The nine contributions in this volume are edited versions of lectures given at the colloquium ‘Translating regarded historically’, held on 16 and 17october 1993 at the University of Ghent, on the initiative of the ‘contact group Translation studies’ of the Belgian National Funding for Scientific Research. The aim of the colloquium was to relate the history and historiography of translation. This led to a number of studies and reflections of which some focus on aspects of translation history as such, and others on the more theoretical and methodological aspects of thinking about translation in its historical context. Together they cover the entire gamut of translation practice and translation discourse, including the discourse, presenting itself as scientific, of academic translation studies.