The author starts by questioning the role of historical awareness in translation history, mainly discussing D'hulst's concerns and proposals before offering some insights into microhistory. She recalls that the first commitment of micro history is to recover the voice of marginal subjects on the grounds of fragmented and apparently minor date. The author regrets that the role of translators as creative and inventive mediators has been largely ignored in traditional reconstructions. Studying eighteenth-century translations of novels in a cultural area defined as Italian, she found that translations were an important factor in defining the female reading public. Especially at the stages of corpus definition, materials collection, and problem focusing, she comes across many elements that fail to fit into any of the possible existing models.