This brief contribution aims at showing two different translation approaches to the text of Cellini’s Vita based on the translations made by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1796) and Jacques Laager (2000). A comparative analysis of some passages from these translations, which are far away from each other not just in terms of time, reveals that Goethe prefers to act, case by case, in different ways towards the original text, aiming at giving back the full meaning of Cellini’s work, namely its intrinsic complexity and its implicit allusions. Instead, influenced by the commercial implications of our times, Laager prefers an explanatory approach. This analysis allows a further discussion about the idea of fidelity to the original text: for Goethe, it means even to cut words or stress expressions in order to give back the full meaning of the original; for Laager, it means to keep equidistance from the original text and to provide literal translations.
