By writing what he called a "secret book" - taking the shape of a conversation between himself and St Augustine - Petrarch aimed to compose a cathartic text which would alleviate his spiritual crisis and help him make further inroads towards knowledge and fulfilment. At once an intimate repository of his most personal thoughts and emotions and a literary masterpiece dealing with universal issues, Secretum - Petrarch's best-known work in Latin - is a fascinating and pioneering example of the autobiographical genre.

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch, 1304–1374) is universally regarded as one of the greatest Italian poets and considered to be the "Father of Renaissance Humanism." Petrarch is best known for his poetry, and especially for his sonnets, composed in the vernacular Italian dialect of his homeland. But Petrarch was also the author of an extraordinary body of prose works in Latin, including numerous books, essays, and volumes of his letters, which, with Cicero as his model, he collected, edited, and preserved for posterity. Included among these Latin prose works is The Life of Solitude ( De vita solitaria), which Petrarch began during Lent of 1346, and then sent in 1366—after twenty years of reflection, addition, and correction—to its dedicatee. Book I contains an argument for why a life of solitude and contemplation is superior to a busy life of civic obligation and commerce. Book II contains a long enumeration of exemplars of the solitary life drawn from history and literature (and occasionally mythology). Included in Book II are provocative digressions on whether one has an obligation to serve a tyrant and on the failures of contemporary monarchs to recover the holy sites in the East. Petrarch's solitary life is not an apology for monastic solitude. On the contrary, it contains a strong defense of friendship, the pursuit of virtue, and the roles that both secular and religious literature and philosophy play in human flourishing. This updated edition of Jacob Zeitlin's 1924 English translation restructures and numbers the text to make it consistent with the best available scholarly editions of De vita solitaria. The volume includes a new introduction by Scott H. Moore, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Great Texts and Assistant Director of the University Scholars Program at Baylor University, which situates Petrarch and the text within the larger traditions of virtue ethics, renaissance humanism, and reflections on the solitary life.

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch, 1304–1374) is universally regarded as one of the greatest Italian poets and considered to be the "Father of Renaissance Humanism." Petrarch is best known for his poetry, and especially for his sonnets, composed in the vernacular Italian dialect of his homeland. But Petrarch was also the author of an extraordinary body of prose works in Latin, including numerous books, essays, and volumes of his letters, which, with Cicero as his model, he collected, edited, and preserved for posterity. Included among these Latin prose works is The Life of Solitude ( De vita solitaria), which Petrarch began during Lent of 1346, and then sent in 1366—after twenty years of reflection, addition, and correction—to its dedicatee. Book I contains an argument for why a life of solitude and contemplation is superior to a busy life of civic obligation and commerce. Book II contains a long enumeration of exemplars of the solitary life drawn from history and literature (and occasionally mythology). Included in Book II are provocative digressions on whether one has an obligation to serve a tyrant and on the failures of contemporary monarchs to recover the holy sites in the East. Petrarch's solitary life is not an apology for monastic solitude. On the contrary, it contains a strong defense of friendship, the pursuit of virtue, and the roles that both secular and religious literature and philosophy play in human flourishing. This updated edition of Jacob Zeitlin's 1924 English translation restructures and numbers the text to make it consistent with the best available scholarly editions of De vita solitaria. The volume includes a new introduction by Scott H. Moore, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Great Texts and Assistant Director of the University Scholars Program at Baylor University, which situates Petrarch and the text within the larger traditions of virtue ethics, renaissance humanism, and reflections on the solitary life.

For teachers and students of Petrarch, Robert M. Durling's edition of the poems has become the standard one. Readers have praised the translation as both graceful and accurate, conveying a real understanding of what this difficult poet is saying. The literalness of the prose translation makes this beautiful book especially useful to students who lack a full command of Italian. And students reading the verse in the original will find here an authoritative text.

