- Arabic Literature, Islamic Philosophy, Philosophy, Translation Studies, History of Oriental studies, Talal Asad, and 15 moreLate Ottoman Period, Translation theory, Antiquarianism, History of Archaeology, History of Ottoman Art and Architecture, Material Culture Studies, Ottoman Studies, Italian Renaissance Art, Ottoman History, Arabic Language and Linguistics, Religious Conversion, Dante Studies, Interreligious Polemics, Machiavelli, and Renaissance Studiesedit
- I am an associate professor of Arabic language and literature at the Università di Torino, where I have worked since ... moreI am an associate professor of Arabic language and literature at the Università di Torino, where I have worked since 2012. My research concerns Arabic literature and Comparative literature, translations and Mediterranean studies In particular, I have written on the translation and reception of Machiavelli’s Il principe and Dante’s Commedia into Arabic, the diffusion of ideas of ‘resurgence’ and of circular time in the nineteenth-century Mediterranean, the reception of Ibn Khaldūn in Italy, the translation of Arabic literature into Italian with a particular focus on the Thousand and One Nights, Italian Orientalism in the nineteenth century, and prison memoirs and their political importance across the Mediterranean.
From 2017 to 2020 I was the PI of the project Seas of change: rethinking entangled renaissances across and beyond the Mediterranean (1780-1914), funded by the Compagnia San Paolo and by the Università di Torino. The project brought together a number of Italian and international scholars to collaborate on the topic of the translation of novels, and political and philosophical treatises across the languages of the Ottoman Empire (in particular Arabic, Turkish, Greek, Albanian) and Southern Europe, with a particular focus on Italy.edit
The description of remnants (āthār) and ruins (aṭlāl) is a recurrent and distinct motif in the tradition of adab, one that evokes a variety of themes such as contemplation of loss, melancholy, and the flow of time. This article focuses on... more
The description of remnants (āthār) and ruins (aṭlāl) is a recurrent and distinct motif in the tradition of adab, one that evokes a variety of themes such as contemplation of loss, melancholy, and the flow of time. This article focuses on fictional and non-fictional representations of ruins in texts circulating between the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century in the eastern and southern Mediterranean. It focuses mainly on sources in Arabic, but it also puts these sources into conversation with coeval works in French and Italian. The article argues that the theme of decline, typically attached to the depiction of ruins, transformed into the theme of cultural revival, at a time when the undetermined and universal ruin was appropriated and defined as national heritage. Comparing visions of antiquities, which were part of a landscape of mutual infuences and translations, reveals how a shared régime d’historicité took shape during the long nineteenth century from the encounter of eclectic traditions of conceiving the fow of time and its traces
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L’articolo analizza il ruolo che la Divina Commedia ha avuto nella nascita del comparativismo nel mondo arabo. Prendendo in esame il dibattito critico e le opere letterarie in lingua araba, sviluppatesi soprattutto a seguito della... more
L’articolo analizza il ruolo che la Divina Commedia ha avuto nella nascita del comparativismo nel mondo arabo. Prendendo in esame il dibattito critico e le opere letterarie in lingua araba, sviluppatesi soprattutto a seguito della ricezione dei lavori di Asín Palacios e di Enrico Cerulli, l’articolo dimostra l’importanza dell’opera italiana nello sviluppo del comparativismo letterario e nell’emergere di un’idea di Mediterraneo medievale come spazio di continuità religiosa e filosofica. A tale proposito viene esaminato il pensiero del filosofo egiziano ʿAbd al-Raḥman al-Badawī e la critica araba che ha sottolineato l’intima connessione fra Ibn ʿArabī, la mistica sufi e la visione teologica di Dante.
