Dresden-Mailand. Eduard von Bülow und die Aufnahme von Manzonis "Promessi Sposi" in Europa

[Autom. eng. transl.] In the summer of 1827, while in Milan the "Promessi Sposi" edition is about to end, in Germany - in a time that still does not recognize copyright - two translation companies try their luck, ignoring one of the another, in a singular marathon. If the role assumed by Goethe, who had entrusted the translation to Daniel Leßmann, has already been amply illustrated, it is almost unknown that of a young man of letters who, under the aegis of the "King of Romanticism" Ludwig Tieck, will come to precede the Great of Weimar. Eduard von Bülow, writer, Germanist, translator of European languages, father of Hans - the well-known Wagnerian conductor -, will in fact tie his name to Manzoni, applying himself again, ten years later, to a new and more fortunate version of the masterpiece . The background is a Dresden, which has been transmitting Italian style for at least two centuries: painters and architects, musicians and writers of the peninsula animate Elbflorenz, Florence on Elba, immortalized by those timeless icons that are views by Bernardo Bellotto ; the Sistine Chapel of Raphael and the other Italian masterpieces of the Gemäldegalerie attract young romantic artists, encouraging them to travel to Italy, while in the Biedermeier climate the cultured Prince Johann applies to the translation of Dante. The two German translations of the "Promessi Sposi", which will appear a few days apart from each other in December 1827, are absolutely the first European translations of the Manzoni masterpiece. The volume reconstructs the genesis of Bülow's version, relating it to the contemporary version of Leßmann. Defines the historical and cultural framework in which they are inserted and the very first phase of Manzoni's fortune in Germany. In support there are some unpublished letters by Bülow to Goethe and Manzoni - identified in the Manzonian Fund of the National Braidense Library and in the Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv of Weimar. Furthermore, an unknown document is translated to Manzoni scholars: the precise relationship of the visit that Bülow will make to Manzoni in his house in Via Morone in May 1846.