Lachmann traduttore di Petrarca

Su una lettura giovanile dei Rerum vulgarium fragmenta (a cura di Alessia Serluca, traduzione di Giorgia Voi)

Abstract

In 1880, the German magazine "Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur" published posthumously an unpublished essay by the young Karl Lachmann, edited by Gustav Hinrichs, dating back to 1819 (III. Lachmann über Petrarca, pp. 361-373). In the essay, the philologist provides translations—and, in five cases, brief comments—on twelve sonnets from the Canzoniere, two of which ("La gola, e ’l sonno, e l’oziose piume" and "Mai non vedranno le mie luci asciutte") serve as responses to "Io vorrei pur drizzar queste mie piume," attributed to Giustina Levi-Perotti, and "Se le parti del corpo mio distrutte," by Giacomo Colonna.

Aside from demonstrating Lachmann's particular care as a translator of Petrarch, the essay is also of great interest due to the presence of a sonnet of dubious authenticity, the text "Io vorrei pur drizzar queste mie piume," which the scholar defines as a sixteenth-century forgery, basing his analysis on metrical arguments. Lachmann also provides his own German translation of this false sonnet, thereby contributing to its circulation in Germany.

Although there exists a review by Emilio Teza ("Rivista Critica della letteratura italiana," I, 1884), the essay has been entirely forgotten. Its reissue in Italian would thus represent a true recovery of a youthful work, in which it is not surprising to find the seeds of the analytical and textual study skills that would characterize Lachmann's subsequent philological work.