La première traduction italienne des “Essais” de Montaigne (Ferrare, 1590). Note sur le «Discorso se il forastiero…».

The anonymous «Discorso se il forastiero…», published in the Discorsi morali, politici e militari (Ferrara, 1590), has been considered by critics as a text arbitrarily inserted among a selection of chapters from Montaigne’s Essais translated by Girolamo Naselli. In fact, this text, adapted from an apology for the Italians in the entourage of Henri III written on the occasion of the États Généraux (1577), was itself translated from French. As such, it properly completes the collection as a whole, helping to shed light on the translator’s choice and his conception of the Essais as a courtly book, illustrating the «cose di Francia» and the «cose grandi» to be used by the Italian élites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]