The eleven articles in this collection focus on politics in the widest sense and its influence and visibility in translations from the early Middle Ages to the late Renaissance -- from Eusebius' translation of Virgil to Shakespeare's adaptation of the story of Titus Andronicus. Written by medievalists and Renaissance scholars, they are part of the recent "cultural turn" in translation studies, which approaches translation as an activity powerfully affected by its socio-political context and the demand of the translating culture.