MEMORIAS DE CLÍO ANECDOTAGE OF AN INTERPRETER: OLIVIA ROSSETTI AGRESTI (1875-1960) Jesús Baigorri-Jalón ne hundred and thirty years have elapsed Our attention was drawn to the fact that, in since Olivia Rossetti Agresti’s birth and 45 choosing the title Anecdotage of an Interpreter,Olivia Osince her death. Thus, her professional life Rossetti Agresti must have considered that her covers the first half of the 20th century, i.e. the first interpreting career had a leading role in the story of her chapter of conference interpreting as we know it —a varied life. This is quite uncommon in the early days of burning question in our officially polyglot European the profession, when very few people —least of all a Union. This paper is inspired in the original title she woman— would have identified themselves with the conceived for a collection of her memoirs that she trade. We are aware that a daughter of William Michael intended to publish towards the end of her life. The Rossetti and a niece of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, both Anecdotage was never finished and remains unpublished, founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, would notwithstanding Ezra Pound’s invitation in a letter surely deserve a brighter and more detailed portrait. addressed to her at the end of 1948: «I think you wd/ However, our picture —based mostly on Agresti’s own make more by candid memoirs than by translating writings—, will focus on aspects related to her activity work inferior to yr/ own…»1. We have had access to as an interpreter, with impressionistic rather than pre- two chapters of the Anecdotage2. Our additional sources Raphaelite results. are unpublished documents from Agresti’s file at the League of Nations (LN)3, as well as the collection of letters between Ezra Pound and Agresti4.In this Olivia Rossetti Agresti’s brief biography (1875-1960) volume we find correspondence from 1937 till 1959, Olivia Rossetti Agresti, the eldest daughter of mostly from the period of Pound’s incarceration in St. William Michael Rossetti, was born in London on Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., as mentally September 30, 1875. In 1892 she and her younger sister unfit to stand trial for treason5. Besides, we have Helen began printing and distributing their own consulted two of Rossetti Agresti’s works: A Girl Among Anarchist journal, The Torch, an adventure described in the Anarchists, written with her sister under the her novel A Girl Among the Anarchists,published under pseudonym of Isabel Meredith6,and David Lubin: A the pseudonym Isabel Meredith in 1903. Study in Practical Idealism7. We wish to acknowledge the help of librarians from the LN Archives in Geneva, the Olivia married author and journalist Antonio Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale Agresti in 1897, and the couple settled in Florence and (particularly Public Services Assistant, Ms Naomi later in Rome. In 1904 she was hired as a secretary and Saito), and Chief Librarian of the United Nations interpreter by David Lubin, founder of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Library in International Institute of Agriculture, and worked Rome, Ms Jane Wu, without whom this research would closely with him until his death during the 1918 not have been possible. We also wish to thank María influenza epidemic. She joined the staff of the Italian Teresa López Lago for her help from New York and delegation to the League of Nations in Geneva in the Anne Barr for revising this text. following year. Throughout her life, she continued to Nº 4, I, 2006 Pliegos de Yuste 84 J ESÚS B AIGORRI-JALÓN work as an interpreter at international conferences held to free him from St. Elizabeth’s. In her later years, in Italy and at the annual assemblies of the League of Agresti began work on a memoir and frequently visited Nations. Schloss Brunnenberg, the home of Pound’s daughter Mary de Rachewiltz. Olivia Rossetti Agresti died in In 1921 she joined the staff of the Italian Association of Joint Stock Companies as the editor of Rome in 1960. their monthly newsletter, a position she held until 1942. After Antonio’s death in 1926, Agresti continued her Background work as editor and interpreter, and also lectured several times in the United States on such topics as «The At the time of Rossetti Agresti’s school age, social Historical Development of the Italian Garden», «The class determined in Britain the education a child Growth of Italian Industries», and the Pre-Raphaelite received, and not even primary education was Movement. She also converted to Roman Catholicism guaranteed for the less privileged in society. It seems and adopted two Italian girls. that she received her education at home, as was the case Agresti’s published works include Giovanni Costa: with a number of children of well-to-do