“Non solum traductor verborum, sed sententiarum interpres”: The Prefaces of Poggio’s Translations

In the light of Poggio’s literary production, his activity as translator from Greek to Latin covered only a short period, from 1443 to around 1450. These years saw the translation of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, two dialogues of Lucian (the Ass and the Cynic), and the first five books of Diodorus Siculus’ Bibliotheca historica. Moreover, in MS Pal. lat. 1552, Lilius Tifernas’ translation of Lucian’s True History is erroneously ascribed to Poggio. The aim of this paper is to examine Poggio’s translation theory through an analysis of the prefatory letters that accompany his translations. It will be shown that his ambitions and methods as a translator are closely connected to those advocated and practised by his friend and role model Leonardo Bruni. In Poggio’s own words, he expressed “not each little sentence, but followed the narrative”, and acted “not merely as a switcher of words, but as a conveyor of meaning."status: accepte