Shahnameh republished in complete Italian edition after century
Iran’s epic poem the Shahnameh (Book of Kings) by Ferdowsi has been republished in Italy in a complete and unified Italian translation, nearly a century after its last full release.
The new edition is presented as the first fully coherent and readable Italian publication of the Shahnameh, and is based on the historic translation by Italo Pizzi, an Italian scholar of Persian language and literature who produced the first and only complete translation of the work into a European language between 1886 and 1888, IRNA reported on Monday.
Pizzi’s translation gained prominence during Italy’s Risorgimento, the 19th-century movement that led to national unification, when Ferdowsi’s narrative of warrior princes and state-building was seen by some Italian nationalist circles as aligning with their political ideals.
The current edition has been released by Luni Editrice and revised by Simone Cristoforti, a professor at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, to ensure terminological consistency and conceptual fidelity while preserving the literary character of the 19th-century translation.
Published in six volumes totaling 4,112 pages, the set is priced at 250 euros. The first volume includes a 16-page color supplement featuring reproductions of some of the oldest known miniatures illustrating scenes from the Shahnameh.
The Shahnameh is Iran’s national epic poem, written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi around the late 10th and early 11th century and completed around 1010 CE. It consists of about 50,000 couplets and narrates the mythological, legendary, and historical past of Iran. The poem focuses on kings and heroes and plays a central role in preserving Persian language and cultural identity.
The Shahnameh is one of the most important works of Persian literature and has been translated into many languages, including Arabic, English, French, German, Russian, and several others, reflecting its global literary significance.