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Italian to English: Biography Detailed field: Poetry & Literature
Source text - Italian
Lorenzo Villoresi profumiere
Lorenzo Villoresi nasce a Firenze in un austero palazzo di una delle più antiche strade cittadine. Ancor oggi integra nel suo severo tessuto architettonico, via de' Bardi, assediata dalla compatta macchia verde che a balze scende dalla Costa Scarpuccia, prende nome da una delle più illustri famiglie del patriziato mercantile medievale, che proprio qui aveva i suoi fondachi. I Bardi, grandi banchieri, dominarono per secoli la scena politico-economica di quella pionieristica Firenze repubblicana, già signora delle rotte orientali e leader indiscussa - con la Serenissima - nella trasformazione e diffusione delle merci più preziose.
Una suggestione all'avventura, al viaggio, al recupero di tradizioni e storie perdute, che è stata pienamente accolta e fatta propria da Lorenzo Villoresi. Cosmopolita per sangue, vocazione, curiosità, egli appartiene ad una famiglia che racchiude in sé le origini più diverse. Una cultura nutrita di un patrimonio di ricordi, usi e linguaggi differenti, vissuta con consapevolezza anche nel quotidiano.
Ancestrali savoiardi, tra cui un Carlo de Loche, salgariano capitano di vascello, i cui innumerevoli souvenirs de voyage, cosmorama orientalistico ottocentesco, raccontano di mari lontani, si mescolano all'immagine di una nonna ungherese il cui grande ritratto domina lo studio di Lorenzo. Il vecchio ceppo toscano in cui tutti questi rami si innestano, è di quelli scarni e schietti, sottilmente ironici, ma insieme sofisticati e speculativi, di quella gente che, appartata nella campagna più civile del mondo, coltiva allo stesso modo gli olivi e le antiche memorie di casa. Un'infanzia libera, trascorsa nella villa di famiglia alle pendici di Monte Morello a stretto contatto con la natura, i suoi ritmi stagionali e i suoi segreti, con un mondo rurale ora quasi totalmente scomparso, lasceranno un'impronta profonda. Figura chiave di questa iniziazione al mondo naturale, all'amore e alla conoscenza delle specie botaniche e delle loro proprietà terapeutiche, fu il padre Luigi. Testimone e partecipe di un'epoca fervida e appassionante e di una Firenze che ancora si proponeva come generosa officina di cultura, egli coniugava arte e letteratura alla semplice vita di campagna. La casa familiare, splendido edificio di fondazione altomedievale, ampliato nel Quattrocento, è un privilegiato terreno di gioco e fantasie. La lunghissima loggia, le tempere di Bartolomeo Pinelli e gli affreschi neoclassici del Sarti, i lucidi pavimenti di cotto consunti dai secoli, le vaste misteriose cantine, divengono, come il giardino murato, hortus conclusus, tracciato di bossi rigorosi, limoni ed aranci amari, luogo eletto di incantamenti anche olfattivi. Il richiamo dell'Oriente, dove Lorenzo si recherà durante gli anni universitari, irrompe costantemente nella vicenda dei Villoresi. Nei primi difficili anni del dopoguerra infatti, sua madre, Clarissa Villoresi, aveva coraggiosamente percorso a ritroso le vie degli antichi mercanti toscani, aprendo al Cairo una boutique che proponeva il più raffinato artigianato fiorentino. La capitale egiziana, vero crocevia internazionale, dove si potevano incontrare re spodestati e spie, attivisti dei nascenti movimenti politici mediorientali e membri del jet-set, viveva allora un momento particolarmente intenso. Racconti e ricordi di questa esperienza dei genitori, entrano nel bagaglio emotivo ed immaginario di Lorenzo. Ecco che qualche anno dopo, per approfondire e completare i propri studi di filosofia classica, prenderà la strada di un Oriente che in qualche modo già gli apparteneva.
