SEARCH
You may search by keyword at any time with the search bar present on every page. The approach to searching manuscripts and prints is to use the 'Filter' options provided alongside the pages for more specific queries. Understanding how the records are constructed will help designing your filter queries.
RECORDS
Manuscript Copy records incorporate the following metadata elements: Creator, Short Title, Form, Copy Seen (with shelf mark), Date, Copyist, Dedicatee, Title Page, Mode of Exegesis, Related to Petrarch’s, Visual Elements, Physical description (size, number of folios, and physical arrangement of the text), Internal Description, Notes, Digital Copy, Bibliography, Online References.
Print Copy records incorporate the following metadata elements: Creator, Short Title, Form, Editor, Printer, Place, Year, Dedicatee, Title Page, Mode of Exegesis, Related to Petrarch’s, Visual Elements, Physical Description, Internal Description, Copy Seen, Notes, Digital Copy, Bibliography, Online References.
For all records of works housed in the John Rylands Library additional information on provenance is provided.
USER NOTES
In using the database the following should be noted:
SHORT TITLE
This field in manuscripts and incunabula is devised to facilitate an overview of the main exegetical contents of the record; hence, reference is made to the presence not only of commentaries and lectures, but also lives, annotations and indexes. When reference is made to annotations and indexes here the indication means that the manuscript copy contains annotations and indexes (it may be either exclusively to Rerum vulgarium fragmenta or to Triumphi or to both: the Physical internal description and/or Notes fields provide further details here). In the case of fifteenth and sixteenth-century prints, a shortened version of the title is provided. This field is devised to facilitate an overview of the main exegetical contents of the record; hence, reference is made to the presence not only of commentaries and lectures, but also lives, annotations and indexes. When reference is made to annotations and indexes here the indication means that the manuscript copy contains annotations and indexes (it may be either exclusively to Rerum vulgarium fragmenta or to Triumphi or to both: the Physical internal description and/or Notes fields provide further details here). In the case of fifteenth and sixteenth-century prints, a shortened version of the title is provided.
COPY SEEN
Library and shelf mark are included for manuscripts and prints; where a record has been made without physical inspection and on the basis of a digital copy this is noted.
DATE
A precise date is provided when available for prints; for manuscripts likely dating is suggested unless other evidence, such as a dated colophon, a reference to an historical event, or the hand of a recognizable copyist or annotator, allows a more precise identification.
MODES OF EXEGESIS
This important field includes five main sub-elements: COMMENTARY, LECTURE, TOOLS FOR THE READER, ANNOTATIONS (for manuscript copies only), LIFE (manuscripts or prints carrying only lives of Petrarch or Laura have not been included in the census). All reprints and known manuscript copies of commentaries are provided; a similar attempt has been made for lectures though we recognize that here further records may well be found. TOOLS FOR THE READER is a purposefully fluid category that contains material that offers assistance and support for the reader, including indexes, short notes of various kinds, epitaphs, glossaries and word lists and in some cases dialogues and even letters and poems. In manuscript copies, the ANNOTATIONS field is signalled when these notes are either sufficiently extensive or sufficiently rich in some parts of the manuscript to merit special attention; where the annotations are scattered and relatively few in number the field is not signalled but these are recorded under Notes. We are conscious that the boundaries between many of these exegetical modes are fluid and permeable (we have included dialogues and letters as sub-categories of commentaries and lectures), and that the terms used in Renaissance Italian to refer to exegesis are rich and polyvalent. We are also conscious that visual elements and typographical features and layout may have an important role to play in how the reader accesses and interprets Petrarch. Our aim is that this field will allow further investigation of the various kinds of exegesis, and related concerns and terminology, found in the period.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Has two elements: 1. format and 2. textblock. For manuscript records format includes, the size of the ms. in mm., foliation, number of folios, while text block refers to the type of material support (paper, parchment) and the physical arrangement of the text on the page, both for Petrarch’s verse and any exegetical material as well as palaeographical notes. For print records, this field contains similar elements as appropriate, but it also provides format (i.e. folio, quarto, octavo, etc.), collation, and any presence of printed numbering. We also make reference to visual elements in this field, including such features as decorations, illuminations, illustrations, portraits, maps, and drawings.
INTERNAL DESCRIPTION
In all cases each section of a given print is recorded, including such features as titles, dedications, addresses, lives, parts of a given commentary or lesson, other poetic compositions, etc.; the incipit and explicit of the relevant modes of exegesis are also provided for manuscripts. For manuscripts, sub-elements are indicated but if the manuscript contains extensive additional and non-Petrarchan material, then reference is on occasion made to other catalogues or sources for a more exhaustive description. Our aim has always been to describe in depth the actual physical object in its individuality and complexity. In this way, we hope to present what texts were normally or more frequently associated with Petrarch’s poems, and to provide a better insight into the historical and geographical context in which these mss. were composed.
DIGITAL COPIES and ONLINE REFERENCES
Whenever possible the records provide relevant links to online reference tools such as ISTC for incunabula and Edit16 for sixteenth-century editions as well as Manus, mirabileweb.it and online library records for manuscripts. These records also refer to open-access digitized copies contained in repositories such as Google Book, Gallica, and digitization undertaken by specific libraries, including the extensive digital library created as part of this project by the John Rylands Library.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
References to essential bibliography is provided as far as possible in the author-date form. The records contain bibliographical references of two kinds in relation to: (1) scholarly references regarding he commentators, academicians, biographers, annotators, printers and editors; and (2) edition- or copy-specific matters found in catalogues or the available secondary literature. A Select Bibliography is also provided as a single list of works.