ENGLISH VERSION Antonio Bonfini, La latinizzazione del 'Trattato d'architettura' di Filarete (1488-1489). Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, 2000

Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
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Antonio Bonfini
La latinizzazione del Trattato d'architettura 

di Filarete (1488-1489) [The translations of Filarete's Treatise of Architecture into Latin]

Edited by Maria Beltramini

Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, 2000

The Latin Translation of  Filarete's Treatise of Architecture
edited in Hungary by Antonio Bonfini

[1] Can it be said that there are two Treaties of architecture by Filarete? In some ways, yes. The first one was written in vernacular, according to a precise programmatic choice, by Filarete himself and printed in its entirety for the first time by Il Polifilo publishers in 1972 (Trattato di architettura -Treaty of architecture, edited by Anna Maria Finoli, with translation and commentary by Liliana Grassi). The second text is the Latin translation which the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus commissioned to his royal scriptorium [note of the editor, from Oxford Dictionary: A room set apart for writing, especially one in a monastery where manuscripts were copied. Here is meant the body of experts] and in particular to Antonio Bonfini between 1488 and 1489.

The Latin Translation of Filarete's Treatise of Architecture
edited in Hungary by Antonio Bonfini
(detail)

[2] Why did Corvinus let translate Filarete’s Treaty into Latin? It is known that Corvino was an avid bibliophile and read Latin fluently; therefore the intention to let finally become the text accessible to reading must have played a role. It is not, however, to be ruled out (and indeed the editor takes it seriously) that the translation may have been due also to prestige reasons. We are only a few years after the posthumous publication of De re aedificatoria of Leon Battista Alberti, which took place at the behest of Lorenzo the Magnificent, therefore celebrated by Poliziano in the dedication of the work. The event was known to Corvino, who owned two copies of the manuscript of De re aedificatoria in his magnificent library (one preceding and one following the first printed version, editio princeps, of 1485). That the Hungarian ruler would have liked to follow a similar route is far from unlikely.

[3] The translation of Filarete’s Treaty was conducted in a short time (three months, according to the translator, but perhaps a bit longer, in reality) by Antonio Bonfini, born in the Italian town of Ascoli, who had moved to the Hungarian court in 1486. Bonfini was a professor of Latin, Greek, grammar, poetry and rhetoric, in short, he was definitely no architect and the endeavour was not expected to be an easy one. Probably, he prepared himself for the occasion by consulting a copy of Vitruvius’ De Architectura , but he was also certainly helped by the fact that the writing of Filarete did not present – by precise choice – any overstated technicality, having originally an educational purpose. Bonfini had a general classic culture background which enabled him to cope with Averlino’s text (even with specific difficulties). What is certain is that the treatise in the Latin version is quite different from that of Filarete. And here we are not referring only to the fact that Averlino [Filarete] had intentionally used the vernacular to draft a text which would precisely be accessible to the largest possible number of fellow countrymen and that the Latin translation was somehow a "betrayal" of the inherent spirit of the work (Bonfini was aware of this and wrote about it in his praise of the Hungarian monarch). We also (or rather) refer to the drastic downsizing of the Treaty in Bonfini’s hands. "Compared to the vernacular one, the overall contraction of the Latin text, which invests the work in its entirety, and can be preliminarily quantified with a numerical calculation, is in fact on average of fifty per cent, or even slightly higher" (p. XXI). From a content point of view, it is clear that Bonfini has a bias "towards synthesizing, if not towards eliminating tout court, the anecdotal sections and chronicle inserts in the Treaty, evidently considered too connected to the original relationship [note of the editor: of Filarete] with the Sforza family [note of the editor: in Milan] and very difficult to include in the new context [note of the editor: in Hungary] "(p. xxii)."Nevertheless, it is remarkable that the cuts and changes, however relevant, never severed the crucial connection between text and plates: in no case were in fact suppressed passaged explicitly discussing images, while the accompanying visual toolkit of the Treaty in the vernacular version remained quantitatively intact in the Latin one. The role of the drawings turned out ... automatically enhanced, as the written parts were reduced to essentially descriptive captions of those" (pp. XXIII - XXIV).

The Medieval City of Buda in the  'Nuremberg Chronicle' (1493)

4] The death of Matthias Corvinus, which took place in 1490, gave rise to the dispersion, more and more rapid, of his rich library. Only two years later, "Corvinus’ Filarete was in fact purchased by Gioacchino Torriani, a Dominican monk from the monastery of Saint Johann and Paul in Venice, as well as a refined scholar and hellenist, who put it safely in the library of his convent" (p. IX). Here the manuscript remained until the end of the eighteenth century, that is, until he was transported to the Biblioteca Marciana, where it is currently stored with location Manoscritto Latino VIII, 2nd = 2796. But in its location in the Venetian monastery the manuscript did not pass unnoticed and had a fortune independent of the piece in vernacular, already by the end of the fifteenth and throughout the sixteenth century. Beltramini explains it at pages IX-XIX. Particularly remarkable is the hypothesis of a direct knowledge of the work by Alvise Cornaro, which would better explain some steps of his Trattato di architettura (Treaty of architecture)

[5] On a similar topic please also read the essay Il Trattato d’architettura di Filarete tra volgare e latino (The Treaty of architecture by Filarete between Latin and vernacular), always by Beltramini, published in Il volgare come lingua di cultura dal Trecento al Cinquecento (Vernacular language as a language of culture from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century). For iconographic aspects related to the Treaty, see a further test by Beltramini, i.e. Le illustrazioni del Trattato d’architettura di Filarete: storia, analisi e fortuna (Illustrations of the treatise on architecture by Filarete: history, analysis and fortune).