Books by Alessandra Petrina
Il volume è una storia della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia dell'Università di Padova negli ultim... more Il volume è una storia della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia dell'Università di Padova negli ultimi duecento anni
Memoria di Shakespeare, 2019
This article discusses the meaning of the term Renaissance and its application to the cultural an... more This article discusses the meaning of the term Renaissance and its application to the cultural and literary sphere, discussing its early definitions on the part of scholars such as Jules Michelet, Jacob Burckhardt, and Johan Huizinga, as well as its etymology, in the context of the investigation of other keywords such as humanism and Middle Ages. It then focuses on the latter term, Middle Ages, by considering its first creation, and its use on the part of a proto-humanist such as Petrarch. In the discussion of the reception of these terms on the part of scholarship, it also proposes a new meaning for these terms.
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Papers by Alessandra Petrina
Cahiers Élisabéthains, 2023
This introductory section to a special issue of Cahiers Élisabéthains offers an overview of allus... more This introductory section to a special issue of Cahiers Élisabéthains offers an overview of allusions and references to Padua in Middle English writing, dwelling on Geoffrey Chaucer's allusion to Padua and Petrarch in the Clerk's Prologue as well as on Herod the Great's reference in the Towneley medieval play, highlighting how early on in English imagination Padua became connoted as a faraway, exotic place, as well as a seat of learning. The introduction then continues by presenting the contributions that follow to this special issue on Shakespeare and Padua, and setting them in dialogue with one another.
This is a list of my publications up to November 2023
Neophilologus, 1999
This article is an analysis of Abraham Fraunce's Arcadian Rhetorike, published in 1588 and ow... more This article is an analysis of Abraham Fraunce's Arcadian Rhetorike, published in 1588 and owing much to Ramus's rhetoric treatises. After an introductory section on the diffusion of Ramism in England and particularly in the Cambridge intellectual circle of which Sir Philip Sidney was one of the leaders, special consideration is given to the composition of the Arcadian Rhetorike as
Call for Papers for the 13th Medieval Translator Conference, to be held in Lisbon, 17-21 June 2024
Traduire. Tradurre. Translating. Vie de mots et voies des oeuvres dans l’Europe de la Renaissance, 2022
First published in 1599, and thereafter subjected to very careful revision on the part of its aut... more First published in 1599, and thereafter subjected to very careful revision on the part of its author, the Basilikon Doron presents a serious puzzle to editors and scholars. James VI of Scotland attempted with this treatise the impossible task of exerting total control on his published work, and this, coupled with the extraordinary political circumstances surrounding the appearance of this text, triggered its adventurous textual history. Of its many variants and translations, the first is the work of its author, who transposes the original, heavily Scottish text into a wholly Anglicized version, ready for a publication that would be associated with the new King of England. The text immediately became the subject of discussion in Europe, and unauthorised new editions and translations began to appear. This contribution analyses two translations deeply embedded in James’s preoccupation with the circulation of his political work: one is the King’s own transposition of the text from Middle Scots to English; the other is the Italian translation undertaken by John Florio, and surviving in manuscript. Obsessively faithful to the source, Florio’s translation does not look outward, at a possible Italian readership of the treatise; it rather attempts to reflect further glory on James’s text, closely imitating all its characteristics and explicitly proposing itself as a homage to a king that subsumes in himself all political thought: the centre towards which all advice writing converges, and from which it will spring again in different idioms.
MS Additional 60577 is a collection of didactic and scientific late-medieval literature, includin... more MS Additional 60577 is a collection of didactic and scientific late-medieval literature, including love lyrics, medical recipes, a lapidarium , astrological notes, and pedagogic poems. The compilation of this volume began around 1478, but the last texts were added as late as the mid-sixteenth century. The earliest sections constitute a self-standing group, associated with William Waynflete, Headmaster of Winchester College from 1429 to 1441-2. In the present paper I analyse a collection of vulgaria in the fifteenth-century section of the manuscript. Vulgaria are collections of sentences in Latin and English intended for translation exercises, often connected to performance for didactic purposes. These vulgaria appear to present a subtler didactic agenda than the usual collections of this kind: inviting the pupils to imitate the best Latin style, they also introduce the need to find a good English style, and to use translation as a way of improving and enriching the target language.
