TrAdE-Pic · Translate and Adapt an Erotic Story in the Age of Printing - The Vernacular Tradition of Piccolomini’s Historia de Duobus Amantibus. Study and Critical Editions of the French and Italian Prosimetra

The project aims at examining the vernacular tradition of the Historia de Duobus Amantibus, first written in Latin in 1444 by Enea Silvio Piccolomini. This novella is an example of literary and commercial success in the 15th-16th centuries: it was translated into many languages and circulated widely across Europe, both in its Latin and vernacular versions. The research will focus primarily on the French and Italian prosimetra, and study them within a comparative approach which will consider the cultural and book history, the impact of new readership on literature, the translation and rewriting processes, the changes in the depiction of characters (especially women). It will provide the first critical editions of these translations, the first complete analysis and the first comparative study of all the prosimetra. The research will embrace and develop actual disciplinary trends, which transcend the literary framework and consider the many historical, cultural, commercial and gender-related aspects. It will deliver an analysis resolutely anchored in the study, the understanding and the valorisation of the European heritage. Therefore, the work undertaken will expand our understanding of the literary, linguistic, historical-cultural aspects of the 15th-16th centuries, of the humanist construction, the book market, the exchanges between different areas and between society and cultural production.The project also intends to reach a public interested in cultural history and humanities studies. The tradition of the Historia de Duobus Amantibus is particularly able to attract a wide audience, as it is an erotic novella whose mechanisms of distribution and adaptation resonate with several current issues. It is therefore an ideal medium for communicating about literary and cultural history. It will also serve as a communication tool to explain the methodology used to edit old texts and provide information about philology and about what is read when reading an ancient text.