On the Translation
The translation at hand reveals the place of symmetry and proportion in the context of contemporary education of the early modern era, especially the education of artists. In the original contribution and subject of this translation, Giovanni Paolo Gallucci expands on Dürer’s nascent interest in the proportions of a diversity of human types and extends this interest in diversity to elaborate systems of physiognomy and humoral readings. Interestingly, the volume’s author was not an artist, nor was he an art critic or theorist. As an avid translator, Gallucci worked in a number of fields and was as equally interested in questions of scientific investigation as reinforcing the Counter-Reformation’s concerns on doctrinal correctness and the value of la lingua latina, or the Latin language, as a galvanizing tool. But above all, Gallucci’s passion and legacy can be seen in his lifelong profession as a tutor for the noble youth of Venice. As an educator, he always considered the value of his works in providing mnemonic devices to aid in memorization. This is the key to understanding why a non-specialist would attempt the ambitious task of translating a treatise that, according to experts in the field, was irrelevant to their craft, and why the target language chosen was Italian for a non-academic audience. His writing is then pragmatic in its intention, as are his selection of terms and choice of sentence structure. However, issues arose with the translation for Della simmetria dei corpi humani when considering that the source is taken from the Latin edition of the Four Books on Human Proportion, rather than the German original. This Latin edition had a number of errors which Gallucci admits hampered his efforts: “This I did, of course, after great effort due to the many mistakes that were in the Latin edition, and because the material itself is difficult to explain, as the author himself affirms.”1 The difficulty encountered on the part of the translator can be seen most clearly in his syntax, which often overlooks appropriate punctuation typical for Latin. Moreover, given the direct translation from the Latin edition into the target language, the result is awkward in early modern Italian, not to mention modern English.
As with many late Renaissance authors of his era, Gallucci often uses rather convoluted sentence structures. This is especially true when listing characteristics and their opposites. At the outset of a chapter, he nominally states the subject or body part under discussion only once (e.g. shoulder, head, eyelashes, etc.), and then implies this subject/body part throughout the chapter by describing each passion primarily through verbs and adjectives. As such, I have added breaks for clarity when different topics are included in the same run-on sentences or when required for comprehension in English. Similarly, where Gallucci uses a limited but consistent vocabulary to describe parts of the body and their attributes (e.g. humido), I use more nuanced terms that are appropriate to each context (e.g. dewy, misty, wet, moist). Additionally, the terms imagine, pittura, and figura are often implied or used interchangeably by Gallucci. He also uses the same term for both “eyelashes” and “eyebrows,” requiring a careful evaluation of context. When translating the chapter headings, I was consistent in the translation of imagine as “figure,” while in the chapters themselves, the more appropriate English terms have been used.
The Della simmetria was first published in 1591, and reprinted in 1594. This edition focuses only on the original contributions made by Gallucci in the Dedication, Preface, Life of Albrecht Dürer, and Fifth Book. My translation is made from the 1594 reprint, which does not include modernized spelling, accents, and punctuation, nor corrected grammatical or syntactical errors. The original paragraphs used by Gallucci have been retained and, whenever possible, the same sentence structure and punctuation. In the notes, I have discussed the word choices where appropriate and identified the context and sources the translator calls upon to support his arguments. Very often, he will quote directly from these sources without identifying the specific work or even the author. But even though the categories seem esoteric and random at times, he follows consistently the core established in Pseudo-Aristotle’s Physiognomica when considering height, weight, hair, eye and skin color, relative moisture and temperature, as well as shape and variety of the different body parts. When other authors are cited, I have used the most recent translations available for the sake of clarity.
1 Giovanni Paolo Gallucci, “Dedication,” Della simmetria dei corpi humani, libri quattro (Venice: Domenico Nicolini, 1591; repr. Venice: Roberto Meietti, 1594), 2v, https://archive.org/details/dialbertodurero00gallgoog/page/n4. As noted below, my translations are taken from the 1594 reprint.