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This article analyses the 1871 translation of The Count of Monte Cristo printed by the Egyptian private press Wādī al-Nīl and undertaken by the translator Bishāra Shadīd. Unlike the previous Arabic translation of the novel (Beirut 1866),... more
This article analyses the 1871 translation of The Count of Monte Cristo printed by the Egyptian private press Wādī al-Nīl and undertaken by the translator Bishāra Shadīd. Unlike the previous Arabic translation of the novel (Beirut 1866), which aimed to recreate the original novel in its full length, structure and even word order, Bishāra Shadīd radically reshaped Dumas' novel into an abridged version that wears the clothes of an Arabic maqāma, which is a text in rhyming prose. This article argues that the success of the 1871 Arabic translation by Bishāra Shadīd was due to several factors: the specific rhymed prose form that echoed the oral narratives of Arabic epics; the adventurous character of the story; and the values of revenge and long-awaited justice that underlay it. These values appealed to readers across the Eastern Mediterranean and were embodied in the phantasmagoric protagonist of Dumas' novel, Edmond Dantès, and in Napoleon, the overarching political hero in Dumas' works. Through an analysis of the translation strategies adopted by Bishāra Shadīd, the article also suggests that the work can be regarded as an example of 'popular literature' (letteratura popolare) as defined by Antonio Gramsci. It is, above all, a translation that conveys the political and social aspirations of a social class through a process of "domestication", through which a nineteenth-century European novel finalized for individual reading became a rhymed prose text, possibly used for collective reading and listening.
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This article focuses on the image of the past in two translations produced in the contexts of the Arab Nahḍah and of the Italian Risorgimento. The first translation is the Italian rendering of ʿOmar ibn al-Fāriḍ's mystical poems,... more
This article focuses on the image of the past in two translations produced in the contexts of the Arab Nahḍah and of the Italian Risorgimento. The first translation is the Italian rendering of ʿOmar ibn al-Fāriḍ's mystical poems, published in 1872 by Pietro Valerga (1821-1903). The second is the Arabic translation of the Iliad, published in 1902 by Sulaymān al-Bustānī (1856-1925). Both translators refer to the past as a translation strategy: Pietro Valerga reads Ibn al-Fāriḍ through the verses of Petrarch and, in his work's introduction, emphasizes the transmission of medieval Arab poetry to Italy; Sulaymān al-Bustānī reconstructs the world of the Iliad through Arabic poetic tradition and compares Greece to the ǧāhiliyyah (pre-Islamic age). The article sheds light on the potential of translation as a space of re-imagination of the past and invites us to read the works as two distinct, yet akin, attempts to express original interpretations of Italian and Arabic literary histories based on syncretism and cross-cultural translatability.
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This article examines the possibility to draw a comparison between intellectual features of the Italian peninsula and of the Arab provinces of the Eastern Mediterranean during nineteenth century movements of "awakening" (Risorgimento and... more
This article examines the possibility to draw a comparison between intellectual features of the Italian peninsula and of the Arab provinces of the Eastern Mediterranean during nineteenth century movements of "awakening" (Risorgimento and Nahḍah). By putting aside issues of national historiography, this study attempts to investigate the cultural debates in the area with a comparative approach and a focus on the concept of cultural transfer. It discusses in particular the widespread circulation of translations and the rise of debates about language, to underscore the need to interrogate the concept of modernity from a multidisciplinary and comparative perspective.
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This chapter analyses the works in Catalan and Arabic of the Catalan friar and Muslim convert Anselm Turmda / ‘Abdallāh al-Turjumān (1355–1423) in order to discuss the problematic reception of the idea of mobility and conversion in the... more
This chapter analyses the works in Catalan and Arabic of the Catalan friar and Muslim convert Anselm Turmda / ‘Abdallāh al-Turjumān (1355–1423) in order to discuss the problematic reception of the idea of mobility and conversion in the early modern Mediterranean.
I shall argue that before the era of the confessionalisation of empires, the porous space of the Mediterranean offered to travelling scholars and translators like Anselm Turmeda/‘Abdallāh al-Turjumān opportunities for the transgression of borders and the multiplication of identities. This multiplication
was facilitated by their familiarity with many languages and by the act of translation as variously understood. The story of Anselm Turmeda or ‘Abdallāh al-Turjumān takes place in the fluid space of the travelling of texts and ideas, notably in the space of the circulation of languages and translations of the early modern Mediterranean.14 The tendency of modern and contemporary scholars to look at only one side of this intrinsically “double” story, accusations of a lack of integrity that were made against him and a mistrust in the sincerity of his conversion will be discussed in light of an alternative paradigm which sees conversion as an act of self-translation and as a multiplication of the languages of the self.
