Poetry
The Canzoniere
Il Canzoniere
Petrarch · 1374
Synopsis
Three hundred and sixty-six poems in the vernacular, most of them sonnets, together with canzones, sestinas, ballads and madrigals. Their centre is Laura, whom the poet says he first saw on 6 April 1327 in the church of Saint Clare in Avignon. The collection is divided into two parts, “in vita” and “in morte” of the lady, and also deals with religion, poetry itself, the flight of time and glory.
Context
The poems were written over some forty years, from 1327 until about 1368, and their order was settled up to 1374. The Latin title, “Rerum vulgarium fragmenta”, is the author's own; usage has imposed “Canzoniere”. In French, the collection has been translated notably by René de Ceccatty, under the title “Canzoniere”, and by Gérard Genot, under the title “Chansonnier”, at Les Belles Lettres in 2009; in English, by Mark Musa in 1996.
Who it is for
A collection of several hundred short poems, to be read in fragments in an annotated bilingual edition.
Prizes and reception
The greatest influence on the love poetry of the European Renaissance, down to the seventeenth century.