Family Name: Venuti
First Name: Filippo
Birth Date: Sun, Oct 03, 1706
Birth Place: Cortona
Death Date: Sat, Mar 12, 1768
Death Place: Cortona
Main places of activity:
Place From To
Cortona 1724 1736
Place From To
Clairac 1736 1740
Place From To
Bordeaux 1740 1748
Personal info:
Education

Filippo Venuti was the son of Giuseppe, knight of the order of Saint Stephen, and Maria Francesca Baldelli.

After the death of his father in 1708, Venuti was under the tutelage of his uncle Domenico Girolamo: he very early pursued an ecclesiastic education, first at the Vagnotti seminary in Cortona, and then at the Cicognini college, run by the Jesuits in Prato.

Venuti also studied at the university of Pisa before coming back to Cortona in 1726.
Career

Venuti was an abbot, an archeologist and a man of letters whose career developed between France and Italy.

In 1726, his interest in antiquities brought him to participate in the foundation and early steps of the renowned Accademia Etrusca with his brothers Niccolò Marcello and Ridolfino in Cortona.

As his 1729 journey to Rome in search of an ecclesiastic benefice did not succeed, Venuti reluctantly became the director of Cortona's seminary in 1731, only to seize the occasion to leave for Clairac in 1738, where he was sent by Clement XII with the title of vicar general of the local Saint Peter abbey. Through the benevolent friendship of Montesquieu, Venuti took part in the literary circles of Guyenne and Bordeaux in particular, investing his time in academic pursuits: Venuti became an associate member of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres of Bordeaux and Paris in the early 1740s, after winning the annual prize for his Dissertation sur le temple de Janus in 1741.

However, his neglect of his ecclesistical duties at the abbey allegedly cost him his office, and Venuti had to settle for the position of librarian of the Académie de Bordeaux in 1742. After repeatedly trying to acquire a prominent role in the ecclisiastical hierarchies in Paris to establish himself there, Venuti eventually left Bordeaux, cutting all ties with his academic friends out of frustration.

In 1750, Francis II of Lorraine named him prevost of the cathedral of Leghorn, where he founded the periodical Magazzino toscano d'istruzione e di piacere (1754-7) and assembled the local letterati in a branch of the Florentine Accademia Colombaria. From 1756 to 1759, Venuti also took part in the edition in Lucca of the French Encyclopédie, adding many footnotes to defuse the tensions with the Catholic church.

Venuti eventually became the director of the Accademia Etrusca, founded the Società Botanica (1753) and became a member of the Royal Society in London (1759).
Financial Situation

When custodian of the library of the Bordeaux academy, Venuti earned a pension of 800 French livres.
Translations Other Works

translations activities

Venuti translated from French to Italian, dedicating himself to different sorts of texts and mediating between the two cultures.

While in France, Venuti focused his efforts on plays and poems, especially authored by his friends Lefranc de Pompignan and Montesquieu. His Italian version of La religion by Racine was prompted with some hopes of drawing the attention of the highest ecclesiastical milieux in Paris. Venuti was eventually disappointed, as his use of translation to gain the patronage of the bishop of Mirepoix Jean-François Boyer proved unsuccessful (Musitelli 2006).

When back in Italy, Venuti translated several passages of French works for his periodical Magazzino toscano d'istruzione e di piacere, as a way to popularise and circulate ideas from abroad. Venuti at this stage understood translation as a very practical undertaking and as an instrument rather than an art to replicate the elegance of original texts. His version of La Condamine's treatise on the inoculation of smallpox, for instance, first appeared on the Magazzino with comments and notes to contextualise its contents for the Leghorn audience, where inoculation was already a practice well-known to local doctors (Marcil 2018).

Venuti furthermore published translations regarding numismatics and antiquaries in the proceedings of the Accademia degli Etruschi, including the dissertations by his fellow academicians Joannon de Saint-Laurent, Claude Gros de Boze and Joseph Bimard de la Bastie.

secondary bibliography references

Anna Maria Rosadoni, 'Un traduttore cortonese, amico di Montesquieu: Filippo de' Venuti', in Culture française, XXII, n°6 (1975), 338-47.

