L’atelier parigino di Denis Janot e le traduzioni dall’italiano: spigolature fra strategie editoriali e promozione della lingua vernacolare

Abstract

During the first half of 15th century, French printers and booksellers played a paramount role in the cultural project conceived by the royal milieu, aptly defined as ‘italianisme royal’. By publishing translations from Italian works considered as models of Italian prose and verse, they contributed to the ‘deffence et illustration’ of French language, because translations demonstrated that the two languages had the same prestige and status. Denis Janot, active between 1529 and 1544, was a key figure in this process, as demonstrated by the title of ‘imprimeur du roi’ bestowed on by the king in 1543. For this reason, the twenty-one translations from Italian published by Janot between 1534 and 1544 are very significant for understanding which kind of texts and literary genres could better respond to the king’s cultural project and to the editorial strategies of the printer as a businessman. They also shed light on the tastes of the audience these texts were intended for, and this can be useful to determine, by contrast, the function and destination of such works, like Dante’s translations, that were circulated as manuscripts in the same years.