I am a professor of French and Italian at Vanderbilt University in
Nashville, Tennessee, USA. After working for a few years on French, Italian,
and neo-Latin pastoral poetry (Le Genre pastoral au XVIe sie`cle. Paris:
Editions universitaires, 1974), I switched to Carlo Porta and the Romantic
poetry in Milanese vernacular (In the Very Heart of Man: The Life and Poetry
of Carlo Porta. Univ. Presses of Florida, 1986). Finally, and I guess that
this is going to by my final destination, I landed on the "odeporica", i.e.
(for the "non addetti ai lavori"), travel literature, attempting to limit
the scope of my research to Italian, French, and English journal writers who
ventured throughout western Europe. I have edited a few travel journals in
Italian (Un mercante di Milano in Europa: diario di viaggio del primo
Cinquecento. Milan: Edizioni Universitarie Jaca, 1985; Sebastiano Locatelli,
Viaggio di Francia, 1664-1666. Moncalieri: CIRVI, 1990), French (Discours
viatiques de Paris a` Rome, 1588-1589. Geneva: Slatkine, 1983; Voyage de
Provence et d'Italie, 1588-1589. Geneva: Slatkine, 1994), and English
(Travells through France and Italy, 1647-1649. Geneva: Slatkine 1987). I
have also guest-edited a special issue of the Bollettino del CIRVI [Centro
Interuniversitario di Ricerca sul Viaggio in Italia -- Strada Revigliasco 6
-- I-10024 Moncalieri) devoted to "Americans in Italy" (nos. 15-16, 1987),
and, more recently, guest-edited a special issue of Annali d'Italianistica
(no. 14, 1996: "L'odeporica/Hodoeporics: On Travel Literature"), which
contains forty studies in Italian, English, French, and Spanish on
theoretical problems, Italian travelers abroad, and foreign travelers to
Italy, unpublished texts, and a large book-review section.
I am presently preparing a critical edition of Pierre Bergeron's
Relation d'Italie of 1603 (due next year), and Due ambasciatori veneziani
nella Spagna di fine Cinquecento: Antonio Tiepolo e Francesco Vendramin
(1572 and 1592). Most of this projects will be published by the CIRVI. In a
couple of months, I hope, the CIRVI will also publish my critical edition of
Joseph Catin's Voyage aux Champs-Phle'gre'ens (1565).
I am interested in finding and editing more 16th- and 17th-century
unpublished journals of French, English, and Spanish travelers to Italy, and
would appreciate any suggestions and advice I can obtain from fellow members.
Many thanks! and Buon viaggio... ;)
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
