Journal of Italian Translation

In Answer to a Translator’s Last Six Questions
(Raffaello Baldini 1924-2005)
by Adria Bernardi
Adria Bernardi’s novel, Openwork, will be published in fall 2006
by Southern Methodist Univerity Press. She is the author of In the Gathering
Woods, a collection of stories, which was awarded the Drue Heinz Prize,
and a novel, The Day Laid on the Altar, which was awarded the Bakeless
Fiction Prize. She has translated Gianni Celati’s Adventures in Africa, the
poetry of Tonino Guerra, Abandoned Places, and a theatrical monologue by
Raffaello Baldini, Page Proof. She teaches at the Warren Wilson MFA Program
for Writers.
Born in 1924 in Santarcangelo di Romagna, Raffaello Baldini published
six poetry collections, all written in the romagnolo dialect of Italian:
E’ solitèri (Galeati, 1976), La náiva (Einaudi, 1982), Furistír (Einaudi, 1988),
Ad nòta (Mondadori, 1995), as well as La nàiva, Furistír, Ciacri (Einaudi,
2000). Intercity, was published by Einaudi in 2003. His collection Furistír
was awarded the Viareggio Prize. Baldini wrote three theatrical monologues:
Carta canta, Zitti tutti! and In fondo a destra. He died in Milan in
March of 2005
In the poem “Water,” what does concredendo mean?
It means only “credendo.” Believing. There are no further allegorical,
liturgical or philosophical significances to this con-credendo, with prefix?
It’s not an old word, dialect word, with multiple meanings, meanings on
multiple levels? No.
In the poem, “Water,” do the friends, with whom the narrator attends
the spectacle in the theater, remain in their seats? Correct. They do
not accompany him up onto the stage to confront the huckster-performer
wearing the shabby jacket? Correct.
After fleeing the lower levels of the theater that has flooded with water,
the narrator climbs flight-of-stairs after flight-of-stairs, opens door after
door, and meets a card-reader with cards all laid out on a table; is this
card-reader a man or a woman? I think it’s probably a man.
What does the dialect term o roviè mean? in your poem, “Candles.” It
just means ho cominciato — I started. That’s it? That’s it.
Un bel piatto? The translator wants to get this exactly right. He exhales.
How can I explain it? He was in great pain. Each word cost him.
Not a small plate. Not a huge plate. A plate substantial enough to hold a
candle when you’re coming upstairs from some dark place.
About the phrase, È qualcosa di vivo—something living, something