ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book offers a study of two textual practices that were widely used in medieval and Renaissance Europe but has remained outside the scope of Western translation history. It analyzes extant texts that are the product of collaborative and multilingual translation, as well as references to these practices found in prefaces, notes, and theoretical reflections. The book interrogates the notion of national literary traditions as one of the main conceptual difficulties that is still faced for studying the products of collaborative and multilingual translation-and for considering these products as coherent texts in the first place. It aims to place the paradox of translation's difficulty in the historical context in which it takes shape, in order to interrogate the marvelous effects it produces and to highlight the conceptual possibilities it excludes.
