Overview
Florence
Italy
RVF 366
Description
4o; A4-F4, G2; [1], 24, [1] fols.
paper; Petrarch’s poem 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 PETRARCA | VERGINE BELLA. | DI M[ESSER] PIETRO CAPONSACCHI | Pantaneti Aretino. | [printer’s mark] | IN FIORENZA, | Appresso Georgio Marescotti. 1590. | Con licenza de’ Superiori
A1r: title page;
A1v: blank;
A2r-A2v: Pietro Caponsacchi’s dedicatory letter to Ferdinando de’ Medici (‘Al serenissimo gran dvca di Toscana il signor d[on] Ferdinando de’ Medici vnico mio padrone’);
A3r-A3v: Caponsacchi’s dedicatory letter to Giovanna d’Austria granduchessa di Toscana (‘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> Ond’il poeta il tutto comprese, quando 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
John Rylands Library
Manchester
United Kingdom
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 philosophical and theological sections include quotation from Plato and Aristotle.
Reprint of the 1577 edition with the addition of the dedicatory letter to Ferdinando de’ Medici.
Sapegno 2004, 148, 181