Opere storiche nell’Europa delle guerre di religione. La traduzione francese del Cyprium bellum di Pietro Bizzarri (1573)

Abstract

In 1573 the Parisian printers Nicolas Chesneau and Sébastien Nivelle, advocates of the fight against the Huguenots, published a work entitled Histoire de la guerre qui c’est passee entre les Venitiens et la Saincte Ligue, contre les Turcs pour l’Isle de Cypre.  It was the French translation of a historical work originally entitled Cyprium bellum. This translation was done by another fierce champion of the Catholic cause beyond the Alps, the polygraph François de Belleforest. Believing in the usefulness of this work in helping and fuelling the fight against “heretics” in France, Belleforest decided to translate it from Latin. However, the Cyprium bellum was written by an heretic, the exile religionis causa Pietro Bizzarri. Impressed by the climate of violence and cruelty caused by the struggle between Catholics and Reformers, Bizzarri wrote this work hoping that the Christian world would find harmony and unity in the fight against the Turks. Through a comparison between Bizzarri’s work and Belleforest’s translation, this article aims to highlight and examine the strategies and aims that shaped the actions of historians, writers, translators and printers in France during the  religious wars.