Baronne d’Aigremont, translator into French of Trissino and Boccaccio
Marguerite de Cambis was born in Ales, near Nimes, in the province of Languedoc, into a family of rich Florentine bankers, the Cambis, who immigrated for political reasons to Avignon at the beginning of the fifteenth century. Of the six children of Louis de Cambis, governor of Ales, and Marguerite de Pluviers, Marguerite was the youngest. Little is known of her youth, except that in 1550 she became the widow of Pons d’Alairac, Baron d’Aigremont, and that one year later she married Jacques de Rochemore, a doctor of law from Nimes, best known for his translations of Spanish into French (Le Favori de court [The Court Favorite], Anvers, 1557), and of Tuscan into French (Propos amoureux [Conversations on Love], Lyons, 1573). Encouraged by her husband and solicited by her father, Marguerite de Cambis used her knowledge of both French and Tuscan to work on translations. In 1554, her first translation of an Italian text, the Epistre du Seigneur Jean Trissin de la vie que doit tenir une Dame veuve (Epistle by Lord Jean Trissi on the Conduct That a Widow Should Have), was published by Guillaume Rouille, a successful erudite printer fTom Lyons. Unfortunately, this translation (mentioned in 1584 by Antoine DuVerdier in his catalogue of writers and translators of the time) is impossible to find today. Two years later, Marguerite de Cambis again published with Rouille a translation of Boccaccio, Epistre consolatoire de messire Jean Boccace, envoyee au Signeur Pino de Rossi fCon-solatory Epistle by Boccaccio to Lord Pino Rossi), dedicated to Loys de Cambis, Baron D’Alez, her father. After 1556, nothing further is mentioned of her either as a translator or as a writer. Her dedicatory epistle of 1 May 1555 reveals sympathy for the author, Boccaccio, and the addressee, Signor Pino de Rossi (both Tuscans like her ancestors), as well as important information on the circumstances presiding over her translation, her own motivation, and her thought. Far from being a simple remedy for idleness, the translation of Boccaccio’s epistle seems to have had a deep and personal resonance for Marguerite de Cambis. In the preface, she gives reasons for her enterprise, aware that she must negotiate her entry into a male-dominated world and maneuver within the social restrictions of her time. (Apart from some religious works, Renaissance texts were translated by men.) Based on her excellent knowledge of French and Tuscan, as Peletier du Mans recommends in his Art poetique (1555), her style is accurate, clear, and driven by the principles diffused by the Pleiade poets, especially by Du Bellay in his Deffence et Illustration de la langue franyoyse (Defense and Illustration of the French Language) (1549), and Dolet in La maniere de bien traduire (On the Best Way to Translate) (1540). Like her contemporaries, she associated translation with imitation, a principle common to scholars during the French Renaissance. Despite the difficulties of the Tuscan language of Trecento, Marguerite de Cambis gave a very satisfactory translation of Boccaccio, which entitles her critics to view it as a starting point in the formation of her literary identity. Her translation is highly indicative of the difficulties that feminine writers encountered when trying to obtain public recognition of their work as good translators, as was the case with Helisenne de Crenne, Marie de Cotteblanche, Marie de
Romieu, Catherine des Roches, and Gabrielle de Coignard, or as an editor, as in the case of Marie de Gournay. Moreover, translations from the sixteenth century, as important documents for demonstrating the progression of the French language, illustrate the important role that women of the Renaissance played in promoting vernacular languages. In addition, women were also vital in the diffusion in French of works by major Italian writers from the Trecento and Quattrocento, like Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Castiglione, and Ariosto. This enduring interest in Italian literature began during the Italian Wars (1494-1519) and was promoted essentially by women who were queens like Anne de France, Marguerite de Navarre, and Marguerite de Valois, and by erudite printers like Abel l’Angelier, Jean de Tournes, and Guillaume Rouille.
Graziella Postolache
See also Literary Culture and Women;Translation and Women Translators.
Bibliography
Primary Works
Marguerite de Cambis. Epistre consolatoire de mes-sire Jean Boccace, envoyee au Signeur Pino de Rossi. Lyons: Guillaume Rouille, 1556.
Marguerite de Cambis. Epistre consolatoire de mes-sire Jean Boccace, envoyee au Signeur Pino de Rossi (1556). Edited by Colette H. Winn. Paris: Champion, 2003.
Marguerite de Cambis. Epistre du Seigneur Jean Trissin de la vie que doit tenir une Dame veuve. Lyons: Guillaume Rouille, 1554.
Secondary Works
Balsamo, Jean.“Traduire de l’italien: ambitions so-ciales et contraintes editoriales a la fin du XVIe siecle.” In Traduire et adapter a la Renaissance. Edited by Dominique de Courcelles and Carmen Val Julian, 89-98. Paris: Publication de L’Ecole des Chartes, 1999.
Chavy, Paul. Traducteurs d’autrefois. Moyen Age et Renaissance. Dictionnaire des traducteurs et de la literature traduite en ancien et moyen frangais (842—1600). Two volumes. Paris: Champion; Geneva: Slatkine, 1988.
Rickard, Peter. “Le role des traducteurs.” In La
Langue frangaise au seizieme siecle. Etude suivie de textes, 6-14. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968.
World History
