Biblioteca Nacional de España
Madrid
Spain
RVF 1-17 are extensively annotated by a sixteenth-century hand (fols. 1r-4v). These annotations have the following aims: 1) to illustrate and expand the literal meaning of single words or expressions; 2) to provide loci paralleli from Latin or Italian authors (e.g.: at the bottom of RVF 9 at fol. 2v, the annotator copies lines of Dante’s, Paradiso X, 28-30); 3) to identify events related to Petrarch’s love for Laura (e.g. at fol. 1v, the annotator underlines the syllables ‘Lau’ ‘re’ ‘ta’ in RVF 5.3, 5, 7, noting that ‘Quando Jlpoeta sinnamoro dilaura ella era giouanotta di 13 in 14 anni et le diceuano Lauretta sicome esso in questo sonetto la noma’).
At fol. 57r-57v, RVF 136-138 are crossed out by pen but still legible; next to the first lines of these poems another more modern hand wrote ‘Scomunicato’.
Decorated initial in gold for RVF 1 (fol. 1r). At the bottom of fol. 1r is a fully erased coat of arms.
According to Villar (1995, 112) below the scattered words of fol. Ir, it is possible to read the title for the ms. and deduce the date for the annotations (‘Soneti di M[esser] Francisco Petrarca . . . primo mensis aprilis anno 1563’). Nowadays, these words are not legible to the naked eye.