La Germania di Tacito e il Futurismo di Marinetti (con un’Appendice sulla traduzione della Germania di Massimo Bontempelli)

Tacitus' «Germania» and the Futurism of Marinetti (with an Appendix on Massimo Bontempelli's Translation of the «Germania». Tacitus’ Germania has a uniquely interesting primacy: that of having been translated by two great major protagonists of the Italian literary and cultural life of the first half of the twentieth century: Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Massimo Bontempelli. The aim of this essay is primarily to retrace the genesis of the translation of the Germania by the founder of the Futurist movement, which does not yet seem to have received the attention it deserves from scholars, and especially from scholars of Germanic antiquities. Despite the curiosity and amazement that the daring juxtaposition of Marinetti, declared enemy of classicism, to the name of Tacitus should have aroused, this translation has remained, in fact, among the less known works of Marinetti’s varied production, also in the field of translation. In the Appendix to this essay we will offer a first introductory account of Bontempelli’s translation.