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FRANCESCO PETRARCA, 1304 - 1374
Boccacii Griseldis historia (Rerum senil., XVII, 3), and Rerum senil., XVII, 4
On paper
Northern Italy, 15th century
MS 1059, ff. 155v-156r
Petrarch’s last collection of letters, the Rerum senilium libri, concludes with a cluster of letters to his great friend and disciple, Giovanni Boccaccio. This manuscript contains the last two letters of the collection which focus on the final novella of Boccaccio’s Decameron. The first letter is Petrarch’s translation from Italian to Latin and re-working of the novella about the patient Griselda. The second is a copy of Petrarch’s letter referring to the profound impact the novella had on its first readers, beginning with Petrarch himself.
Petrarch dated the second letter “Amidst the Euganean Hills, 4 June 1373," (the date is missing in this copy of the letter) but he almost certainly did not complete it until a year later, just before his death. He speaks of the weight of his years, his weariness of life, and difficulty of writing letters, and he gives his last epistolary farewell, signing the letter: "Farewell, dear friends. Farewell, dear letters.”
The end of Petrarch’s farewell letter appears on f. 155v of MS 1059: “Explicit epistola domini F. Petrarce. Deo gratias amen.” On the next page is an extensive list of household goods of an early owner of the manuscript; the list includes everything from a lantern and purse to a chess board, book and bell.
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