Petrarch’s Canzoniere and Triumphs with one sonnet attributed to Dante (MS Can. Ital. 70)
Commentary
Italy [North East/Ferrara]; 15th century, third quarter.
Parchment; ff. II+202+III’; mm 242x155; verses copied in a single column, prose in full-page layout; copied by one hand in humanistic script; different types of painted and decorated initials, titles in gold, rubrics and some relevant words in red.
For the start of the Canzoniere (fol. 3r), surround border with white vine-stem interlace (bianchi girari). Initial [V] in red on a ground of blue and gold, with portrait of author holding a book. In the border, one roundel containing Laura and another featuring an emblem of a padlocked book; also two lozenges with knotwork decoration. Painted initials in gold. For the start of the Triumphs (fol. 144r), gold initial [N] with vine-stem interlace (bianchi girari) in a gold frame. Multi-coloured leaf extensions, gold filigree penwork, and gold balls. Painted initials with gold also at fols. 101v, 156v, 160r, 169v, 176v, 179r. Minor initials in colour (red or blue).
Red leather binding.
Italy, Ferrara?; Matteo Luigi Canonici, 1727–1805; Giuseppe Canonici , -1807. Purchased by the Bodleian in 1817.
The MS contains: Petrarch’s Canzoniere and Triumphs; the note on Laura’s death; Sicco Polenton’s Life of Petrarch; pseudo-Antonio da Tempo’s commentary on Canzoniere 1; other short texts, which include one sonnet probably by Dante.
This lavishly illuminated copy of Petrarch’s vernacular poetry belongs to a group of manuscripts that entitle his Canzoniere: “Carmen Rithimonos Elegicum,” thus emphasizing its elegiac qualities. This manuscript, along with the MS Reg. lat. 1110 held at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, also contains one sonnet attributed to Dante, “Molti volendo dir che fosse amore” (“Many would say what love is”), which deals with the nature of love and its phenomenology. The inclusion of this sonnet stresses to us the ways in which, in this group of codices, the role of Petrarch is specifically that of a love poet. The scribe of this codex copied two other copies of Petrarch's vernacular works: London, British Library, MS Harley 3442; and Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Can. Ital. 76.