London, British Library, Additional 33470

Pagano states that, in RVF 2, Petrarch presents his love affair with Laura as an effect of a god’s will (Cupid’s) and this exculpates him for having fallen in love. The sonnet can be referred to the rhetorical genre of ‘judiciary’ text because, according to Pagano, it is based on a ‘consideratione giudiciale assolutiua, che si chiama translatione del mancamento, quando si transferisce la colpa in altra persona’ (fol. 5v). Pagano then defines the style of Petrarch’s RVF 2 as Hermogenic Magnificence (‘questo sonetto è trattato dal poeta con la forma chiamata da Hermogene σεμνοτης, non troppo intesa dalli traducitori, et significa grauità’, fol. 6r). Pagano substantiates this assertion by means of stylistic and linguistic analysis of the text to show the magnificent tone of the sonnet. He quotes Virgil, Aeschylus, Euripides, and Hesiod.