Paper short abstract:

Different concepts of translation present in scientific transfer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Translation as a label applied to different kinds of knowledge appropriation. Auctoritas in the transmission of knowledge through translation, and levels of agency in the translational task.

Paper long abstract:

The aim of this paper is to shed some light on the different concepts of translation present in medieval and Renaissance scientific transfer and on the most significant changes translation was submitted to. Along time, translation is a label that has been applied to different kinds of knowledge appropriation, reflected on manifold textual practices.The paper will focus on two main topics: (1) the question of auctoritas and how it has been ensured in the transmission of knowledge through translation, and (2) the multilayered levels of agency in translations of scientific texts and the status and role of each of the agents involved in the translational task in medieval times. Questions on authorship of scientific texts (explicit or anonymous, single or collective), patronage (with or without direct intervention in the translation process), authority and canon of translated scientific texts will be illustrated, in order to account for the mobility which in medieval times affected translators, source texts and translated texts alike. A brief characterization of several translation schools in the Middle Ages - Baghdad, Toledo and Sicily - will show the prevailing methodologies adopted at the time and their consequences in terms of scientific appropriation and diffusion. Furthermore, a brief analysis of the paradigmatic changes of the translational activity which were launched by the time of the Renaissance, both at the theoretical and at the practical level, will be undertaken.