It is hard, in ordinary cases, to infer from such performances the exact degree of proficiency in the language which they should be presumed to indicate. Some translations are only the fruit of long and careful study.[341] On the contrary, there are instances on record in which excellent translations have been produced by persons possessing a very slight knowledge of the original. Thus Monte, the author of the best Italian translation of Homer, was utterly unacquainted with Greek;[342] Halley, without knowing a word of Arabic, was able to guess his way, (partly by mathematical reasoning, partly by the aid of a Latin version, which, however, only contained about one-tenth of the entire work,) through an Arabic translation of Apollonius De Sectione Rationis;[343] and M. Arnaud, the first French translator of Lalla Rookh, did not know a word of the English language.[344]
But on all these points Mezzofanti’s fame is beyond suspicion. His translations, at least in his later life, were at once produced with the utmost freedom and rapidity, and are universally acknowledged to have been models of verbal correctness; and in most instances where the same passage is translated into many languages, the versions display a remarkable mastery over the peculiar forms and idioms of each.
This wonderful success must be ascribed, no doubt, to his early and systematic exercise in translation, of which the specimen submitted to De Rossi is but one example.
CHAPTER IV.
[1807-1814.]
The Catalogue Raisonné of the Oriental and Greek manuscripts was not completed until 1807, having thus absorbed the greater part of Abate Mezzofanti’s time during two years.
A large proportion of the Oriental MSS. had never even been entered upon the ordinary library catalogue, and no attempt at all had been made to describe them accurately, much less to register their character or contents. Very many of them too, as we learn from Mezzofanti’s letters, were imperfect; and a still more considerable number wanted at least the title and the name of the author. It was no trivial labour, therefore, to examine the entire collection; to decide on the name, the age, and the authorship of each; to describe their contents; and to reduce them all into their respective classes. For most of these particulars the compiler of the catalogue was utterly without a guide. It is true that Joseph Assemani’s catalogue of the Oriental MSS. of the Vatican, and the catalogue of those of the Medicean Library at Florence by his nephew Stephen Evodius, were in some cases available. But many of the Bologna MSS. are not to be found in either catalogue; and for all these Mezzofanti was of course compelled to rely altogether on his own lights.
The catalogue, as drawn up by him, is still preserved, and, notwithstanding these disadvantages, is described as a highly creditable performance, and “a valuable supplement to the labours of Talmar and the Assemanis;”[345] and at all events it was to his long and laborious researches while engaged in its preparation, that he owed that minute familiarity with the whole literature of the East, ancient and modern, which, as we shall see, was a subject of wonder even to learned orientals themselves.
During the year 1807, an opportunity occurred for testing practically how far the reputation which he had acquired corresponded with his real attainments. On the outbreak of hostilities between the Porte and Russia in that year, the Russian ambassador, Italinski, withdrew (not without some risk and difficulty)[346] from Constantinople, and, being conveyed on board the British ship of war, Canopus, to Malta, afterwards made his way to Ancona. While the ambassador remained at Ancona, the chancellor of the embassy, Angelo Timoni, who was of Bolognese origin, came to visit his native city; accompanied by Matteo Pisani, the official interpreter, who was one of the best linguists of his time, and especially a perfect master of all the modern languages of the East. As they resided, during their stay at Bologna, in the house of his friend, Dr. Santagata, their visit was a severe ordeal for Mezzofanti, who was constantly in their society; but he withstood it triumphantly; and Santagata records their wonder and delight to find that, without ever having visited the East, or mixed in Oriental society, the Bolognese professor had nevertheless attained a “mastery over the many and various languages, especially Oriental ones, in which they tried him, and that the marvellous and all but inconceivable accounts which they had received regarding him, proved to be not only credible but actually true.”[347]
A great and lasting mortification nevertheless soon afterwards befel Mezzofanti, in the unexpected deprivation of his beloved professorship. The circumstances which accompanied his removal have not been fully detailed, but there is enough in the history of the period to supply an intelligible explanation. The conflict of Napoleon with the Holy See was just then approaching its crisis. From the beginning of this year the French troops had occupied Rome. Two cardinal secretaries of state had been forcibly ejected from office. The Pope was a prisoner in his own palace and his authority was completely superseded. Now upon these and the many similar outrages to which the venerable Pontiff was daily subjected, the opinions of Mezzofanti were no secret; and there can be no doubt that the determination of the Government to remove him from the university was mainly influenced by this knowledge; although in deference to public opinion, and to the universal feeling of respect with which he was regarded, they abstained from formally depriving him of his professorship. His removal was effected indirectly by a decree, dated November 15, 1808, by which the Oriental professorship itself was suppressed.