit and translation in early modern Europe: the focus is on the geographical triangle France –Italy –England this time, and the story of Two Navigations is a story of multiple authors/translators, of multiple and multilingual voices. The aim of my presentation will be to build a case of this less known translation by the young Florio, firstly describing the book and its intertextual connections, that are intercultural as well. As a second step, I will draw on the model of the early modern translations communications circuit proposed by Brenda Hosington and Marie-Alice Belle in 2017, and try to visualize the interrelated connections of Florio’s translation.

To all Gentlemen, Merchants and Pilots’. Style and Ideology in John Florio’s Two Navigations / Montini, Donatella. - (2025), pp. 105-128.

To all Gentlemen, Merchants and Pilots’. Style and Ideology in John Florio’s Two Navigations

donatella montini
2025

Abstract

Just returned to England by the mid-1570s after achieving his intellectual and linguistic education on the continent, the well-known anglo-italian lexicographer and translator John Florio spent several years at Oxford as a language teacher, around the time of the publication of his famous didactic dialogues, Firste Fruites, in 1578. In this period of his early career, Florio also developed a collaboration with the English geographer Richard Hakluyt (1553-1616) (Divers Voyages 1582, Principall Navigations 1589, 1598-1600), a translator himself, a go-between, a key figure in promoting English colonial and commercial expansion in the early modern period. Hakluyt commissioned and paid Florio’s translation of the account of the first two voyages of the French explorer and geographer Jacques Cartier (1494-1554), concerning the 1530s French exploration of Canada. However, Florio –Montaigne’s future translator!- did not work on Cartier’s reports, but on the Italian version translated from French by the Italian humanist Giovan Battista Ramusio. Two Navigations is clearly another typical example of transit and translation in early modern Europe: the focus is on the geographical triangle France –Italy –England this time, and the story of Two Navigations is a story of multiple authors/translators, of multiple and multilingual voices. The aim of my presentation will be to build a case of this less known translation by the young Florio, firstly describing the book and its intertextual connections, that are intercultural as well. As a second step, I will draw on the model of the early modern translations communications circuit proposed by Brenda Hosington and Marie-Alice Belle in 2017, and try to visualize the interrelated connections of Florio’s translation.
2025
Writing Distant Travels and Linguistic Otherness in Early Modern England (c.1550-1660)
978-2-503-59963-2
early modern english language; early modern translation; John Florio; early modern travel writing; translation and ideology
02 Pubblicazione su volume::02a Capitolo o Articolo
To all Gentlemen, Merchants and Pilots’. Style and Ideology in John Florio’s Two Navigations / Montini, Donatella. - (2025), pp. 105-128.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11573/1730430
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