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Mazzino Montinari | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1928-04-04)April 4, 1928 |
| Died | November 24, 1986(1986-11-24) (aged 58) |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Citizenship | Italy |
| Occupation | Scholar ofGermanistics |
Mazzino Montinari (4 April 1928 – 24 November 1986) was an Italian scholar ofGermanistics. A native ofLucca, he became regarded as one of the most distinguished researchers onFriedrich Nietzsche, and harshly criticized the edition ofThe Will to Power, which he regarded as a forgery, in his bookThe Will to Power Does Not Exist.
After the end of fascism in Italy, Montinari became an active member of theItalian Communist Party, for which he took up the translation of German writings. During 1953, when he visitedEast Germany for research, he witnessed theUprising of 1953. Later, after the suppression of the1956 Hungarian Revolution, he drifted away from orthodoxMarxism and his career in party organizations. He did, however, retain his membership in the Italian Communist Party and stayed true to the aims of socialism.
At the end of the 1950s, withGiorgio Colli, who had been his high school teacher in the 1940s, Montinari began to prepare an Italian translation of Nietzsche's works. After reviewing the available collection of Nietzsche's published works and the unpublished manuscripts held inWeimar, Colli and Montinari decided to begin a new critical edition.[1] This edition, which became the scholarly standard, was published in Italian by Adelphi inMilan, in French byÉditions Gallimard inParis, in German byWalter de Gruyter and in Dutch by Sun (translated by Michel van Nieuwstadt). Of particular help for this project was Montinari's ability to decipher Nietzsche's nearly unreadable handwriting, which before him had been transcribed only by Peter Gast (bornHeinrich Köselitz).Stanford University Press is in the midst of publishing "the first complete, critical, and annotated English translation" of Nietzsche's works, which will also be based on the Colli-Montinari edition.[1]
In 1972, Montinari and others founded the international journalNietzsche-Studien, to which Montinari remained a significant contributor until his death. Through his translations and his commentary on Nietzsche, Montinari demonstrated a method of interpretation based on philological research instead of hasty speculations. He saw value in placing Nietzsche in the context of his time, and to this end, he and Colli began a critical collection of Nietzsche's correspondence.
Montinari died inFlorence in 1986.
