Benjamin Franklin

The influence exerted by Italy upon Benjamin Franklin pales into relative insignificance by comparison with the impact of Franklin upon Italy. Franklin never set foot on Italian soil; and the pressures of an inordinately busy life forced what interest he may have felt in Italy into a limbo outside the normal range of his activity. Small wonder that the late Senator Luigi Rava, in a widely diffused study of Franklin's Italian fortune, could come to the conclusion that his country occupied no place whatsoever in the consciousness of the great American. "Benjamin Franklin," he declared, "did not know Italy and did not study her history, glories, vicissitudes, sorrows, aspirations! And he did not feel her influence. He never went to Rome and did not try to understand her spirit... As far as Italy is concerned, he confesses candidly that if he had been able to take a trip to Italy and had been able to find the recipe for Parmesan cheese, this would have given him more pleasure than the most beautiful inscriptions on the most ancient stone!"

The evidence needs to be considered carefully, not only because from it can be deduced an underestimated ingredient in the intellectual complexion of our greatest American, but also because, in ways more or less subtle, Franklin's positive concern with Italy served to make his personality and thought more acceptable to the Italians. Information to belie Rava's contention is easily found. Anyone familiar with the famous autobiography knows, for example, that even as a youth Benjamin Franklin found it useful to read Italian. The fascinating page containing his earliest mention of the Italian language is at the same time the first recorded instance of the systematic study of Italian by an American.

Unfortunately, Benjamin Franklin offers no details regarding the circum stances of his first study of Italian. We do not know who his chessloving companion was, or what texts, grammars, and dictionaries were used. Even the specific motives that induced Franklin to undertake the study of Italian are uncertain. He later found Italian a useful stepping-stone to the mastery of Latin, and could not resist making the unorthodox recommendation to pedagogs that Latin be approached through French and Italian rather than vice versa; but this advantage of knowing Italian he had not foreseen.

Could he have been inspired by personal contacts with Italians in this country, or in England, which he had visited in 1725? Or by association with some friend who appreciated Italy's contributions to civilization-the preacher Cotton Mather, for example, or the colonial scholar James Logan? The spark could have been kindled as well by a youthful interest in Italian drama and music, whose universal popularity did so much to establish the vogue of the Italian language beyond the Alps. At the time of Benjamin Franklin's first madcap visit to London, Italian troupes regularly offered their wares at the New Haymarket Theatre, and operas in the Italian manner were frequently given.

More likely, a knowledge of Italian was a necessity dictated by Franklin's passion for reading. It is well known, for instance, that much of Benjamin Franklin's literary education was acquired in James Logan's remarkable library at Stenton, later bequeathed to the city of Philadelphia. A note in Franklin's draft scheme of the autobiography reads "Logan fond of me. his library." In a letter of the year 1749 Franklin thanks Logan for lending him his copy of Alessandro Marchetti's Italian translation of Lucretius. Furthermore, Logan's library contained a fair number of Italian writers who could not have failed to attract Benjamin Franklin's attention-Guicciardini, Machiavelli, Castiglione, Trajano Boccalini, Ramusio, Palladio-not to mention such items as Italian translations of Xenophon and Tacitus. Evidence of a somewhat astonishing range of interest in Italian things can be culled from all stages of Benjamin Franklin's life and work.