Elizabeth I in Writing, 2018
Elizabeth I’s translation of Cicero’s Pro Marcello can be situated at the meeting point between h... more Elizabeth I’s translation of Cicero’s Pro Marcello can be situated at the meeting point between her translation activity as part of her cursus studiorum and her meditation on Latin classics in the years of her maturity. Cicero was among the established models of Latin writing, and the recent trend of educational humanism that had played such a major role in English culture had given a new impulse to the study of his works: Roger Ascham listed him with Varro, Sallust and Caesar as the peak of Latin writing in prose. Here it is posited that this translation served as both a linguistic exercise and a meditation on politics, allowing the translator to reflect on a number of keywords that were central to her political practice.
This article discusses the meaning of the term Renaissance and its application to the cultural an... more This article discusses the meaning of the term Renaissance and its application to the cultural and literary sphere, discussing its early definitions on the part of scholars such as Jules Michelet, Jacob Burckhardt, and Johan Huizinga, as well as its etymology, in the context of the investigation of other keywords such as Humanism and Middle Ages . It then focuses on the latter term, Middle Ages , by considering its first creation, and its use on the part of a proto-humanist such as Petrarch. In the discussion of the reception of these terms on the part of scholarship, it also proposes a new meaning for these terms. Keywords : Renaissance, Early Modern, Middle Ages, Humanism, Petrarch
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Books by Alessandra Petrina
Papers by Alessandra Petrina
Editors: Alessandra F. Petrina & Ian M. Johnson
In the late medieval and early modern periods, native tongues and traditions, including those of Scotland, cohabited and competed with latinitas in fascinating and inventive ways. Scottish latinity had its distinctive stamp, most intriguingly so in its effects upon the literary vernacular and on themes of national identity. The present book shows how, when viewed through the prism of its latinity, Scottish textuality was distinctive and fecund. The flowering of Scottish writing owed itself to a subtle combination of literary praxis, the ideal of eloquentia, and ideological deftness. This combination enabled writers to service a burgeoning national literary tradition, and to transcend the subject matter of nation through fruitful and energetic treatment of issues of universal appeal.
Table of Contents
Ian Johnson and Alessandra Petrina, Introduction: Scottish Latinitas
Part I: Re-writing the Classical and Medieval Legacy
Steven J. Reid, Classical Reception and Erotic Latin Poetry in Sixteenth-century Scotland: The Case of Thomas Maitland (ca. 1548-1572)
Kate Ash-Irisarri, Mnemonic Frameworks in The Buke of the Chess
Part II: Writing the Scottish Nation
Tommaso Leso, Defining Scottish Identity in the Early Middle Ages: Bede and the Picts
John Leeds, Universals, Particulars, and Political Discourse in John Mair’s Historia Maioris Britanniae
Elizabeth Hanna, A ‘Scottish Monmouth’? Hector Boece’s Arthurian Revisions
John Cramsie, Topography, Ethnography, and the Catholic Scots in the Religious Culture Wars: From Hector Boece’s Scotorum Historia to John Lesley’s Historie of Scotland
Alessandra Petrina, A View from Afar: Petruccio Ubaldini’s Descrittione del Regno di Scotia
Part III: The Vagaries of Languages and Texts
Ian Johnson, Reading Robert Henryson’s Orpheus and Eurydice: Sentence and Sensibility
Nick Havely, Seget’s Comedy: A Scots Scholar, Galileo, and a Dante Manuscript
Jeremy Smith, The Inventions of Sir Thomas Urquhart
Nicola Royan, Afterword