Resumen de Giovan Antonio Menavinoʼs account of his captivity in the Ottoman Empire: a revaluation
The study deals with Giovan Antonio Menavinoʼs account on his captivity in the Ottoman Empire (from 1504 through about 1514). A manuscript version (“Liber de rebus et moribus Turcarum”), dated 1519, is kept in the Biblioteca dellʼAccademia Nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiniana in Rome (Fondo Nicola Rossi 35 E 18). Despite the Latin title, the text is in Italian. The work was printed for the first time in 1548 in Florence. In the same year a pirated edition with a lot of stylistic adjustments, prepared by Apollonio Campano, appeared in Venice. In contrast to what has often been assumed, Menavino was no longer alive when his work came to print. This fact is proved by the large number of mistakes contained in the printed versions and especially by the dedication of the edition Florence 1548. A detailed analysis makes it unambiguously clear that it has been written during the reign of Sultan Selim I (1512–1520), and thus long before 1548. As between 1519 and 1548 no historical information on Menavino can be found, it may be assumed that the author had died soon after having finished his account. Besides the vicissitudes of Menavinoʼs biography and the peculiarities of the textual tradition, the “Liber de rebus et moribus Turcarum” is of great interest for historical linguistics and lexicography. This fact is illustrated by an exemplary analysis of the Turkish loanwords that appear in the text.