Sulle tracce di antiche culture, quella ebraica soprattutto, ma anche l'egizia e la mesopotamica, apparentemente lontanissime, ma in realtà così incidenti sulla nostra, egli trascorrerà in Medioriente lunghi periodi di studi e viaggi. Laggiù, dove sviluppa una tesi di laurea sull'impegnativo tema dell'idea della morte nel pensiero giudaico arcaico ed ellenistico, scoprirà il mondo delle essenze e dei profumi, oltre ai sapori e agli usi di quelle terre. Lunghi viaggi senza una meta precisa. La ricerca di spezie aromatiche e di oli fragranti, diviene occasione di percorsi in solitaria avventura, liberi, pensati senza orari o tappe prestabilite, soprattutto senza fretta: una disponibilità al destino che porta ad un continuo arricchimento. Interi giorni spesi al bazaar del Cairo, al mercato Omdurman di Khartoum, nel cuore tormentato della vecchia Gerusalemme, senza obiettivi precisi, ma ogni volta ricchi di scoperte e di incontri. Sulle montagne del Sinai, vicino all'antico monastero di Santa Caterina, in luoghi allora poco frequentati, Lorenzo apprende dai beduini la tradizione delle piante officinali del deserto, tramandata oralmente. Viene a conoscenza dell'habaq, spezia autoctona usata in infusione, e di altre specie con proprietà diverse. Dall'Oriente dunque scaturisce una sorgente di odori e sensazioni chiamate a nutrire la volontà precisa di restaurare la desueta tradizione della Scuola fiorentina di profumeria. Un corpus composito e percorso da vivaci fermenti, attualizzato da una prolungata immersione nella New York dei nostri giorni, cuore pulsante del mondo contemporaneo.
Il profumo, afferma Villoresi, deve divenire «luogo» privilegiato di proposizione di se stessi, sfumatura del proprio pensiero, moto dell'anima più o meno rivelato, una porta d'accesso serrata o aperta agli altri, occasione, gioco, veicolo di seduzione. La ricerca si snoda sempre più in profondità, tramite una gamma di essenze importante, difficile da dominare. Una griglia di elementi radicatamente toscani, come l'assoluta di alloro, il Laurus nobilis dei poeti, o ancestralmente pregiati e imprescindibili come la bianca radice dell'iris. Essenze care alla tradizione occidentale vengono rivisitate con rispetto, ma più spesso con piglio ironico e stregonesco, mescolate e sovvertite dagli stordimenti mistici, dalle drogate ebrezze di un Oriente conosciuto ed amato. Ne nascono profumi ricercati, sia per i sofisticati metodi di produzione artigianale, che per la scelta di materie nobili - seta, cuoio, cristallo, argento - per scatole e flaconi. Quello che Villoresi vuole comunicare è il rispetto e la continuità di una tradizione dismessa, ma nata preziosa, come era quella della profumeria fino alle soglie dell'età contemporanea. Lo muove la volontà di ricostruire un'arte in tutti i suoi più segreti tasselli. Un mondo da disvelare a poco a poco, da rapportare, anche conflittualmente e senza inutili rimpianti, all'attuale, grazie anche all'uso di materiali capaci di attraversare il tempo, riconoscibili nel loro intrinseco valore da noi, come lo furono dagli antichi. Profumi dunque che sono riflessi della personalità del loro creatore, ma ancor più, per la loro estrema, rigorosa incisività, per la loro complessa ricchezza, personale manifestazione di quanti li vogliono per sé. Fragranze che vivono sul filo contraddittorio dell'inattuale, lontane dai clamori del consumismo contemporaneo, come dalle abusate nostalgie di un passato tanto spesso poco conosciuto, mistificato, comunque irripetibile.
Cesare Cunaccia
Translation - English
Lorenzo Villoresi - perfumer
Lorenzo Villoresi was born in Florence, in an austere town house on one of the city’s oldest streets. Its sober architectural fabric still untouched, via de’ Bardi, surrounded by the compact green maquis that cascades down from Costa Scarpuccia, takes its name from one of the most illustrious families of the medieval mercantile aristocracy, whose warehouses were located along this very street. The Bardis were a great banking family who dominated the political and economic scene of the pioneering Republic of Florence, which already ruled over Eastern shipping routes and was the undisputed leader – together with the Republic of Venice – in the processing and distribution of the most valuable commodities.
