Overview
Florence
Italy
RVF 366
Description
4o; A4-F4, G2; [1], 24, [3] fols.
paper; Petrarch’s poems in italic type and lecture in roman type; printed numbering; single lines or small sections of Petrarch’s poems set in central blocks, with prose text of lecture distributed across the page beneath each of them.
DISCORSO | INTORNO ALLA | CANZONE | DEL PETRARCHA | VERGINE BELLA. | DI M[ESSER] PIETRO CAPONSACCHI | Pantaneti Aretino. | [printer’s mark] | IN FIORENZA, | Appresso Georgio Marescotti. 1589| Con licenza de’ Superiori.
A1r: title page;
A1v: blank;
A2r-A2v: Pietro Caponsacchi’s dedicatory letter to Ferdinando I de’ Medici, Gran Duke of Tuscany (‘Al serenissimo grandvca di Toscana il signor D[on] Ferdinando de’ Medici vnico mio padrone’);
A3r-A3v: Caponsacchi’s dedicatory letter to Joanna of Austria, Grand Duchess of Tuscany (‘Alla serenissima reina Giovanna d’Avstria, gran dvchessa di Toscana unica mia padrona’);
A4r-B2r: RVF 366;
B2v-G1v: Caponsacchi’s lecture on RVF 366 (<inc after RVF 366.1-3> Si come Dante, con chiara scorta, sagliendo alla superna ruota, trascorse, con viuo raggio il cielo di cerchio in cerchio; <exp followed by RVF 366.1-3> Onde il poeta il tutto comprese, quand’egli nel principio della canzone cosi altamente scrisse);
G2r: printer’s mark followed by colophon: In Fiorenza, Appresso Giorgio Marescotti. M D LXXXIX.
G2v: blank.
Copy Seen
Biblioteca Civica Attilio Hortis
Trieste
Italy
Each line of the canzone is analysed and carefully explained in its theological and philosophical meaning. Extensive reference is made to Dante’s Commedia throughout the lecture. The philosophical and theological sections include quotations from Plato and Aristotle.
Sapegno 2004, 148, 181