First, Evola is not used to being 'allusive', especially in his
political or racial works. Second, the Italian 'ingegnarsi' is the
precise equivalent to the French 's'ingénier', 's'évertuer', which,
no matter on which English dictionary you set your heart, means 'to
try hard to do', 'to strive (hard) to do', 'to do one's utmost to
do' ; thus, "Quanto al Medioevo, come è noto, in esso la Chiesa
s'ingegno' a risuscitare il simbolo supernazionale romano
congiungendolo alle idee della nuova fede e, poi, ad una nuova idea
imperiale, a quella del sacrum imperium" means precisely "In the
Middle Ages, as is well known, the Church tried hard to resuscitate
the supranational Roman symbol by combining with it the ideas of the
new faith to produce a new imperial idea, that of the Sacrum
Imperium", unless you feel like splitting hairs or, as the French
say, to cut a piece of hair into four pieces, and the reason you are
kind of doing it is that you have difficulty believing or imagining
that the Church tried hard to "produce a new imperial idea", that is,
let's say it without beating about the bush, a caricature of the
Sacrum Imperium. The immediate background of the struggle between the
Guelphs and the Ghibellines may have actually lied there.
This must have crossed de Benoist's mind when he wrote 'The Idea of
Empire' (
http://es.geocities.com/sucellus23/telos6.htm ), which,
even though it is one-sided at times, has some points, especially
with respect to the origins of modern conception of sovereignty.
--- In
evola_as_he_is@yahoogroups.com, "vandermok" <vandermok@l...>
wrote:
>
> I see: it depends on the quibbles in translating. Since the
verb "to produce" is not present in the original, I read better the
sentence this way: "combining with it the ideas of the new faith,
and, after, a new imperial idea, the one of the Sacrum Imperium".
> The difference is very subtle, but I doubt that the Church loved
really "to product" a new idea of the empire, but rather to control
the process by consecrating the emperor. Otherwise, the divergence
between Guelphs and Ghibellines have been in vain.
> Also translating the Italian original "s' ingegnò" into "tried
hard" is a bit neutral: in my opinion, the best was the more
allusive "managed".
>
> In <
evola_as_he_is@yahoogroups.com>
> Tony Ciopa <hyperborean@b...> wrote:
>
> This is the full passage:
> "In the Middle Ages, as is well known, the Church tried hard to
resuscitate the supranational symbol by combining with it the ideas
of the new faith to produce a new imperial idea, that of the Sacrum
Imperium (...)."
>