Aldo Bernardo and his collaborators extend the translation project begun with the Familiares to the letter collection of Petrarch's old age, the Seniles. In these 128 letters, most of which appear for the first time here in English translation, we find Petrarch's mature judgment on the central issues of early Italian humanism. With Boccaccio, to whom he addresses more letters than anyone else, Petrarch shares his ideas about the literary culture of the age. Two entire books on the structure and role of the Church are addressed to Pope Urban V and his secretary, Francesco Bruni, and another large block of letters on statecraft and political virtue are addressed to such powerful rulers as Pandolfo Malatesta, Francesco da Carrara, and Emperor] Charles IV. More personal themes emerge as well, including Petrarch's thoughts on the passage of time, the meaning of death, and the loss of friends; on faith, providence, and life after death; and on eating, drinking, and fashions in clothing. Petrarch's Latin translation of the patient Griselda story from Boccaccio's "Decameron" is also found here, and the collection closes with the famous Letter to Posterity, Petrarch's final literary self-portrait." - Neo-Latin News THIS COMPLETE TRANSLATION has long been out of print and is reproduced here in its entirety in two volumes. Vol. 1, Books I-IX, 368 pp. Introduction, notes, bibliography.

THIS TRANSLATION makes available for the first time to English-speaking readers Petrarch's earliest and perhaps most important collection of prose letters. They were written for the most part between 1325 and 1366, and were organized into the present collection of twenty-four books between 1345 and 1366. THE COLLECTION represents a portrait of the artist as a young man seen through the eyes of the mature artist. Whether in the writing of poetry, or being crowned poet laureate, or in confessing his faults, describing the dissolution of the kingdom of Naples, summoning up the grandeur of ancient Rome, or in writing to pope or emperor, Petrarch was always the consummate artist, deeply concerned with creating a desired effect by means of a dignified gracefulness, and always conscious that his private life and thoughts could be the object of high art and public interest. AS EARLY AS 1436 Leonardo Bruni wrote in his Life of Petrarch: "Petrarch was the first man to have had a sufficiently fine mind to recognize the gracefulness of the lost ancient style and to bring it back to life." It was indeed the very style or manner in which Petrarch consciously sought to create the impression of continuity with the past that was responsible for the enormous impact he made on subsequent generations. THIS COMPLETE TRANSLATION by Aldo S. Bernardo has long been out of print and is reproduced here in its entirety in three volumes. Vol. 3, Books XVII-XXIV. Introduction, notes, bibliography.

Aldo Bernardo and his collaborators extend the translation project begun with the Familiares to the letter collection of Petrarch's old age, the Seniles. In these 128 letters, most of which appear for the first time here in English translation, we find Petrarch's mature judgment on the central issues of early Italian humanism. With Boccaccio, to whom he addresses more letters than anyone else, Petrarch shares his ideas about the literary culture of the age. Two entire books on the structure and role of the Church are addressed to Pope Urban V and his secretary, Francesco Bruni, and another large block of letters on statecraft and political virtue are addressed to such powerful rulers as Pandolfo Malatesta, Francesco da Carrara, and Emperor] Charles IV. More personal themes emerge as well, including Petrarch's thoughts on the passage of time, the meaning of death, and the loss of friends; on faith, providence, and life after death; and on eating, drinking, and fashions in clothing. Petrarch's Latin translation of the patient Griselda story from Boccaccio's "Decameron" is also found here, and the collection closes with the famous Letter to Posterity, Petrarch's final literary self-portrait." - Neo-Latin News THIS COMPLETE TRANSLATION has long been out of print and is reproduced here in its entirety in two volumes. Vol. 2, Books X-XVIII, 368 pp. Introduction, notes, bibliography.

AT SOME POINT in January or early February of 1347, Petrarch briefly visited the remote Carthusian monastery of Montrieux, where, four years before, his beloved brother, Gherardo, had pledged himself to live in perpetuity as a renditus, one who took the same vows as a monk but who was not cloistered. In the day and night he spent at Montrieux, Petrarch spoke privately with Gherardo, had lively discussions with other residents, and attended religious services celebrated by the brothers with "angelic singing." Unwilling to disturb the rigid discipline of the monastery longer, he reluctantly departed the next morning accompanied by the prior and the brothers to the limits of their property and he imagined them continuing to watch him until he disappeared from view. Returning to the Vaucluse, still "mindful of that whole blessed sweetness which I drank in with you," and troubled that in the course of the hasty visit he had not been able to say many things that he would like to have said, he decided "to express in writing what I was not able to do in person." The body of the work that was to become the De otio religioso was composed sometime during Lent or between February 11 and March 29 of that year. Not untypically, however, Petrarch continued to add to the text as late as 1356, and the finished treatise was probably not dispatched to Gherardo until 1357. This first English translation by Susan S. Schearer faithfully and elegantly presents Petrarch's exordium to the life of contemplation and offers the reader a fresh view into the spiritual world of fourteenth-century humanism. Ronald G. Witt's introduction places the work into its historical and intellectual context, discusses its structure and development, and examines Petrarch's characteristic synthesis of Christian and classical sources. First English translation. Introduction, Notes, Bibliography, Index of Citations, General Index.

