Italian translations and editions of Thomas More’s Libellus vere aureus

The translations of More’s Libellus vere aureus published in Italy in the sixteenth-nineteenth centuries share long titles. The first Italian translation was printed in Venice in 1548 by Aurelio Pincio, edited by Anton Francesco Doni and translated by Ortensio Lando. More’s utopian project landed in a country where Leon Battista Alberti, Filarete, Francesco di Giorgio Martini, and da Vinci had theorized ideal cities and societies throughout the fifteenth century and Roseo, Anton Francesco Doni, Agostini, and Campanella would take up the legacy of utopian thought in the later sixteenth century. The next Italian edition was published in 1821, and the following was published in 1863 together with Campanella’s La Città del Sole and an Italian utopia by Gozzi. More’s text received great critical attention after World War II. L’Utopia o la migliore forma di repubblica (1942) was translated and edited by Tommaso Fiore, a prominent anti-Fascist intellectual. L’Utopia (1945) offers a fine translation by Roberto Bartolozzi and a preface by Alberto Savinio, who advocated the centrality of utopian thought in Western civilization. Utopia (2015) is the latest translation from Latin, by Maria Lia Guardini. In January 2016 its publisher launched Utopia500, a project involving a range of cultural initiatives.