The relationship between travel and translation might seem obvious at first, but to study it in earnest is to discover that it is at once intriguing and elusive. Of course, travelers translate in order to make sense of their new surroundings; sometimes they must translate in order to put food on the table. The relationship between these two human compulsions, however, goes much deeper than this. What gets translated, it seems, is not merely the written or the spoken word, but the very identity of the traveler. These seventeen essays--which treat not only such well-known figures as Martin Luther, Erasmus, Shakespeare, and Milton, but also such lesser known figures as Konrad Grünemberg, Leo Africanus, and Garcilaso de la Vega--constitute the first survey of how this relationship manifests itself in the early modern period. As such, it should be of interest both to scholars who are studying theories of translation and to those who are studying "hodoeporics", or travel and the literature of travel.

This first full-length study in English on seventeenth-century Italian travel writing enriches our understanding of an unusually fertile period for Italian contributions to the genre. The intrinsic qualities of this literature can now be grasped in terms of the larger question of cultural identity in Italy. For Hester, the specifically literary characteristics of Italian travel writing”including its humanism or Petrarchism”highlight the classic eminence throughout Europe of a prestigious tradition inherent to Italy, one compensating then for the peninsula's lack of a national political identity. Appeals to the cultural authority of that tradition represent a means of addressing and overcoming anxieties about the Italian subject's diasporic status during the "Golden Age" of European global colonial expansion. Self-funded travelers Francesco Carletti, Pietro Della Valle, Francesco Belli, Francesco Negri, and Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri are the major authors studied who journeyed through Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and America.

This collective volume has been dedicated to two distinguished scholars of Neo-Latin Studies on the occasion of their retirement after a long and fruitful academic career, one at the Université catholique Louvain-la-Neuve, the other at the internationally renowned Seminarium Philologiae Humanisticae of Leuven University. Both the rich variety of subjects dealt with and the international diversity of the scholars authoring contributions reflect the wide interests of the celebrated Neo-Latinists, their international position, and the actual status of the discipline itself. Ranging from the Trecento to the 21st century, and embracing Latin writings from Italy, Hungary, The Netherlands, Germany, France, Poland, the New World, Spain, Scotland, Denmark and China, this volume is as rich and multifaceted as it is voluminous, for it not only offers studies on well-known figures such as Petrarch, Lorenzo Valla, Erasmus, Vives, Thomas More, Eobanus Hessus, Lipsius, Tycho Brahe, Jean de la Fontaine and Jacob Cats, but it also includes new contributions on Renaissance commentaries and editions of classical authors such as Homer, Seneca and Horace; on Neo-Latin novels, epistolography and Renaissance rhetoric; on Latin translations from the vernacular and invectives against Napoleon; on the teaching of Latin in the 19th century; and on the didactics of Neo-Latin nowadays.

This is the first monograph in English to address Orientalism in the writings of Italian travellers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and to do against a backdrop of comparative reference to works in English and French that preceded or were contemporary to them.

The Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studies is a two-volume reference book containing some 600 entries on all aspects of Italian literary culture. It includes analytical essays on authors and works, from the most important figures of Italian literature to little known authors and works that are influential to the field. The Encyclopedia is distinguished by substantial articles on critics, themes, genres, schools, historical surveys, and other topics related to the overall subject of Italian literary studies. The Encyclopedia also includes writers and subjects of contemporary interest, such as those relating to journalism, film, media, children's literature, food and vernacular literatures. Entries consist of an essay on the topic and a bibliographic portion listing works for further reading, and, in the case of entries on individuals, a brief biographical paragraph and list of works by the person. It will be useful to people without specialized knowledge of Italian literature as well as to scholars.