Overview
Description
285x213 mm. (255x204 mm. flyleaf with very irregular margins); I + 12 + I fols.
paper; sixteenth-century cursive hand; sections of Petrarch’s poems set on left, with prose text of lecture distributed across the page beneath every section of text; single words and expressions of Petrarch’s poems underlined in the text of the lecture.
‘letta nell’Accadem[ia] de gli Insensati il di 7 di Maggio h. 20 m. 10’
fols. Ir: note by later hand ‘Pare anonima ma è parte degli Accademici Insensati’;
fol. Iv: blank;
fols. 1r-12r: anonymous academic lecture on RVF 75 delivered in the Accademia degli Insensati of Perugia (‘letta nell’Accadem[ia] de gli Insensati il di 7 di Maggio h. 20 m. 10’; <inc> Hoggi che al termine è giunto nel quale mi conviene di pagare quel debito, al quale tenuto sono mediante \ le leggi \ raccomandamenti del sup[er]iore n[ostr]o \ di q[uesta] nostra digniss[im]a Accademia\, ancora che io mi troui molto male atto a uscire di questo obligo; <exp> nel p[re]se[n]te son[etto] p[er]cioche no[n] uanno [—] [††]di natura scritte che da esso in un med[esi]mo tempo fossero state fatt[e] [—] diuersi tempi et p[er] cio poteua allhora esser strano et inesso no); 12v: blank.
Material Copy
Biblioteca Civica A. Hortis
Trieste
Italy
The structure of the lecture is rather irregular and proceeds according to the following sequence: illustration of the subject-matter of the poem; first part of the lezione; astronomical/philosophical digression; second part of the lezione; concluding section. According to the anonymous author, the topic of the sonnet is the description of the effects of Laura’s eyes on Petrarch. The author explains passages or obscure phrasing by relying mostly on philosophical sources (Ficino). The astronomical excursus deals with the effects of the sun on the earth. RVF 75 is copied in full at fol. 1r.
Some passages of the ms. are barely legible due to damp; the explicit of the lecture is also affected by pleats in the folio. A section of the upper margin of fol. 1 has been likely cut off: the first part of the lecture’s title seems to be missing.
Originally, this lecture was part of ms. 1717, held at the Biblioteca Augusta of Perugia, which contains other academic lectures by the Accademia degli Insensati. Ms. I 50 was subsequently donated to jurist and patriot Domenico Rossetti (1774-1842) as part of his own collection of prints and manuscripts related to Petrarch in Trieste. This is now part of the holdings of the Museo Petrarchesco Piccolomineo in the Biblioteca Attilio Hortis of Trieste.
Iter, IV, 235a; Zamponi 1984, 119-20
***
Sacchini 2016, 203