oa De lange weg van De Leeuw naar Italië

This contribution includes an analysis of the only Italian translation of Hendrik Conscience’s De Leeuw van Vlaanderen. This novel was translated in the 1842 ‘Catholic’ version (and not in the original, less ‘pious’ version from 1838) and appeared in Italian only more than a century later, in 1945. The Italian translation was published by Società San Paolo, the Catholic publisher par excellence in Italy, and was included in a series for families and therefore for what should be considered a general readership. The translator was Maria Rita Roberti di Castelvero, who in the 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s regularly worked for Società San Paolo, always by translating from French. For this reason, the Italian translation is in this contribution compared not only to the Dutch original but also to Léon Wocquier’s French translation, appeared for the first time in 1862. The analysis of a selection of passages from the book clearly shows that Roberti di Castelvero had no access to the Dutch original or was not able to read it. She therefore translated from French. Most of the time, she followed Wocquier’s translation choices a-critically even though it still remains possible to ‘hear her voice’ in a certain number of passages.