families. His Life, Work and Times (1904); David Lubin: A Study in Although Isabel Meredith describes a fictionalized Practical Idealism (1922); and The Organization of the Arts character, the following words probably reflect and Professions in the Fascist Guild State (1938), the last accurately Agresti’s own experience: with Mario Missiroli. While she disapproved of He [my father] had never sent us to school, preferring to Pound’s antisemitism and his attacks on religion, she watch in person over our education, procuring us private shared his approval of Fascist Italy and his belief that he tuition in many subjects… Our father was a great believer had not committed treason, and in 1954 translated in liberty, and, strange to say, he put his ideas into practice «Prometheus Bound», the text of a Vatican Radio in his own household9. broadcast on Pound’s case, as a contribution to efforts Pliegos de Yuste Nº 4, I, 2006 A NECDOTAGE OF AN I NTERPRETER 85 «Sin título», 2005. Olivia Rossetti Agresti’s father was a civil servant contact with the literary and artistic world was very with an interest in art and literature from a young age. important, particularly for the latter period of her life, «My father was not a Mason; he was agnostic (not an when she had to teach English literature to sustain her Atheist); Shelley was his hero both as poet and man»10.He adopted family. was art critic, biographer and bibliographer. Co- Generally speaking the middle-class youngster knew founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, he was nothing and cared less for the problems from the social secretary and chronicler of that movement. He edited conditions and movement I have outlined. But the young The Germ (the group’s magazine) and composed its Rossettis of the 1890’s had grown up in a different opening sonnet and preface11.Her mother was Ford atmosphere, an atmosphere pervaded by Shelley, Victor Madox Brown’s daughter, so Olivia Rossetti Agresti Hugo, and the trumpet calls of the French Revolution, and and writer Ford Madox Ford were first cousins. Her they listened eagerly to the new ideas that trickled through aunt, Christina Rossetti was a poet. to them from the Socialist and Anarchist speakers who held forth in the Sunday meetings held in the London This family environment explains her linguistic, Parks, where the supporters of the most widely different literary and artistic background. It also accounts for her views, ranging from the Salvation Army (in those days the early political commitment —which lasted all her life butt of rowdy cockney crowds) to the several sects of Christian non-conformists, to Conservatives, Republicans, under different ideological allegiances— and her idealism. Irish Home-Rulers, trade-unionists, and the aforesaid Both the knowledge of languages and the culture générale Socialists and Communists who all expounded their were necessary ingredients for the performance of her several and violently conflicting views under the tasks as a translator and interpreter. Her first-hand protection of the London policemen who looked on to Nº 4, I, 2006 Pliegos de Yuste 86 J ESÚS B AIGORRI-JALÓN maintain order and saw that the rules of the game were poets and philosophers, but none of them in touch with observed. As long as there was no breach of the peace, no Blast or Vortex [respectively paper and movement created interference with traffic, and no direct incitement to crime, by English painter and writer Wyndham Lewis, as a all these varying theologians, economists and politicians derivation from Cubism and Futurism, our note] or any of were free to express their opinions and give vent to their those movements. Of one thing I am glad, and that is that feelings. The English of that day —and I think of this Marx and his doctrines were always repulsive to me; also— have always believed it unwise to «sit on the safety human personality, the right of the individual to express valve». himself, the distrust of bureaucracy and of stifling and It was at these Sunday morning meetings in Regent’s Park, interfering governments. Then the Great war and its great within an easy walking distance of our home, that I and my enthusiasms, and then the great disappointment, and then brother and sister came into contact with the revolutionary the hope that corporativism might bring a solution of the movements which had spread from the Continent to social question outside the dragooning shibboleths of England. And this leads to another chapter in my Social Democracy and then the disappointment of seeing Anecdotage,that ofThe Girl among the Anarchists,the title of «les nains sapant sans cesse l’ouvrage des géants», and all a book I wrote in 1903 jointly with my sister Helen, which the little Jacks in office using their little brief authority to was published by Duckworth (London)12.