Lorenzo Villoresi has drawn fully on this desire for adventure, to travel and to recover forgotten stories and traditions and made it his own. A cosmopolitan by blood, vocation and curiosity, he belongs to a family that springs from the most diverse sources and has developed a rich culture of diverse memories, customs and languages that are consciously applied even in everyday life. It includes ancestral Savoyards, including one Carlo de Loche, a ship’s captain worthy of Emilio Salgari, whose innumerable travel souvenirs form a nineteenth-century Oriental cosmorama, telling stories of far-away seas, mixed with the image of a Hungarian grandmother, whose imposing portrait dominates Lorenzo’s study. The ancient Tuscan family tree into which all these branches are grafted is populated by those typically honest and unfussy, subtly ironic, but at the same time sophisticated and speculative people who live in the most civilised countryside in the world and cultivate olive trees and ancient memories of home in the same way. An unregimented childhood spent with his family at the foot of Monte Morello and in close contact with nature, its seasonal patterns and its secrets, surrounded by an agricultural world which has now all but disappeared, has left a deep imprint. A key figure in this introduction to the natural world, to loving and understanding botanical species and their healing properties, was his father Luigi. A man who witnessed and participated in the dynamic and enthralling life of a Florence that was still a prodigious wellspring of culture, he combined art and literature with the simple life of the countryside. The family home, a magnificent early medieval building that was extended in the fifteenth century, was a favourite place for playing games and exploring fantasies. The extremely long loggia, the tempera paintings by Bartolomeo Pinelli and the neoclassical frescos by Sarti, the polished terracotta floors, worn down by centuries of use, the mysterious and cavernous cellars become, like the walled garden, a horticultural enclosure, dissected by rigid lines of box hedges and planted with lemon and bitter orange trees, a much-loved place for indulging the olfactory senses. The call of the East, where Lorenzo travelled during his years at university, was a constant feature of life in the Villoresi family. In the first few difficult years of the post-war period, his mother, Clarissa Villoresi, had bravely returned along the path travelled by Tuscan traders of old, opening a boutique in Cairo that sold the most highly refined Florentine craftsmanship. The Egyptian capital, a real international crossroads where you could come across dispossessed kings and spies just as easily as activists from the burgeoning Middle Eastern political movements and members of the jet set, was experiencing a particularly intense period of its history. Stories and memories of this experience recounted by his parents form part of Lorenzo’s rich store of emotions and fantasies. Several years later, in order to expand his knowledge and complete his classical philosophy studies, Lorenzo himself set off on the road to the East, a road which was somehow already familiar to him.
On the tracks of ancient cultures, primarily Jewish but also Egyptian and Mesopotamian, seemingly distant but in reality so close to our own, he spent long periods of study and travel in the Middle East, where he researched the dissertation for his degree on the challenging subject of death in Hellenistic and archaic Jewish thinking. He discovered the world of essences and perfumes, as well as the flavours and customs of those distant lands. The journeys were long and had no precise destination. His search for aromatic spices and fragrant oils became an opportunity to go on solitary, unstructured and above all unhurried journeys, free from timetables and precise destinations, with a willingness to accept destiny that led to continuous enrichment. Entire days were spent in the Cairo bazaar, the Omdurman market in Khartoum, the tormented heart of ancient Jerusalem, without any precise objective but always making fascinating discoveries and acquaintances. On the Sinai mountains, near the ancient monastery of Saint Catherine, in areas that were seldom travelled at the time, Lorenzo learned about the medicinal plants of the desert from the knowledge handed down orally by each generation. He learned about habaq, an indigenous spice used in an infusion, and other species with different properties. The East therefore became a source of scents and sensations with which to fulfil Lorenzo’s desire to re-establish the vanishing tradition of Florentine perfumery. This complex life history characterised by lively ferment, was then brought up-to-date by a prolonged period of immersion in present-day New York, the beating heart of the modern world.