THIS TRANSLATION makes available for the first time to English-speaking readers Petrarch's earliest and perhaps most important collection of prose letters. They were written for the most part between 1325 and 1366, and were organized into the present collection of twenty-four books between 1345 and 1366. THE COLLECTION represents a portrait of the artist as a young man seen through the eyes of the mature artist. Whether in the writing of poetry, or being crowned poet laureate, or in confessing his faults, describing the dissolution of the kingdom of Naples, summoning up the grandeur of ancient Rome, or in writing to pope or emperor, Petrarch was always the consummate artist, deeply concerned with creating a desired effect by means of a dignified gracefulness, and always conscious that his private life and thoughts could be the object of high art and public interest. AS EARLY AS 1436 Leonardo Bruni wrote in his Life of Petrarch: "Petrarch was the first man to have had a sufficiently fine mind to recognize the gracefulness of the lost ancient style and to bring it back to life." It was indeed the very style or manner in which Petrarch consciously sought to create the impression of continuity with the past that was responsible for the enormous impact he made on subsequent generations. THIS COMPLETE TRANSLATION by Aldo S. Bernardo has long been out of print and is reproduced here in its entirety in three volumes. Vol. 1, Books I-VIII. 472 pp. Introduction, notes, bibliography.

THIS TRANSLATION makes available for the first time to English-speaking readers Petrarch's earliest and perhaps most important collection of prose letters. They were written for the most part between 1325 and 1366, and were organized into the present collection of twenty-four books between 1345 and 1366. THE COLLECTION represents a portrait of the artist as a young man seen through the eyes of the mature artist. Whether in the writing of poetry, or being crowned poet laureate, or in confessing his faults, describing the dissolution of the kingdom of Naples, summoning up the grandeur of ancient Rome, or in writing to pope or emperor, Petrarch was always the consummate artist, deeply concerned with creating a desired effect by means of a dignified gracefulness, and always conscious that his private life and thoughts could be the object of high art and public interest. AS EARLY AS 1436 Leonardo Bruni wrote in his Life of Petrarch: "Petrarch was the first man to have had a sufficiently fine mind to recognize the gracefulness of the lost ancient style and to bring it back to life." It was indeed the very style or manner in which Petrarch consciously sought to create the impression of continuity with the past that was responsible for the enormous impact he made on subsequent generations. THIS COMPLETE TRANSLATION by Aldo S. Bernardo has long been out of print and is reproduced here in its entirety in three volumes. Vol. 2, Books IX-XVI. Introduction, notes, bibliography.

In this volume, David R. Slavitt, the distinguished translator and author of more than one hundred works of fiction, poetry, and drama, turns his skills to "Il Canzoniere" (Songbook) by Petrarch, the most influential poet in the history of the sonnet. In Petrarch s hands, lyric verse was transformed from an expression of courtly devotion into a way of conversing with one s own heart and mind. Slavitt renders the sonnets in "Il Canzoniere," along with the shorter madrigals and ballate, in a sparkling and engaging idiom and in rhythm and rhyme that do justice to Petrarch s achievement.

At the center of "Il Canzoniere "(also known as "Rime Sparse, "or Scattered Rhymes) is Petrarch s obsessive love for Laura, a woman Petrarch asserts he first saw at Easter Mass on April 6, 1327, in the church of Sainte-Claire d Avignon when he was twenty-two. Though Laura was already married, the sight of her woke in the poet a passion that would last beyond her premature death on April 6, 1348, exactly twenty-one years after he first encountered her. Unlike Dante s Beatrice a savior leading the poet by the hand toward divine love Petrarch s Laura elicits more earthbound and erotic feelings. David Slavitt s deft new translation captures the nuanced tone of Petrarch s poems their joy and despair, and eventually their grief over Laura s death. Readers of poetry and especially those with an interest in the sonnet and its history will welcome this volume.