Une traduction en roumain, réalisée vers la fin du 18e siècle, d’après Voltaire, «Essai sur les mœurs et sur l’esprit des nations» (1756)

In this contribution I present the results of the research concerning a Romanian manuscript, which is traditionally titled Pentru descoperirea a multor împărăţii şi locuri care s‑au descoperit şi s‑au aflat de portugali (= “For the discovery of many kingdoms and places that were discovered by the Portugueses”), kept at the Library of the Romanian Academy (Bucharest), no. 3533. This manuscript is a translation from French, carried out in the second half or the end of the 18th century, by an unidentified translator. In the most important works of Romanian philology, this text was considered, until recently, probably a translation from French, after an unidentified original. I recently managed to identify the original, French text, from which this old translation is made. It is about seven chapters from Voltaire’s important work, Essai sur les mœurs et sur l’esprit des nations, usually published in several volumes (between four and eight volumes). In this article, I present the results of the linguistic, textological and translational analysis, focusing on the comparison between the characteristic lexical elements of the mentioned translation and their counterparts in the original French text.