Perfume, says Villoresi, introduces you to the world, it is a nuanced illustration of the way you think, a way of revealing your soul to a greater or lesser extent, a gateway open or closed to others, an opportunity, a game, a form of seduction.
The winding search for new scents delves ever deeper, experimenting with a wide assortment of essences that are difficult to control. A range of elements rooted in Tuscan tradition, like laurel absolute, the Laurus nobilis of poets, or historically prized and essential, like the white root of the iris. Essences that are dear to Western traditions are revisited with deference but very often with a pinch of irony and sorcery, blended and subverted to reflect the mystical wonders and inebriation of those well-known and beloved countries of the East. The results are highly refined perfumes, in terms of the sophisticated artisanal production methods and of the sophisticated materials – silk, leather, crystal, silver – used for the boxes and bottles. The message that Villoresi wants to convey is continuity and respect for perfumery, a tradition that may have been forgotten but which was born precious and then treasured until the dawn of the modern era. He is inspired by a desire to reconstruct an art, putting together all its most secret pieces, unveiling this world gradually, updating it without conflict or pointless regrets, using materials that transcend time, the intrinsic value of which is just as recognisable to us as it was to the people of the ancient world. His perfumes therefore reflect the personality of their creator, but in their rich complexity and accurate insight, they are also the personal manifestation of the people who buy them. These are fragrances that teeter on the edge of old-fashioned, far from the clamour of modern consumerism and from a trite nostalgia for a past that is often so mystified, so poorly understood and in any case unrepeatable.
Cesare Cunaccia
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Translation education
Bachelor's degree - University of Salford, UK
Experience
Years of experience: 39. Registered at ProZ.com: Apr 2003. Became a member: Jan 2005.
Credentials
Italian to English (Institute of Translation and Interpreting) French to English (University of Westminster, verified) Spanish to English (University of Westminster, verified) Italian to English (University of Westminster, verified) Portuguese to English (University of Salford, verified)
French to English (University of Salford, verified) Spanish to English (University of Salford, verified) Portuguese to English (Chartered Institute of Linguists) French to English (Chartered Institute of Linguists) Spanish to English (Chartered Institute of Linguists) Portuguese to English (Institute of Translation and Interpreting) French to English (Institute of Translation and Interpreting) Spanish to English (Institute of Translation and Interpreting) Portuguese to English (University of Westminster, verified)
I have been working as a freelance translator, interpreter, editor and voiceover artist for 30 years. I am also an experienced machine translation post-editor. I translate from Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese into ENGLISH. I regularly work for translation agencies in the UK as well as in Italy, Denmark, Spain, Sweden and The Netherlands and for many direct clients.
I undertake translations in a range of areas, including:
- business administration and customer relations
- marketing, market research questionnaires and open ended responses
- medical outcome questionnaires and responses
- legislation, contracts and other legal documents
- politics and international affairs
- finance, economics and labour relations
- education, training, language learning
- travel and tourism
- creative and marketing texts. A selection of the translation projects I have recently completed:
Translation from Italian into English of tender documents for Trenitalia ticketing system (approx. 30,000 words).
Translation from French into English of employee performance review reports (approx. 15,000 words).
Translation from French into English of customer satisfaction survey responses for a major insurance company (approx. 20,000 words).
Translation from Italian into English of customer survey responses for a major car manufacturer (approx. 10,000 words).
Ongoing translations and back translations from Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese of medical outcome questionnaires.
Daily translations from Portuguese and Spanish into English of customer service emails and correspondence for a major producer of toiletries and babycare products (over 100,000 words to date).
Regular translation from Italian into English of the annual sustainability report for a major Italian telecommunications company.
Production of the Italian section of a new 300 page, four language, Visual Dictionary published by Dorling Kindersley – ISBN 0-7513-3681-5.
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Member since Jan '05
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