From Greek into Italian : Giulio Ballino's Translation of the Pseudo-Aristotelian On the Virtues and Vices

Giulio Ballino, a little-known sixteenth-century Venetian translator from Greek into Italian, was trained as a young man in the household of Paolo Manuzio. His scholarly ambitions were foiled by the need to earn his living as a lawyer as well as by flaws in his character. Nevertheless, he produced vernacular versions of Philo Judaeus's Life of Moses, the sermons of St Basil the Great and a collection of moral works, which included the Enchiridion of Epictetus, a tract from Plutarch's Moralia and the pseudo-Aristotelian On the Virtues and Vices. An analysis of his version of the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise shows that he did not follow his own pronouncements on translation but that his techniques were well suited to vernacular readers who were unlikely to be familiar with Aristotelian philosophy and who were seeking entertainment as well as enlightenment. [Publisher's text]