Penn State Professor of Italian Sherry Roush has received grants from both the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), to support work related to translating “Peregrino,” a 500-year-old literary work by Jacopo Caviceo, from Italian into English.

Published in 1508, “Peregrino” is considered a proto-novel with a "Romeo and Juliet"-style story. The book was a European bestseller in its day, and while there are 21 Italian editions, as well as nine in French and three in Spanish, the story has never been translated into English.