Dal “plagio orizzontale” alla “traduzione verticale”: traiettorie linguistiche e intellettuali di Alessandro Piccolomini volgarizzatore di Aristotele

This paper reconstructs Alessandro Piccolomini’s intellectual career as an Aristotelian verna- cular philosopher, from the formulation of his programme of vernacularization (1541) to its realisation, which culminated in the translation of Aristotle’s Poetics (1572) with commentary (1575). It focuses especially on the initial phase of this trajectory, which begins with the Institutione di tutta la vita de l’homo nato nobile e in città libera (1542). The paper shows that in the Institutione Piccolomini first employs some linguistic features to which he will have recourse in his later prose works. Moreover, it examines in detail Piccolomini’s borrowings from Speroni’s two dialogues D’amore and Della cura della famiglia. It analyses them in the framework of the Renaissance theory of imitation, thus seeking to cast light on the dynamics behind the borrowings which characterize much Renaissance literature and translation of philosophical texts.