Robert Shackleton, 'Filippo Venuti académicien de Bordeaux et ami de Montesquieu', in Essays on Montesquieu and on the Enlightenment, ed. by David Gilson and Martin Smith, Oxford University Press, 1988, 257-67.

Pierre Musitelli, 'Filippo Venuti, ami de Montesquieu et collaborateur de l’édition lucquoise de l’Encyclopédie', in Dix-huitième siècle, 38 (2006), 429-48.

Pierre Musitelli, 'Dall’antiquaria all’enciclopedismo: l’itinerario di Filippo Venuti tra Francia e Toscana nel secolo dei Lumi', in Annuario dell’Accademia etrusca, 23 (2006-2007), 117-48.

Cristina Cagianelli, 'Filippo Venuti e la colonia livornese dell'Accademia Colombaria', in Alle origini di Livorno: l'età etrusca e romana, ed. by Stefano Bruni, Polistampa, 2009, 55-66.

Yasmine Marcil, 'Entre France et Italie, le mémoire en faveur de l’inoculation de La Condamine', in La Revolution Française, 13 (2018), 67-84.

Translations

  • Didon

  • Translation Title: La Didone tragedia del sigr. Le Franc tradotta dal francese in versi sciolti
  • Original Author: Jean-Jacques Lefranc de Pompignan
  • Original title: Didon
  • Publ. Year From: 1733 to:
  • lang: French
  • Translation: La Didone tragedia del sigr. Le Franc tradotta dal francese in versi sciolti
  • Pub. Place: Paris
  • Pub. Date: 1745
  • Lang: Italian

  • La religion

  • Translation Title: Della religione poema del signor Racine
  • Original Author: Louis Racine
  • Original title: La religion
  • Publ. Year From: 1740 to:
  • lang: French
  • Translation: Della religione poema del signor Racine
  • Publisher: Alexandre Giroud
  • Pub. Place: Avignon
  • Pub. Date: 1746
  • Lang: Italian
  • Note:

    A total of 500 copies of Venuti's translation were printed at a cost of 600 livres, which were in part paid by the Bordeaux academy (Musitelli 2006).

  • Le Temple de Gnide

  • Translation Title: Il tempio di Gnido
  • Original Author: Charles Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu
  • Original title: Le Temple de Gnide
  • Publ. Year From: 1724 to:
  • lang: French
  • Translation: Il tempio di Gnido
  • Pub. Date: 1748
  • Lang: Italian
  • Note:

    Montesquieu himself chose Venuti to translate his poem, which was published anonymously and with no date.

  • Mémoire sur l'inoculation de la petite vérole

  • Translation Title: Memoria sull'inoculazione del vajuolo
  • Original Author: Charles Marie de La Condamine
  • Original title: Mémoire sur l'inoculation de la petite vérole
  • Publ. Year From: 1752 to:
  • lang: French
  • Title: Mémoire sur l'inoculation de la petite vérole
  • Publisher: Mérande
  • Pub. Place: Avignon
  • Pub. Year: 1753
  • Lang: French
  • Translation: Memoria sull'inoculazione del vajuolo
  • Publisher: Santini
  • Pub. Place: Livorno
  • Pub. Date: 1753
  • Lang: Italian
  • Note:

    Venturi accomodated his friend La Condamine in Leghorn, when the latter toured Italy to promote his internationally known treatise on the inoculation of smallpox in 1755. For the occasion, La Condamine had printed a second, extended edition of his work in Avignon, which Venuti used as the source of his translation. The dedication in the Italian version is written in French and signed by La Condamine as a token of friendship (Marcil 2018).

  • Second mémoire sur l'inoculation de la petite vérole

  • Translation Title: Seconda memoria sull'inoculazione del vajuolo
  • Original Author: Charles Marie de La Condamine
  • Original title: Second mémoire sur l'inoculation de la petite vérole
  • Publ. Year From: 1756 to:
  • lang: French
  • Translation: Seconda memoria sull'inoculazione del vajuolo
  • Publisher: Santini
  • Pub. Place: Livorno
  • Pub. Date: 1757
  • Lang: Italian
calamaio

By:

  • Giovanni Lista