Vernacular Translations of Aristotle's Metaphor in Medieval Italy

Abstract: This article explores the reception of Aristotle's Rhetoric in medieval Italy, with a specific focus on the relationship between metaphor and the etymology of translation, both rooted in the concept of transfer. It examines how Aristotle's term μεταφορά was translated into the vernacular, offering insights into the interplay between translation practice and concurrent developments in rhetorical culture. After introducing the two earliest Italian vernacular translations of the Rhetoric , both documented in fourteenth-century manuscripts, the article addresses the dichotomy between "ordinary" and "foreign" central to Aristotle's discourse on metaphor, showing that it aligns with linguistic distinctions in the medieval lexicon of vernacular translation, exemplified by terms like volgarizzamento (vulgarization) and volgarizzare (to vulgarize). One particularly illuminating example of this dichotomy's relevance to the linguistic appropriation of Aristotle's rhetorical lexicon is the merging of the Latin term transumptio (used in both rhetoric and logic) with the concept of metaphor ( translatio ) discussed in the final section of the essay. By conducting a comparative analysis of select passages from the two vernacular translations and their source texts, the essay also uncovers the profound cultural and linguistic intricacies inherent in the vernacular transmission of Aristotle's Rhetoric , which, in conjunction with its Latin translations, intersected with other crucial facets of Aristotelian reception, including, though in mediated ways, the Greek and Arabic traditions.