With this book, twenty-four specialists on 17th and 18th-Century Russia from Italy, France, Germany, Poland, Russia, China, and the United States celebrate the sixty-fifth birthday of Maria Cristina Bragone, professor of Slavic philology and Russian literature at Pavia University. Their essays focus on her main topic of interest and research: Peter the Great's era and the origins and consequences of his project to westernize the country. In particular, the articles touch on the evolution of the Russian language as seen in translations into Russian made by non-Russian authors; the genre of the abecedary and the Russian language learning from the mid-17th to the 18th century; cultural import; and the translation of classical and humanistic texts.