La lingua come norma del vivere civile nella prima traduzione del «Galateo» in lingua tedesca (1595)

Abstract

The present essay focuses on the first German translation of Giovanni della Casa’s Il Galateo, handwritten by Friedrich von Gellhorn at the University of Helmstedt and dated 1595. The work was dedicated to the three sons of Christian I, Elector of Saxony, dead in 1591. First, a short biography of the translator is provided, taking into account the cultural context in which he operated. Second, a contrastive analysis of the Italian source text and the German target text is performed, in particular of those paragraphs where Della Casa deals with a wide range of conversational examples.