How not to edit a classic history text

I’m reading Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories, described by Tim Parks as “a joy”. I’ve always found Machiavelli readable, so it seemed reasonable to assume that a translated edition of his Histories (I don’t know why Machiavelli uses the plural of “history”, but I’m pretty sure it’s not a post-structuralised statement about the multiplicity of visions of possible histories).

Well, as you can imagine, the history of Florence is complicated. Florence was one small city state surrounded by several other, often larger, states, among which were the Papal States, Milan and Venice. The story is one of alliances, civil strife between the various groups within Florence, dealings with and double-crossings by mercenaries. It’s a long and involved narrative, and not particularly easy to follow.

But it’s not helped by the edition I am reading: Florentine Histories, a new translation by Laura F Banfield and Harvey C Mansfield Jr, published 1990. The annotation to this edition is minimal with a vengeance, but worse, the translator’s introduction (by Mansfeld alone) is deliberately brief. It outlines how Machiavelli’s view of history is very different to that of the present day, and then concludes:

It is enough for an introduction to introduce; to begin here an interpretation of this marvelously intricate work would in some degree usurp the right of the reader. Having seen that the Florentine Histories is not the sort of history we today might expect, we are left in pleasurable bewilderment as to what sort of history it may be.

So it’s pretty clear, dear reader, you are on your own. But worse is to come; in the Note on the Translation, the translators state in no uncertain terms what their role is:

Most bad translation results from feelings of superiority … on the part of translators – superiority toward the original author and toward the reader. In the same spirit of caution, we have provided only slight and occasional historical annotation. As explained in the introduction, it would be hasty to assume that Machiavelli shares our appetite and esteem for historical information. … We did not want to distract the reader by frequently whispering dates in his ear when Machiavelli did not provide them.

As if to complete the task, the translators acknowledge that they have “profited from the annotation by Franco Gaeta” – but they do not seem to have passed this annotation on.

How does this work in practice? The translation contains no chronology. There are no dates given in the margins or on any page. There is a map. There is a good index, which contains some annotation, although I don’t expect to consult the index of a book to get some idea of what is being described. Here is a typical paragraph from the book (book III, the first lines from section 7):

Sitting in the pontificate was Pope Gregory XI, who, while located in Avignon, governed Italy through legates … One of the legates, who was in Bologna at the time, took the occasion of a famine that year in Florence and thought to make himself lord of Tuscany.

Which year? Which legate? We are not told. This makes life very simple for the translators, but highly challenging for the reader. In this case, the index tells us nothing – simply “Gregory XI, Pope”. We are told at the end of the paragraph that this led to the “War of the Otto Santi”, but I can find no reference to this war in the standard history of Florence 1200-1575 by John Najelmy.

Even the first translation of Machiavelli, by Thomas Bedingfield, published in 1595, and available for free online, includes some minimal descriptions of for each book section:

I realise now that the only way to use the Mansfield edition and to make any sense of it, I would have to compile my own annotations – in effect, to edit the entire history to make it intelligible to a non-specialist. Perhaps Mr Mansfield would claim this represents a superior attitude on the part of the translator, and that even Bedingfield’s annotation are unnecessary. If that is the case, I’m happy to be the translator’s inferior. I can choose not to read the notes – if any have been provided.