Special Collections
Leone Traverso
1. GENERAL INFORMATION
1.1 Library
Biblioteca di Lingue e Letterature Straniere "Leone Traverso"
1.2 Collection name
Leone Traverso
1.3 Biographical notes
“Traverso was a poet who accomplished himself through translations.
Traverso’s poetry was translation.
This made him a special translator, unparalleled in some ways.”
Mario Luzi (1)
Leone Traverso (Bagnoli di Sopra, 1910-Urbino, 1968), who was a German language and literature and German philology professor at the University of Urbino, left a large library collection of about 5,000 volumes to the University of Urbino. Carlo Bo arranged the collection to be housed in the hall of Palazzo Petrangolini, the headquarters of the former Language Institute (2) .
He completed his classical studies in 1928 at Liceo Tito Livio in Padua and then he continued his studies by enrolling first in Ancient Literatures at the University of Florence, but then switching to Modern Literatures.
Nel capoluogo toscano conobbe Carlo Bo e gli altri che costituiranno il gruppo degli “ermetici”: Oreste Macrì, Piero Bigonciari, Mario Luzi e Renato Poggioli. Nel 1932 – dopo un soggiorno a Vienna dove studiò l’opera di Rainer Maria Rilke – si laureò con Giorgio Pasquali discutendo una tesi sul poeta austriaco.
From 1932 to 1934, he taught Latin and Greek in high schools in La Spezia and Arezzo, then moved to the Venetian countryside, in Conselve, to dedicate himself to his literary studies and his work as a translator. In 1935 he spent a year in Berlin, having won a research scholarship: there he met the writer Felix Hartung. In 1937, his first translation – the poetic collection “Duino Elegies” by Rilke – was published. And so he began his activity as a translator (of German literature in particular: Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Friedrich Hölderlin, Heinrich von Kleist, etc., but also of Greek tragedians: Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles) and as a contributor to magazines, newspapers, and radio programs.
Then he took many trips abroad, especially to Germany and Austria; in 1939, he spent some time in Cologne and then in Paris. He lived in Venice from 1943 until the end of WW2; in 1946, he moved to Florence, and in the following years, he visited Munich, Vienna, and Tübingen, almost always for work reasons.
From 1951, he began teaching courses in “German Language and Literature” and “German Philology” at Facoltà di Magistero of the University of Urbino, of which Carlo Bo was dean. He spent the last years of his life, troubled by serious health problems, in Urbino during the university semesters and in Florence during the holidays. He died suddenly in Urbino on August 28, 1968, and, according to his wishes, was buried in Urbino’s cemetery.
He donated his personal library to the University of Urbino: now the collection, together with his correspondence and the typescripts of his translations and poems, is located in Istituto di Lingue e Letterature Straniere, which also bears his name.
According to Carlo Bo, Traverso was the “great mediator” together with Macrì and Poggioli for the emergence of hermetic poetry in Florence.
(1) LUZI, Mario, Senza addio, in Oreste Macrì e Leone Traverso: due protagonisti del Novecento: Critica-traduzione-poesia: Atti del Convegno di Studi, Urbino, 1-2 ottobre 1998, (a cura di Gualtiero de Santi e Ursula Vogt), Schena, Fasano di Brindisi, 2007, p.16.
(2) VOGT, Ursula, Traverso, Leone, in Maestri di Ateneo: i docenti dell’Università di Urbino nel Novecento, (a cura di Anna Tonelli), Urbino, Quattroventi, 2013, pp. 531-539
1.4 Date and methods of acquisition
The Leone Traverso Collection was donated to the University of Urbino thanks to his heirs.
1.5 Collection history
By Rectoral Decree No. 473/92, Professor Ursula Vogt was appointed Director of the Traverso Collection.
1.6 Collection increase
No further material is expected to be added to the collection.
1.7 Collection indexing
All monographs have been catalogued. The catalogue is available for consultation on Sistema bibliotecario nazionale (opac.sbn.it), on Polo SBN Marche Nord and on the University Opac.
1.8 Collection accessibility
The collection, catalogued and made available to the public, can be accessed online.
2. DESCRIPTION
In the collection cann be found works by G. Benn, S. George, J. W. von Goethe, F. Hölderlin (including his translation of Hymns and Fragments, Florence, Vallecchi, 1955), H. von Hofmannsthal, H. von Kleist, R. M. Rilke, G. Trakl, P. Éluard, T. S. Eliot, J. Joyce, E. Pound, L. de Gongora. A large section is dedicated to Greek and Latin classics, including works by Aeschylus (including his translation of Tragedies, Florence, Vallecchi, 1961), Euripides, Sophocles, Pindar. The section on 20th-century Italian literature shows his affinity with contemporary poetic trends (3), particularly with the hermetic movement. Authors such as P. Volponi, C. Bo, G. Ungaretti, S. Quasimodo, E. Montale, A. Gatto, T. Landolfi, M. Luzi ca be found. The collection also includes issues of literary journals to which he contributed, such as “Paragone”, “Il Frontespizio”, and “Letteratura”.
(3) BO, Carlo, Ricordi di Leone Traverso e di Oreste Macrì, in Oreste Macrì e Leone Traverso: due protagonisti del Novecento: Critica-traduzione-poesia: Atti del Convegno di Studi, Urbino, 1-2 ottobre 1998, (a cura di Gualtiero de Santi e Ursula Vogt), Schena, Fasano di Brindisi, 2007, p.19.
2.1 Extent
The collection consists of about 5.000 monographs.
2.3 Description identifier, organization, and placement
The collection is divided into section marked with the following locations:
Identifier Description
F.T. 01 A German Literature
F.T. 01 B German Studies
F.T. 02 A French Literature
F.T. 02 B French Studies
F.T. 03 A Anglo-American Literature
F.T. 03 B Anglo-American Studies
F.T 04 A Spanish and Hispanic-American Literature
F.T. 04 B Hispanic Studies
F.T. 05 A Latin Literature
F.T. 05 B Greek Literature
F.T.06 A Italian Literature
F.T.06 B Italian Studies
F.T. 07 Non-fiction
F.T. 08 Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
2.3 Scope and content
Texts of criticism and literature in German, French, Anglo-American, Spanish, and Italian. Translations of classical Greek and Latin literature.
2.3 State of conservation
Well preserved.
3. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND DOCUMENTATION
3.1 Bibliography and documentation
BO, Carlo, “Ricordi di Leone Traverso e di Oreste Macrì”, in Oreste Macrì e Leone Traverso: due protagonisti del Novecento: Critica-traduzione-poesia: Atti del Convegno di Studi, Urbino, 1-2 ottobre 1998, (a cura di Gualtiero de Santi e Ursula Vogt), Schena, Fasano di Brindisi, 2007, p.19.
LUZI, Mario, Senza addio, in Oreste Macrì e Leone Traverso: due protagonisti del Novecento: Critica traduzione-poesia: Atti del Convegno di Studi, Urbino, 1-2 ottobre 1998, (a cura di Gualtiero de Santi e Ursula Vogt), Schena, Fasano di Brindisi, 2007, p.16.
VOGT, Ursula, “Traverso, Leone”, in Maestri di Ateneo: i docenti dell’Università di Urbino nel Novecento, (a cura di Anna Tonelli), Urbino, Quattroventi, 2013, pp. 531-539
4. NOTES
4.1 Notes and special reports
https://fondazionebo.uniurb.it/centenario-della-nascita-di-leone-traverso-10-aprile-2010/
https://mete.uniroma2.it/2017/05/17/leone-traverso/
PERMALINK TO THE CATALOGUE
COMPLIER'S NAME
Michele Bartolucci