Specialized Translators at work during the Risorgimento: the Biblioteca dell'Economista and its English-Italian Translations

Abstract

The paper deals with the Biblioteca dell’Economista (BE) as an early corpus of specialized translation. It considers the different text-types included in this series, and the influence of English on the early evolution of the Italian language of economics. The paper focuses on the assumptions which led to the creation of the BE and the role it played in the spread of English economic texts in Italy under the leadership of the well-known Sicilian economist Francesco Ferrara (1851-1868). An overview of the translation work shows how this important venture could be exploited for linguistic, translational and contrastive research. The analysis of some extracts from the translation of Ricardo’s The High Price of Bullions, points out the translation strategies used by Ferrara and his assistants to introduce the new theories among Italian readers. A bibliographical list of all the BE translations from English into Italian is appended to the paper.