Впервые исследуется перевод комедии Н. Макиавелли (1469-1527) «Мандрагора» А.Н. Островским, рассматриваются эстетические принципы русского драматурга, проявившиеся в его переводе одной из первых комедий характера в итальянском театре XVI в. Перевод относится к последнему периоду творчества Островского (1883-1886 гг.). В центре внимания Островского-переводчика, дорожившего точностью переводимого текста, - передача образного итальянского языка, сохранение и донесение до русского читателя богатства многообразных форм пословиц, поговорок, идиом, авторских ремарок в процессе создания национальных характеров.

The article attempts to show the nature of the translation of N. Machiavelli's comedy The Mandrake by the Russian playwright A.N. Ostrovsky. The translation refers to the last period of the creative work of Ostrovsky (1883-1886) and marks the end of his work with the collection of plays by Italian playwrights. Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) wrote the comedy in a difficult period, when he was withdrawing from all political and social affairs and writing classical works: The Emperor and The Discourses on Livy. Machiavelli is a playwright of the late Italian Renaissance who entered into controversy with the notion of personality formed by the Renaissance. The Mandrake attracted Ostrovsky for its realistic portrayal of national characters in the ordinary material. It occupies a special place in the literature of the late Renaissance. Based on the book of short stories of The Decameron [Story Six of Day 3], Machiavelli changed the criterion in the evaluation of a personality that happened to be in new historical circumstances. He focused on the character of the hero in the process of achieving his goals. This bold transition from the universal character of the person of the Renaissance to the person's ability to develop manifested the humanistic nature of Machiavelli's position. The Mandrake, in its genre identity, showed the "possibilities" of man from the point of his faults, but it determined the imaging of complex, contradictory characters and the creation of a new genre, different from the ancient one: a comedy of characters. In his translation, Ostrovsky maintains a satirical comedy focus and seeks to embody national characters on stage. The main work of the playwright is associated with the desire to convey the mobility and fluidity of The Mandrake characters when they are achieving goals "useful" for them, to show the inevitability and regularities of changes of characters under the influence of circumstances. The Mandrake was groundbreaking on the Italian stage; it foreran the theater of Goldoni, the theatre of the "square" and the Italian vernacular. These features were in the focus of Ostrovsky as a translator who focused on the accurate communication of the figurative Italian language on the preservation and presentation to the Russian reader of the wealth of the diverse forms of proverbs and idioms and on the introduction of the perfect form of the national Italian theater of the 14th century, the theater of characters.