Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana
Venice
Italy
There are multiple Latin and Italian marginal annotations by the same hand that transcribed the text. These notes include additions and corrections to both commentary and (more rarely) Petrarch’s poems. Between fols. 14 and 15: one unnumbered folio with commentary on RVF 22 (‘Sestina, a qualunque animale’: <inc of commentary>: quiui assolutamente parlando il P[etrarca] intende; <exp of commentary> che questa sua dolc’alba di Laura, arriui al Sole del suo Amore); between fols. 121 and 122: two unnumbered folios (a, b): fol. ar: twenty misplaced lines of Marco Antonio Flaminio’s Latin translation of RVF 126 (<inc> Sic et grata proteruitas; <exp> Unqua[m] sede quisquam; the last line is followed by a brief note in Italian: ‘e Canzone in q[ue]lla parte’);
fol. av: blank;
fol. br-bv: lines 1-64 of Flaminio’s Latin translation of RVF 126 (‘Tanto piacque la presente canzonetta, e di lei s’inuagio tanto, sendo in uita il Flamminio, che fu forzato di lingua italiana tradurla i[n] latina. però no[n] tanto ne è ella da lodare, sendo di M[esser] F[rancesco] P[etrarca] thoscana, quanto da ammirare questa del fla[m]minio latina, ch[e] così canta’; <inc of translation> O fons Gargaphie sacer; <exp of translation> certe sanguinis una est); between fols. 247-248: one unnumbered folio: Marcantonio Luigini’s Latin poem (<inc> Diua, quae nobis croceis rubente[m]; <exp> Riccius docti senior uocabit | Carmine Plectri); between fols. 285 and 286: two unnumbered folios: commentary on RVF 366 (<inc of commentary> Aporalis p[er] signum magnum apparuit; <exp> ‘Miserere di me gridano à lui | Miserere d’un cor contrito humile’).
The title page, dated 1566, serves the function of a title-page in print. The place is shown as the name of the author (‘Mantoua’ for the Italian city Mantua). This manuscript is presumably a preparatory copy for the work, which was printed in 1566: Marco Mantova Benavides, Annotationi brevissime, sovra le rime di Messer Francesco Petrarca (Padua: Lorenzo Pasquale).
On the top of the title page, there are two medallion portraits of Laura and Petrarch facing each other; beneath Laura’s portrait, there is a dedication to Laura Terracina inscribed in a circle shape (‘Alla Virtuosissima S[ignora] Laura Terracina Napoletana’); beneath Petrarch’s portrait, there is a dedication to Giovanni Bernardino Bonifacio, marchese d’Oria, inscribed in a rectangular shape: ‘All’illustrissimo Marchese d’Oria’.