“The Renaissance Question in Petrarch”
Abstract
Despite declared philological scruples, the Canzoniere (Rerum vulgarium fragmenta [Rvf]) by Petrarch that we read today in most modern editions is at best a hybrid: Petrarch’s text from his partial holograph in Vatican Latino 3195 (rediscovered in 1886), often with silent editorial emendations, in the form of Renaissance canons of genre and book production. With the definitive demonstrations in the 1980s by Brugnolo and Storey of the intricate visual poetics instilled in Petrarch’s carefully crafted manuscript the question of a new edition became critical to the presentation of a more accurate text. By the mid-1990s Storey had begun work on a new diplomatic edition that would form the basis of a new edition that continues to be published in the Petrarchive.org Project. After examining the complex layers of editorial and textual conditions inherent in Petrarch’s Fragmenta, including how Petrarch worked with his copyists, I will demonstrate the contrasts and interpretative implications of ‘Renaissance Petrarch’ and the reconstructed texts of the Petrarchive’s new edition.
