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[Contoli’s academic lecture on RVF 150]

Overview

Current Location

Biblioteca Civica A. Hortis
Trieste
Italy

Shelfmark
I 60
Date
sixteenth century (1594)
Mode of exegesis
Related to Petrarch's

RVF 150

Academy

Accademia degli Insensati, Perugia
Italy

Description

Physical Description: Format

267x200 mm; I + 36 + I fols.

Physical Description: Textblock

paper; sixteenth-century cursive hand; singles line or small sections of Petrarch’s poems set either on left or in central columns, with prose text of lecture distributed across the page beneath either every single line or section of text.

Title Page

Lett[ione] di Cont[olo] Cont[oli] dell’Accad[emia] degli | Insensati d[ett]o lo Insens[ato] letta da | lui publicam[ente] nel Palazzo Ap[ostoli]co | in Perugia alla presenza | dell’Ill[ustrissi]mo et R[euerendissi[mo] Mons[ignor]| Carlo Conti Ba |ron[e] Rom[a]no | Vescovo di Ancona, della città di Per[ugi]a Provincia dell’| Umbria G[e]n[er]ale Govern[atore] et Prencipe dell’ | Acad[emi]a il di 20 di Novembre | 1594

Internal Description

fols. Ir: title page;
 
fol. Iv: blank;
 
fol. 1r-35r: Contolo Contoli’s lecture on RVF 150 (‘Lettione di Contolo Contoli dell’Accad[emi]a de gli Insensati d[ett]o lo Insens[a]to letta da lui publicam[ente] nel Palazzo Ap[ostoli]co di Per[ugi]a Alla presenza dell’Ill[ustrissi]mo Mons[ignor] Carlo Conti Govern[atore] di Per[ugi]a et Prencipe dell’Acad[emia] il di 20 di 9bre 1594’; <inc of lecture after RVF 150> Siano hoggi per gratia lontani da q[uest]to luogo coloro, che giudicano di souerchio graue il far legge à se stessi delle uoglie altrui: che anzi che questo sia il perdere la propria libertade, piu cara di qual si uoglia più ricco tesoro, come essi falsam[ente] si persuadono; <exp> con tanta patientia et atte[n]tione per così lungo te[m]po udite queste mie ciancie sono impurezze s[ignori] le parole mie non ponno che forse in piccioliss[im]a parte sodisfare le deb parole mie co[n] servantemi s[ignori] che io me conserui con l’obligo perpetua memoria e l’e [sic] rivolga ui con riuerito silenzio);
 
fols. 35v-36v: blank.

Material Copy

Location

Biblioteca Civica A. Hortis
Trieste
Italy

Shelfmark
I 60
Copy seen by
Lorenzo
Sacchini
Notes

The lecture is divided into four sections. It first attends to Petrarch’s lament for his condition of pain, with a philosophical account of the relationship between body and soul. The second part illustrates reasons to consider the sonnet a dialogue between Petrarch and his soul (whose parts are distinguished). The third part provides a line-by-line explanation of the sonnet, focusing on rhetorical figures, grammatical elements, and philosophical concepts. The final section resolves two doubts (on Petrarch’s pain and love for Laura), left unsolved after the reading of the sonnet. Philosophical authorities named include Aristotle, Plato, and Ficino.
 
Originally, this lecture was part of ms. 1717, held at the Biblioteca Augusta of Perugia, which contained other academic lectures by the Accademia degli Insensati. Ms. I 60 was donated to jurist and patriot Domenico Rossetti (1774-1842), when he set up in Trieste a collection of prints and manuscripts related to Petrarch. This is now part of the holdings of the Museo Petrarchesco Piccolomineo in the Biblioteca Attilio Hortis of Trieste.

Bibliography

Iter, VI, 235a; Zamponi 131-32
 
***
 
Sacchini 2016, 206