I shall argue that before the era of the confessionalisation of empires, the porous space of the Mediterranean offered to travelling scholars and translators like Anselm Turmeda/‘Abdallāh al-Turjumān opportunities for the transgression of borders and the multiplication of identities. This multiplication
was facilitated by their familiarity with many languages and by the act of translation as variously understood. The story of Anselm Turmeda or ‘Abdallāh al-Turjumān takes place in the fluid space of the travelling of texts and ideas, notably in the space of the circulation of languages and translations of the early modern Mediterranean.14 The tendency of modern and contemporary scholars to look at only one side of this intrinsically “double” story, accusations of a lack of integrity that were made against him and a mistrust in the sincerity of his conversion will be discussed in light of an alternative paradigm which sees conversion as an act of self-translation and as a multiplication of the languages of the self.
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This article examines the ideological implications of the literary debate about the Arab-Islamic influences on Dante’s Divina Commedia and the emergence of the idea of Mediterranean literature. It traces the question of “influences” back... more
This article examines the ideological implications of the literary debate about the
Arab-Islamic influences on Dante’s Divina Commedia and the emergence of the idea of
Mediterranean literature. It traces the question of “influences” back to 16th century
Italy, casts the modern controversy about Dante and the Arabs in the broader context
of borders, and questions the definition of European and Romance literatures in relation
to Arabic literature. It then focuses on the 20th century debate about the Arabic
roots of the Commedia in Italy, Spain and the Arab world in order to account for the
reception and translation of the Commedia into Arabic.
Arab-Islamic influences on Dante’s Divina Commedia and the emergence of the idea of
Mediterranean literature. It traces the question of “influences” back to 16th century
Italy, casts the modern controversy about Dante and the Arabs in the broader context
of borders, and questions the definition of European and Romance literatures in relation
to Arabic literature. It then focuses on the 20th century debate about the Arabic
roots of the Commedia in Italy, Spain and the Arab world in order to account for the
reception and translation of the Commedia into Arabic.
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Nella storia delle traduzioni italiane delle Mille e una Notte in Italia se ne distingue una che avrebbe colpito l’attenzione di Jorge Luis Borges, ovvero quella apparsa nel 1964 ad opera dallo scrittore Alessandro Spina. La traduzione,... more
Nella storia delle traduzioni italiane delle Mille e una Notte in Italia se ne distingue una che avrebbe colpito l’attenzione di Jorge Luis Borges, ovvero quella apparsa nel 1964 ad opera dallo scrittore Alessandro Spina. La traduzione, edita in tiratura limitata dall’editore milanese Vanni Scheiwiller è, in verità, la versione italiana di un solo racconto, conosciuto in arabo come Ḥikāyat madīnat al-nuḥās e in italiano con quello di Storia della Città di Rame. Si tratta di una ri-creazione suggestiva che, oltre ad avere il pregio di essere stata condotta a partire da un originale arabo e realizzata dimostrando una certa attinenza allo stesso, ha il merito, raro, di coinvolgere il lettore in un gioco di riflessi letterari. Il destino di questa traduzione somiglia in parte a quello del suo autore, Alessandro Spina, romanziere, saggista e traduttore italiano di origine siriana che, scrivendo dalla Libia, ha voluto e saputo fare del mondo arabo l’epicentro e il contraltare del suo pensiero narrativo e l’oggetto principale delle sue opere. Le pagine qui dedicate a questa piccola e preziosa traduzione sono offerte come riflessioni su un tentativo, pienamente riuscito, di creare un filo fra la cultura italiana e la cultura araba, una trama tessuta attraverso un accurato lavoro linguistico e concettuale. Il risultato è un’opera in cui, senza necessariamente porre in evidenza l’alterità del testo, si utilizza l’atto del tradurre come possibilità per un discorso culturale più ampio e aperto a un ricco sostrato di interscambi letterari.
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Written in 1971 and published in 1974, al-Karnak is one of Naǧīb Maḥfūẓ's most explicitly political novels. The story is set in the social and collegial space of a Cairene coffee shop, illustrating the collective tragedy of mass arrests... more
Written in 1971 and published in 1974, al-Karnak is one of Naǧīb Maḥfūẓ's most explicitly political novels. The story is set in the social and collegial space of a Cairene coffee shop, illustrating the collective tragedy of mass arrests that took place during the 1960s. Published a few years after the transfer of power to president Anwar al-Sādāt, the work has been seen as a political critique against the Ğamāl ʿAbd al-Nāṣir era. This short novel does, however, encompass a broader meaning going far beyond the limits of its time and space determinations, as it raises a number of questions on ethical and political issues, such as the effects produced by the collapse of authority on civil society and the relationship between the individual and the notions of justice and institutional power. The purpose of this essay is to explain that al-Karnak is a hybrid work merging two genres, i.e. narrative prose and theatre, in which Naǧīb Maḥfūẓ uses characterization and dialogue so as to shatter the time-space dimension in order to create a parable that invites the reader to reexamine the set of rules governing authority and society.
