Lives in Translation: Celestino Massucco

Celestino Massucco (Cádiz 1748 - Genoa 1830) was Genoese, though his mother was Argentinian. In 1760 he entered the religious order of the Scolopian fathers. He started teaching literature in high schools and later was promoted to the chair in rhetoric at the University of Genoa.

During the Ligurian Republic (1797-1805) he left the religious life and embraced the hectic political life of the small republic. He joined the Constitutional Society, founded the newspaper Giornale degli amici del Popolo and translated plays and essays from French to Italian. Massucco wrote thirty editorials of the Giornale degli amici del popolo. He invited his readership to avoid any extremism and to live following the republican values instead of simply preaching them. After the end of the Ligurian republic, Massucco left the political life and went back to the religious life while assisting as private secretary the bishop of Genoa. This return to the religious life should not overshadow the importance of the revolutionary commitment of Massucco.

Besides this participation in political life, Massucco translated two French texts which had important consequences for the Ligurian Republic: Le Contrat social by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the play Caius Gracchus by Marie-Joseph Chénier. Massucco provided an excellent translation of Rousseau’s text which circulated widely in Italy.

But even more revelatory of Massucco’s support of radical republicanism is the translation of Caius Gracchus. Chénier’s play was published at the beginning of 1792. It exalted the figure of the roman tribune Gracchus who fought for a comprehensive agrarian law and more broadly epitomized the figure of the people’s lawyer. A constant theme of the play is the confrontation between the defence of universal rights, declared by Caius, and the scepticism towards universalism expressed in the words of the consul Opimus who fought to defend aristocratic privileges. The play was particularly resonant in the Genoese context due to the social and political confrontations that tore up the young republic. On the one hand, the old aristocrat families, member of the ruling oligarchy, tried to limit the radicalism of the revolution; on the other hand, a large majority of workers and artisans wanted to achieve true republican equality.

In 1814 Massucco translated Chateaubriand’s De Buonaparte, des Bourbons, et de la necessité de se rallier a nos princes légitimes, pour le bonheur de la France et celui de l'Europe. This text was an open act of accusation against all revolutionary conquests as well as all mistakes committed by the Emperor. At the eve of the Restoration, Massucco’s translation appeared as an attempt to obliterate his past commitment to the revolutionary cause. Yet, his translations of Rousseau and Chénier attest his former commitment to republican principles.