Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
Vatican City
Vatican City
The commentary illustrates and contextualises RVF 105. The author both focuses on the literal sense of Petrarch’s lines, and discusses how Petrarch’s feelings evolve within the RVF. Much attention is given to clarifying single words and expressions: e.g. ‘altero: ch[e] si leua da cose uili, e basse, come passa qu[est]o termine diuenta sup[er]bo’ (fol. 18v).
The anonymous lecture is divided into two parts. The first part demonstrates that this is a correspondence sonnet in response to Antonio da Ferrara’s ‘Cesare poi che riceue il presente’. The second part rejects four criticisms elaborated by some unidentified ‘spositori’, namely: 1) that the historical examples listed by Petrarch do not correspond with his own feelings; 2) that there might be a contradiction between this sonnet and RVF 35; 3) that Petrarch could find other ways to hide his feelings; 4) that the depiction of Caesar contrasts with other depictions of him in Petrarch’s works.