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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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