The database accessible here contains information collated by Drs. Giacomo Comiati, Lorenzo Sacchini, and Francesco Venturi between January 2017 and December 2019 and overseen by Prof. Simon Gilson and Dr. Federica Pich. The census is based on manuscript and printed sources preserved in libraries in the United Kingdom, Italy, the Vatican City, Spain, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Russia, the US, and Brazil.
The census aims to allow researchers investigating the field of Petrarch exegesis to access a corpus of materials that is sufficiently extensive to facilitate both general overviews as well as closer analyses. The database covers c. 300 printed editions and over 450 manuscript works. It includes records for all the known major Petrarch commentaries (including multiple editions/reprints) and as exhaustive a catalogue as possible of the print editions produced in Italy during this period. It also contains records for a variety of other writings, including academic lectures, discourses and dialogues. Since the research is still in progress, the database may well be subject to alteration and expansion in coming years and will be periodically updated.
This database is built around the Drupal database system, and uses its internal search functionality. For more information on the database and how to use it, please see the 'Database' page. The database has been planned and designed by Steve Ranford from the Academic Technology team (University of Warwick).
The project team also includes Dr. Guyda Armstrong and Julianne Simpson who have supervised the records taken at from prints held at the John Rylands Library, Manchester and have overseen a major digital library that encompasses over 100 works housed there. The project has also benefitted from the collaboration of the Hesburgh Library at the University of Notre Dame.
Remarks, suggestions, comments (including comments on other possible records) are most welcome and should be sent to Simon Gilson.