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FRANCESCO PETRARCA, 1304-1374
Canzoniere, nos. 129 and 270, in a miscellany
of Italian poetry
On paper
Part I: Siena, 1 Sept. 1415, by Niccolò di Giovanni
Cinuzzi; Part II: Northern Italy, 14th century (before
1369)
MS 222, ff. 107v - 108r
Petrarch died on 19 July 1374. The two Petrarch canzoni,
“Di pensier in pensier” and “Amor, se
vuo’ ch’i’ torni,” were copied
into the second part of MS 222 before the year 1369, and
therefore offer an rare example of the circulation and
reading of individual poems before the final version of
the Canzoniere was completed by Petrarch in his
last years. The poems are presented in the same format
as the first anthology collections of Italian lyric poetry
that were made in the 14th-century, with two verses per
line of text as is seen with the poem “Di Pensier
in pensier” on f. 107v. Canzone 129 begins
on the same page, taking the poet and the reader from
thoughts about the beloved Laura's death to Petrarch's
search for solace from concerns about love and life.
There are few cases of such early circulation of single
poems by Petrarch, and they offer insight into his creative
genius as well as popularity of his poetry during his
lifetime. Both poems were included, in their present form,
in an early version called the Pre-Chigi Form of the Canzoniere,
composed by Petrarch himself in the year 1358. The versions
of the poems in MS 222 may well have been copied within
the narrow window of time between 1358 and 1369, and they
both are very similar to the final edition.
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