The Linguistic Process of the Word Virtù in Machiavelli’s Il Principe: Some Considerations for Its Translation

Abstract

As some researchers have noted, Niccolò Machiavelli, in his most famous work, Il Principe, seems to attribute a technical character to some words, using them with a specific meaning. One of those words is virtù. In this article I aim at two main goals: first, I want to examine what kind of linguistic process the word virtù goes through, contrasting the way in which Machiavelli employs it with a previous work by Dante Alighieri; second, I analyze the difficulties that translating virtù to Spanish could yield. This paper is organized into three sections: in the first one, I present a general view of the particular circumstances in which Machiavelli wrote his political treatise; in the second one, I describe the possible linguistic process that could explain the case of virtù; finally, in the last one, by analyzing three different Spanish versions of Machiavelli’s treatise, I reflect on the challenge that the translation of this word poses, if the translator intends to preserve the specific meaning used by the Florentine author. After this analysis it will be possible to reach some conclusions about how important it is for the translator to have a deep knowledge of the language used by Machiavelli and an understanding that the Spanish equivalent of virtù will not always be virtud.