Juan Rivera, traductor ilustrado en la España del Trienio Liberal

The aim of this paper is to investigate the works and profile of Juan Rivera –a Spanish translator publishing during the Liberal Triennium– and his influence on the drafting of the first Spanish Penal Code. We will analyse the prefaces and other peritextual elements he added to his three retranslations of relevant Enlightenment works, one of them being On Crimes and Punishments by Cesare Beccaria. Much of its fortune depended on the reception of its translations, first of all the French one by André Morellet, who transformed the philosophical Italian essay into a legal treatise, since he was guided by the idea of writing a useful tool for the French Nation. In Spain, the first translation of Beccaria’s work (1774) appeared during the Carlos III kingdom, but soon was banned by the Inquisition. The second one (1821), on the other hand, is fully in line with the ferment and expectations of the liberal age. His translator, Juan Rivera declared a manifest willingness to influence the political debate of his age. He did the same with two other translations of relevant essays published in the same period, i.e. The Science of Legislation by Filangieri and A Tratise on Political Economy by Say.