Algunas calas en los diez primeros capítulos de la primera parte del don Chisciotte de Franciosini: “toscanismos”, religión y germanía

Among the numerous translators into Spanish of the 17th century, the figure of the Italian Lorenzo Franciosini stands out. The production of this grammarian, lexicographer, and author of the first translation into Italian of The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha spans from 1620 to 1644 and includes a total of eleven works. In relation to his translation work, this paper aims to compare a small part of the original text of Cervantes’ Don Quixote (specifically the first ten chapters of the first part) with its translation (recall that he translated the first part in 1622 and the second in 1625). In these ten chapters, we have decided to pay attention to three very interesting aspects: “toscanismos” (Tuscanisms), religion, and “germanía” (a type of slang). We have focused on them because they often did not receive the appropriate translation by Franciosini, nor have they enjoyed sufficient interest in terms of linguistic and translator analysis. Likewise, their examination will serve us to have another useful parameter when evaluating the quality of the translation by our Tuscan author. In general terms, his version is reliable, although we have found numerous errors resulting, among other things, from its excessive literalness and the fact that our translator failed to understand certain passages of the original text.