Project | Global Thucydides
Catalogue | Digital catalogue
Entry | L'Histoire de Thucydide Athenien, de la guerre, qui fut entre les Peloponnesien…

L'Histoire de Thucydide Athenien, de la guerre, qui fut entre les Peloponnesiens et Atheniens, translatée en langue Françoyse par feu Messire Claude de Seyssel, lors Evesque de Marseille et depuis Archevesque de Turin

Typology: Translation | Language: French | Place of publication: Paris | Publisher: Badius | Year: 1527

Greek Text: no

Content: Complete Work

Seyssel's translation was published posthumously by order of King Francis I; however, he had completed the manuscript of his French version as early as 1514, before it went to print: cf. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, ms. Fr. 17211-17212. 

Text

Translation’s intermediaries

Based on Valla's Latin translation, Seyssel rendered Thucydides into French while serving in Rome as ambassador to Pope Leo X. There, he likely consulted Valla's 1452 presentation copy, which had been dedicated to Pope Nicholas V. Because Seyssel found Valla's Latin translation particularly difficult, he turned to the help of Janus Lascaris – a Byzantine scholar and humanist – for the more difficult passages. The full extent of Lascaris's contribution remains unclear.