John H. Pollack
John H. Pollack is Curator, Research Services, in the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries. He has worked in this department since 1995. His responsibilities include providing assistance to students and scholars, and teaching and organizing class sessions centered on the collections. He is also responsible for the Furness Shakespeare Library, which is part of the Kislak Center.
John holds a PhD in English from Penn and a BA from Washington University in St. Louis. He specializes in Early American literature and history, and early modern book history. His research has focused on topics including Native American languages; colonial writings from New France; and Benjamin Franklin and colonial education.
In this presentation, Professor Roger Chartier will investigate the Italian early modern translations of a Renaissance bestseller: the Oraculo manuale y arte de prudencia by Baltasar Gracián. First printed in Huesca, Spain, in 1647, this enigmatic work was famously translated into French in 1684 by Amelot de la Houssaie. Retitled L'Homme de Cour, it became widely known in Europe as a courtier's handbook. The Italian translations of Gracián complicate the story of this work's dissemination and reception.
Materials from the rare book collections of the Kislak Center, including two Italian translations of Gracián's work, will be on display during the presentation.
Roger Chartier is Annenberg Visiting Professor in History at the University of Pennsylvania and Professor at the Collège de France.
Co-sponsored by the Center for Italian Studies and by the Italian Section, University of Pennsylvania.
