Article published In: Language, translation and empire in the Americas
Edited by Roberto A. Valdeón
[Target 31:2] 2019
► pp. 169–188
Images of Cortés in sixteenth-century translations of Francisco López de Gómara’s Historia de la conquista de México (1552)
Published online: 25 June 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.19095.rio
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.19095.rio
Abstract
This study provides an overview of five sixteenth-century translations of Francisco López de Gómara’s Historia de la conquista de México (1552), namely, Agostino di Cravaliz’s and Lucio Mauro’s into Italian, Thomas Nicholls’s into English, and Martin Fumée’s and Guillaume Le Breton’s into French. The article is organized into two main sections. The first one casts some light upon the socio-historical context in which the translations were written by analysing several paratexts (e.g., acknowledgements and introductions). The second section focuses on the manner in which passages regarding Cortés’s origins and death were rendered, discussing translators’ techniques, skopos, and target audiences.
Keywords: Francisco López de Gómara, Hernán Cortés, Aztec Empire, conquest, colonization, skopos
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Chronological contextualisation of the translations of Historia de la conquista de México
- 3.Comparative analysis of images of Cortés in translation
- 4.Concluding remarks
- Notes
References
References (27)
Albertín Astilleros, Chiara. 2013. “Las traducciones al italiano de las crónicas de Indias en la segunda mitad del siglo XVI.” Orillas 21: 1–18.
Alcibíades, Mirla. 2007. “Cronología.” In Historia de la conquista de México, Francisco López de Gómara, edited by Jorge Gurría Lacroix and Mirla Alcibíades, 461–462. Caracas: Ayacucho.
Aracil Varón, Beatriz. 2016. “Yo, don Hernando Cortés”: Reflexiones en torno a la escritura cortesiana. Madrid: Iberoamericana; Frankfurt: Vervuert.
Baldwin, R. C. D. 2004. “Nicholls, Thomas (1532–1601)”. In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Carman, Glen. 2006. Rhetorical Conquests: Cortés, Gómara, and Renaissance Imperialism. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press.
Castillo, Francisco Javier. 1992. “The English Renaissance and the Canary Islands: Thomas Nichols and Edmund Scory.” In Actas del II Congreso de la Sociedad Española de Estudios Renacentistas Ingleses (SEDERI), 21, edited by Santiago González Fernández-Corugedo, 57–70. Oviedo: Universidad de Oviedo, Servicio de Publicaciones.
Cravaliz, Agostino di. 1556. La historia generale delle Indie Occidentali, con tutti li discoprimenti, & cose notabili, che in esse sono successe, da che si acquistorno fino a hora. Scritta per Francesco Lopez de Gomara in lingua spagnuola, & tradotta nel volgare italiano per Augustino de Craualiz. Roma: Valerio, & Luigi Dorici.
. 1576. Historia di Don Ferdinando Cortes, Marchese della Valle, Capitano Valorosissimo. Con le sue maravigliose prodezze, nel tempo che discoprì, & acquistò la nuoua Spagna. Venetia: Camillo Franceschini.
De Schepper, Susanna L. B. 2012. “
Foreign
” Books for English Readers: Published Translations of Navigation Manuals and Their Audience in the English Renaissance, 1500–1640. PhD diss., University of Warwick, Centre for the Study of the Renaissance.
Fumée, Martin. 1587. Historia generalle des Indes Occidentales, et Terres neuues, qui iusques à present ont esté descouuertes, augmentee en ceste cinquiesme edition de la description de la nouuvelle Espagne, & de la grande ville de Mexique, autrement nommee, Tenuctilan. Paris: Michel Sonnius.
Gerbault, Matthieu. 2003. López de Gómara dans les controverses sur le Nouveau Monde: les traductions françaises de la Historia general de las Indias y conquista de Mexico. Édition critique et commentaire comparé. PhD diss., École Nationale de Chartres (Paris).
Gruzinski, Serge. 2010. America and Islam at the Dawn of Modern Times [orig. Quelle Heure est-il là-bas?
]. Translated by Jean Birrell. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Gurría Lacroix, Jorge. 2007. “Prólogo.” In Historia de la conquista de México, Francisco López de Gómara, edited by Jorge Gurría Lacroix and Mirla Alcibíades, ix–xxxii. Caracas: Ayacucho.
Iglesia, Ramón. 1942. Cronistas e historiadores de la conquista de México. México: El Colegio de México.
Knutson, Roslyn L., and David McInnis. 2011. “The Lost Plays Database: A Wiki for Lost Plays.” In Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England, volume 241, edited by S. P. Cerasano, 46–57. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
Le Breton, Guillaume. 1588. Voyages et conquestes du capitaine Ferdinand Courtois, és Indes occidentales, histoire traduite de langue espagnole. Paris: Abel L’Angelier.
López de Gómara, Francisco. 2007. Historia de la conquista de México, edited by Jorge Gurría Lacroix and Mirla Alcibíades. Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho.
Maczelka, Csaba. 2017. “Exile, Translation and Authorial Self-Representation in Elizabethan Travel Literature: The Case of Thomas Nicholls.” In Displacing the Anxieties of Our World: Spaces of the Imagination, edited by Ildikó Limpár, 44–62. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Markey, Lia. 2016. Imagining the Americas in Medici Florence. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Mauro, Lucio. 1566. La terza parte delle Historie dell‘Indie. Nella quale particolarmente si tratta dello scoprimento della provincia di Incatan detta Nuoua Spagna, & delle cose degne di memoria, fatte da Spagnuoli nella conquista della grande, & marauigliosa città di Messico, & delle altre Prouincie ad essa sottoposte. Nuovamente tradotta di lingua spagnuola, da Lucio Mauro. Venetia: Giordano Ziletti.
Nicholls, Thomas. 1596. The Pleasant Historie of the Conquest of the West India, now called new Spaine. Atchieued by the most woorthie Prince Hernando Cortes, Marques of the Valley of Huaxacac, most delectable to reade. London: Thomas Creede.
O’Gorman, Edmundo. 1971. “Estudio analítico de los escritos históricos de Motolinía.” In Memoriales o Libro de las cosas de la Nueva España y de los naturales de ella, Fray Toribio de Motolinía, edited by Edmundo O’Gorman, xv-cxxxi1. México: UNAM, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas.
Roa-de-la-Carrera, Cristián. 2005. Histories of Infamy: Francisco López de Gómara and the Ethics of Spanish Imperialism. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado.
. 2010. “Francisco López de Gómara and La conquista de México
.” In Chimalpahin’s Conquest: A Nahua Historian’s Rewriting of Francisco López de Gómara’s La conquista de México, edited and translated by Susan Schroeder, Anne J. Cruz, Cristián Roa-de-la-Carrera, and David E. Tavárez, 35–49. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Roa-de-la-Carrera, Cristián, Susan Schroeder, and David E. Tavárez, eds. 2011. Chimalpahin y La conquista de México de Francisco López de Gómara. México: UNAM.
Valdeón, Roberto A. 2014. Translation and the Spanish Empire in the Americas. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
