Today I finished digitizing this title, the only translation into Italian of portions of the American Book of Common Prayer between 1909 and 1999:
Ristretto del Libro delle Preghiere Pubbliche della Chiesa Episcopale.
Selections from the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.
New York: Foreign-Born Americans Division, Department of Missions, 1922.
Part of what I found most interest about working with this book is that it’s diglot—with English and Italian on facing pages, rather than a plain translation. The translator notes that the book was “published for the private use of Italians in America that they may understand and follow more readily the services of the Episcopal Church.” Unlike earlier translations for “foreign-born Americans,” then, this envisions I think a transitional stage in which Italian speakers will also understand and learn English. The usual notion of celebrating in a non-English language—as explicit in Italian translations published in 1909 and 1999—is not quite the same here.
Richard Mammana 