The text we will focus on is the Historia Imperiale, a translation of an early fourteenth-century Latin text into northern Italian vernacular. 

The translator is Matteo Maria Boiardo (1441–1494). We have only one copy of the text: the presentation one, contained

in manuscript 424 of the Biblioteca Classense, Ravenna (Italy). The translation is dedicated to the Duke of Ferrara, 

Ercole I (1471–1505). Our recent research on this text shows that the translation was carried out between 1471 and 1474 (Rizzi 2003).

Evidence from the peritext

The peritext of the translation (preface by Boiardo) is a translation from Latin into vernacular: “ho deliberato tradure 

a la vulgar gente da lingua Latina” (f. 2r). The translator indicates unambiguously that the text is his translation of a text 

attributed to Riccobaldo of Ferrara (1245–1318): "Prologo ne / la traductione de Ri/cobaldo per Matheo Maria Boiardo" (f. 1r). 

Finally, the translated text appears to have been just unearthed: "questa anticha hystoria novellamente ritrovata" (f. 2r). 

It is possible, but not explicit from the peritext, that the work was commissioned by the Duke of Ferrara himself.

The peritext does not give us the title of the source text nor the target text. The first time Boiardo refers to the source as 

Historia Imperiale is in the title of book one: LIBRO PRIMO DE RICO/BALDO FERRAREXE / nel quale se descriveno ne la 

Historia Imperiale queli / principi” (f. 2v). This is puzzling, for none of the known works of Riccobaldo has this name. 

His three major works are Pomerium, Historie and Compendium Romanae Historiae, the latter being an abridged and 

revised version of the second (for a comprehensive discussion of Riccobaldo and his work, see Hankey 1996). 

The Historie should be considered his most important and substantial work,

since Riccobaldo himself refers to it in the Compendium as "alio volumine meo maiori" ("in the other major work of mine", 

see Hankey 1996: 62). Unfortunately, only portions of the Historie still remain. There are also four minor chronicles, 

which appear to be very close to at least one of three versions of the Pomerium known to us. Riccobaldo's works are 

somewhat related to each other. As with many medieval chroniclers, the medieval historian improved his chronicles 

by refining the use of sources and changing the narrative when a more reliable source would suggest so (Hankey 1996: 7). 

To sum up, the evidence from the peritext suggests that the Historia Imperiale is a translation from a Latin text attributed 

by Boiardo to Riccobaldo of Ferrara.

In order to follow our working definition of pseudotranslation, we shall not engage in textual analysis for the moment; 

we shall look instead at the evidence provided by epitexts.

Evidence from epitexts

Only one of the inventories of the library of Ercole I Este, to whom the Historia Imperiale was dedicated, mentions Boiardo's 

translation. The occurrence is in a list of books held in the private study of the Duke. The catalogue was probably compiled just before

1477 (Tissoni Benvenuti 2005: 244).1 Under the heading "LIBRI VULGARI" we find "Ricobaldo per Matheo Maria Boiardo". 

This shows that the translation was perceived as such and that the source text was attributed to Riccobaldo. Hence, the 

catalogue in question confirms that Boiardo’s dedicatee did indeed consider the text a translation. Further, a cursory 

investigation into the archives of the Este dynasty reveals that the Dukes of Ferrara were in possession of at least two 

Latin works by Riccobaldo before Boiardo produced his translation: a "Cronica Ricobaldi in Membranis" marked with the 

number 43, and a "Ricobaldus super Cronica diversorum rerum rex principum et Civitatum" numbered 136. This suggests 

that the Duke (i.e. the dedicatee) or his librarian would have been familiar with the source text used by Boiardo.

More epitexts confirm that the Historia Imperiale is indeed a translation. In a miscellaneous manuscript, Ludovico 

Sandeo (1446–1482) describes how Riccobaldo's work had recently been translated into plain vernacular ("materna lingua 

perquam dilucide nuper traductum") by Boiardo (see Rizzi 2003:143). Later copies of sections of the Historia Imperiale do 

not dispute the validity of the text as a translation. The Ferrarese historian Gaspare Sardi (early sixteenth century) copied 

a relevant section of book four of the translation. The copy is prefaced by the following: “Copia del L.° 4° della hystoria 

Imperiale extratta da Ricobaldo Ferrarese… scritta per me Gasp. Sardi 1546”.

Again, this proves that the Historia Imperiale was indeed considered to be a reliable translation from Riccobaldo's work. 

More copies of the texts reiterate that the Historia Imperiale was accepted as a translation.3 The evidence from the epitexts 

is overwhelming. There is no indication that the translation should be considered a non-translation or a pseudotranslation. 

Both epitexts and paratexts force us to conclude that the Historia Imperiale is a translation from Riccobaldo.

However, since Muratori published the last two books of the Historia Imperiale in 1723, scholars have argued that this is 

not the case (cf. Reichenbach 1929; Ponte 1972; Zanella 1982: Soffientini 1998). The translation has been considered a

 "patch-work" (Soffientini 1998: 479), a fable (Muratori 1723: 282) or in the best cases, a conflation of different sources 

(Reichenbach 1929: 189n and Zanella 1980: 5). More recently, Tristano hastily accepts that the Historia Imperiale is a free 

translation of the fourth book of the Pomerium (following Zanella) and concludes, "Boiardo uses pieces of Riccobaldo's 

history as a basis for producing a finished, historical narrative" (2005: 141). Tristano then proceeds to compare the Historia 

Imperiale (in its manuscript form) to the eighteenth-century edition of Riccobaldo's Pomerium (Muratori 1723b) to show 

that the translation is in many instances a pseudotranslation: many passages are either inspired by other sources or written 

ex novo. Despite admitting that the culture informing the Historia Imperiale was "in translation", Tristano seems to be much 

more interested in Boiardo's skills as a historian rather than translator. Such a reading of the text dismisses the fact that 

paratexts confirm that the translation is exactly what it says. The T might be a PT after it has been unveiled, but it does

 not follow that it was not reputed to be T by the culture for which it was destined. To paraphrase Tristano (2005: 129), it is not 

Boiardo's abilities as historian that have been underestimated, but his skills as a translator. The issue at stake here is to better 

contextualize a translation practice before the product is assessed.

责任编辑：admin