In the Translators’ Note which appears in the first edition of his 1942 translation of Rilke, Giaime Pintor defends his right to make arbitrary translational and anthological choices. Placed sometimes at the beginning, sometimes at the end of different editions, the note changes over time, occassionally entering into a dialogue with other prefaces (such as Fortini’s) and implicitly with the editorial presentation of the text which is intended to sanction the poetic voice of the translator, who Vincenzo Mengaldo consecrated as on the Italian poets of the Twentieth Century.