Portuguese literature in Italy at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century: an overview of the authors, translators and publishers involved

Abstract

In Italy, between the last decades of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, there was a considerable increase in interest in Portuguese literature: until the mid-19th century it was possible to read in Italian only a few historiographical works, two volumes of Antonio Vieira’s sermons, different versions of Camões’ Lusiades and Frei Luís de Sousa by Almeida Garrett (1852) – no more than fifteen titles in total. While in the period examined, from 1880 to 1930, about fifty works in translation were published. What has changed compared to the previous period? How much of that intellectual ferment of the Portuguese end of the century affected the birth of this interest in a literature considered, then as now, peripheral? To try to answer these questions, the role of translators and mediators, as well as the role of the publishers involved, large and small, and the dynamics of Italian publishers of the period in question, will be analysed. The objective is to try to understand the reasons for this publishing boom in this period, which was so culturally alive.

Keywords
portuguese literature in Italy; end-of-century literature; translators; italian publishers