This volume provides the first survey of the unexplored connections between Machiavelli’s work and the Islamic world, running from the Arabic roots of The Prince to its first translations into Ottoman Turkish and Arabic. It investigates... more
This volume provides the first survey of the unexplored connections between Machiavelli’s work and the Islamic world, running from the Arabic roots of The Prince to its first translations into Ottoman Turkish and Arabic. It investigates comparative descriptions of non-European peoples, Renaissance representations of Muḥammad and the Ottoman military discipline, a Jesuit treatise in Persian for a Mughal emperor, peculiar readers from Brazil to India, and the parallel lives of Machiavelli and the bureaucrat Celālzāde Muṣṭafá. Ten distinguished scholars analyse the backgrounds, circulation and reception of Machiavelli’s writings, focusing on many aspects of the mutual exchange of political theories and grammars between East and West. A significant contribution to attempts by current scholarship to challenge any rigid separation within Eurasia, this volume restores a sense of the global spreading of books, ideas and men in the past.
1 Introduction: Re-Orienting Machiavelli
Lucio Biasiori and Giuseppe Marcocci
Part One – From Readings to Readers
2 Islamic Roots of Machiavelli’s Thought? The Prince and the Kitāb sirr al-asrār from Baghdad to Florence and Back
Lucio Biasiori
3 Turkophilia and Religion: Machiavelli, Giovio and the Sixteenth-Century Debate about War
Vincenzo Lavenia
4 Machiavelli and the Antiquarians
Carlo Ginzburg
Part Two – Religion and Empires
5 Roman Prophet or Muslim Caesar: Muḥammad the Lawgiver before and after Machiavelli
Pier Mattia Tommasino
6 Mediterranean Exemplars: Jesuit Political Lessons for a Mughal Emperor
Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam
7 Machiavelli and the Islamic Empire: Tropical Readers from Brazil to India (Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries)
Giuseppe Marcocci
Part Three – Beyond Orientalism
8 A Tale of Two Chancellors: Machiavelli, Celālzāde Muṣṭafā, and Connected Political Cultures in the Cinquecento/the Hijri Tenth Century
Kaya Şahin
9 Machiavelli Enters the Sublime Porte: The Introduction of The Prince to the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman World
Nergiz Yılmaz Aydoğdu
10 Translating Machiavelli in Egypt: The Prince and the Shaping of a New Political Vocabulary in the Nineteenth-Century Arab Mediterranean
Elisabetta Benigni
1 Introduction: Re-Orienting Machiavelli
Lucio Biasiori and Giuseppe Marcocci
Part One – From Readings to Readers
2 Islamic Roots of Machiavelli’s Thought? The Prince and the Kitāb sirr al-asrār from Baghdad to Florence and Back
Lucio Biasiori
3 Turkophilia and Religion: Machiavelli, Giovio and the Sixteenth-Century Debate about War
Vincenzo Lavenia
4 Machiavelli and the Antiquarians
Carlo Ginzburg
Part Two – Religion and Empires
5 Roman Prophet or Muslim Caesar: Muḥammad the Lawgiver before and after Machiavelli
Pier Mattia Tommasino
6 Mediterranean Exemplars: Jesuit Political Lessons for a Mughal Emperor
Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam
7 Machiavelli and the Islamic Empire: Tropical Readers from Brazil to India (Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries)
Giuseppe Marcocci
Part Three – Beyond Orientalism
8 A Tale of Two Chancellors: Machiavelli, Celālzāde Muṣṭafā, and Connected Political Cultures in the Cinquecento/the Hijri Tenth Century
Kaya Şahin
9 Machiavelli Enters the Sublime Porte: The Introduction of The Prince to the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman World
Nergiz Yılmaz Aydoğdu
10 Translating Machiavelli in Egypt: The Prince and the Shaping of a New Political Vocabulary in the Nineteenth-Century Arab Mediterranean
Elisabetta Benigni
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Confernce The Multiple Renaissances. Revolutions, Translations and the History of Ideas across the Eastern Mediterranean
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Review of Migrating Texts. Circulating Translations around the Ottoman Mediterranean Ed. By Marlyn Booth