Collaborative Approaches to Translation Between Europe and the Arab World During the Middle Ages

From the 11th century until at least the 14th century, as a result of Islamic expansion in Europe, the great heritage of Arab culture, and through it of many Greek works, was received in the West thanks to translators of different origins who settled in the most important centres of contact between the Muslim world and Europe: Spain (Toledo, Valencia, Murcia, Salamanca, Seville) and southern Italy. The collaboration between scholars was essential for the translation and interpretation of the knowledge conveyed by the Arabic texts that spread throughout Europe. The most representative works of the Islamic cultural background were therefore translated from Arabic or Hebrew into Latin, often using the Romance languages as intermediary languages. This process of translation, based on collaboration, was perhaps the most widespread practice during the Middle Ages and its contribution to the transmission of knowledge was essential. This paper analyzes some aspects attributable to these practices, such as the complex tension between the practice and the theoretical principles that, from a certain moment on, will be promoted by European scholars, most of all Leonardo Bruni (who will promote the gradual transition to the idea of the single translator). This essay is also a reflection on the involvement of more than one writing subject and more than one interpretative position in the act of translation; on the distribution of different tasks among the members of translation teams; on the relationship of such practices with the process of religious, administrative and political centralization of future European nations; on the irreconcilability between the notion of national literary tradition, collaborative and multilingual translations, and the “need” to conceptualize translation as an activity that reduces multiple versions to one, thereby distancing it from its inherently plural essence.