Skip to main content
Presented to you through Paradigm Publishing Services

John Benjamins Publishing Company

Visit our Partner Page See all our books
Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Chapter 1. Reading scientific translations in the first half of sixteenth-century Europe through Hernando Colón’s library

Abstract

The humanist Hernando Colón (1488–1539), second son to Christopher Columbus, has been acknowledged as one of the greatest collectors of manuscripts and printed works of sixteenth-century Europe. Hernando acquired all kinds of works (from cheap pamphlets to expensive illustrated volumes), in a variety of European cities (from London to Seville, from Rome to Nuremberg), written in various languages (Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Greek, Catalan), and dealing with topics ranging from theology and law, to cartography and astrology charts. This chapter examines the translated scientific texts in Hernando’s library to shed light on a number of determining factors that can account for the fortunes of the dissemination of scientific literature in translation, including the cities where these translated texts were published and purchased, and issues such as language combinations, translators and printers.

Abstract

The humanist Hernando Colón (1488–1539), second son to Christopher Columbus, has been acknowledged as one of the greatest collectors of manuscripts and printed works of sixteenth-century Europe. Hernando acquired all kinds of works (from cheap pamphlets to expensive illustrated volumes), in a variety of European cities (from London to Seville, from Rome to Nuremberg), written in various languages (Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Greek, Catalan), and dealing with topics ranging from theology and law, to cartography and astrology charts. This chapter examines the translated scientific texts in Hernando’s library to shed light on a number of determining factors that can account for the fortunes of the dissemination of scientific literature in translation, including the cities where these translated texts were published and purchased, and issues such as language combinations, translators and printers.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgments vii
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Section A. Constructing and disseminating knowledge in–through translation
  6. Chapter 1. Reading scientific translations in the first half of sixteenth-century Europe through Hernando Colón’s library 17
  7. Chapter 2. Jérôme Lalande, Giuseppe Toaldo and the translation of astronomical works for a wider public in the 1700s 41
  8. Chapter 3. Travelling knowledge in nineteenth-century science 59
  9. Chapter 4. Translating the Iron Curtain 81
  10. Section B. Linguistic strategies and visual tools in the translation of knowledge
  11. Chapter 5. Paratexts in sixteenth-century editions and translations of Maciej z Miechowa’s Tractatus de duabus Sarmatiis 105
  12. Chapter 6. The Latin translation of Philosophical Transactions (1671–1681) 123
  13. Chapter 7. Knowledge in series 145
  14. Chapter 8. Knowledge transfer in the Soviet Union from the perspective of visual culture 169
  15. Section C. Institutions and translation policies
  16. Chapter 9. The Leviathan and the woods 189
  17. Chapter 10. Energetic visions 209
  18. Chapter 11. Science writing in Hindi in colonial India 229
  19. Chapter 12. An (imagined) community 249
  20. Index 269
Translation in Knowledge, Knowledge in Translation
This chapter is in the book Translation in Knowledge, Knowledge in Translation
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.154.01sum

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgments vii
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Section A. Constructing and disseminating knowledge in–through translation
  6. Chapter 1. Reading scientific translations in the first half of sixteenth-century Europe through Hernando Colón’s library 17
  7. Chapter 2. Jérôme Lalande, Giuseppe Toaldo and the translation of astronomical works for a wider public in the 1700s 41
  8. Chapter 3. Travelling knowledge in nineteenth-century science 59
  9. Chapter 4. Translating the Iron Curtain 81
  10. Section B. Linguistic strategies and visual tools in the translation of knowledge
  11. Chapter 5. Paratexts in sixteenth-century editions and translations of Maciej z Miechowa’s Tractatus de duabus Sarmatiis 105
  12. Chapter 6. The Latin translation of Philosophical Transactions (1671–1681) 123
  13. Chapter 7. Knowledge in series 145
  14. Chapter 8. Knowledge transfer in the Soviet Union from the perspective of visual culture 169
  15. Section C. Institutions and translation policies
  16. Chapter 9. The Leviathan and the woods 189
  17. Chapter 10. Energetic visions 209
  18. Chapter 11. Science writing in Hindi in colonial India 229
  19. Chapter 12. An (imagined) community 249
  20. Index 269
Downloaded on 27.4.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1075/btl.154.01sum/html?lang=en
Scroll to top button