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Letters of Old Age (Rerum Senilium libri), Volume 2
In these two volumes Aldo Bernardo and his collaborators extend the translation project begun with the Familiares to the letter collection of Petrarch's old age, the Seniles. In these 128 letters, most of which appear for the first time here in English translation, we find Petrarch's mature judgment on the central issues of early Italian humanism. With Boccaccio, to whom he addresses more letters than anyone else, Petrarch shares his ideas about the literary culture of the age. Two entire books on the structure and role of the Church are addressed to Pope Urban V and his secretary, Francesco Bruni, and another large block of letters on statecraft and political virtue are addressed to such powerful rulers as Pandolfo Malatesta, Francesco da Carrara, and [Emperor] Charles IV. More personal themes emerge as well, including Petrarch's thoughts on the passage of time, the meaning of death, and the loss of friends; on faith, providence, and life after death; and on eating, drinking, and fashions in clothing. Petrarch's Latin translation of the patient Griselda story from Boccaccio's Decameron is also found here, and the collection closes with the famous Letter to Posterity, Petrarch's final literary self-portrait." - Neo-Latin News This complete translation has long been out of print and is reproduced here in its entirety in two volumes. Introduction, notes, bibliography. Vol. 2 includes Books X-XVIII.
368 pages, Paperback
First published August 25, 2005
15 people want to read
About the author
Francesco Petrarca
1,154 books365 followersFamous Italian poet, scholar, and humanist Francesco Petrarca, known in English as Petrarch, collected love lyrics in
Canzoniere
.
People often call Petrarch the earliest Renaissance "father of humanism". Based on Petrarch's works, and to a lesser extent those of Dante Alighieri and Giovanni Boccaccio, Pietro Bembo in the 16th century created the model for the modern Italian language, which the Accademia della Crusca later endorsed. People credit Petrarch with developing the sonnet. They admired and imitated his sonnets, a model for lyrical poems throughout Europe during the Renaissance. Petrarch called the Middle Ages the Dark Ages.
People often call Petrarch the earliest Renaissance "father of humanism". Based on Petrarch's works, and to a lesser extent those of Dante Alighieri and Giovanni Boccaccio, Pietro Bembo in the 16th century created the model for the modern Italian language, which the Accademia della Crusca later endorsed. People credit Petrarch with developing the sonnet. They admired and imitated his sonnets, a model for lyrical poems throughout Europe during the Renaissance. Petrarch called the Middle Ages the Dark Ages.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 2, 2016
Four hundred and ninety years before I was born, Petrarch died in the middle of writing me a letter.
What do you mean it wasn't to me? It totally was. It was addressed to "Posterity", and if I'm not his posterity then I don't know who is.
Petrarch was warm and friendly and playful and he cared about people and he loved books and the ancient world, and he wanted to live in any age but his own, and to make his own age better and different. And he succeeded in fascinating ways that he couldn't see in making it better and different. He fell in love with Laura and wrote a bunch of very clever poems to her, but his real relationships were his passionate (but neither sexual nor romantic) friendships with other scholars.
In this volume there are adorable letters to Boccaccio, and there are sad letters about being old and ill (and how awful doctors were, and it was 1370, so actually he wasn't wrong) and lovely letters in response to fan letters from young admirers, and charming letters to patrons, and grumpy letters to the pope (he wasn't about to go to Avignon again at his age!) and you don't want to start here. Start with book 1 of his Familiar Letters and read them all slowly, and when you get here you'll cry too, because he's been dead since 1374, and it's not that you didn't know that before you started reading, it's just that by then you'll be his posterity too. I could do with some company here, actually, mourning Petrarch. Appreciating Petrarch. I've written a ton of poetry about him. It's on my webpage.
I began to read these letters because Steven Greenblatt mentioned (in _The Swerve_), in an offhand and slightly patronizing way, as if it was weird and charming but also childish and eccentric, that Petrarch had written letters to Cicero, in response to reading Cicero's letters. And my immediate response was a deep feeling of kinship with Petrarch because as a teenager I had done the same thing. In Latin. Of course in Latin. And yes, I knew Cicero was dead, and so did Petrarch, but Petrarch and I know something about time and death and art that Greenblatt doesn't, quite. I did not triage the Petrarch letters and find the Cicero one, I started at the beginning and read all of them over the course of the last 2 years, and I am so glad I did.
Thank you Aldo S Bernardo for translating them, thank you Italica Press for putting them out in relatively affordable e-book editions, thank you Steven Greenblatt for getting me interested in the first place, and thank you Petrarch for starting the Renaissance and saving the world.
Posterity remembers, cares, is deeply grateful, and loves you ridiculously much. I don't know what you'd think of me as a woman with a classics degree and a poet, because that was too much out of your imagination of the world. But neither of us is what Cicero was expecting either. You have to take what posterity you get.
What do you mean it wasn't to me? It totally was. It was addressed to "Posterity", and if I'm not his posterity then I don't know who is.
Petrarch was warm and friendly and playful and he cared about people and he loved books and the ancient world, and he wanted to live in any age but his own, and to make his own age better and different. And he succeeded in fascinating ways that he couldn't see in making it better and different. He fell in love with Laura and wrote a bunch of very clever poems to her, but his real relationships were his passionate (but neither sexual nor romantic) friendships with other scholars.
In this volume there are adorable letters to Boccaccio, and there are sad letters about being old and ill (and how awful doctors were, and it was 1370, so actually he wasn't wrong) and lovely letters in response to fan letters from young admirers, and charming letters to patrons, and grumpy letters to the pope (he wasn't about to go to Avignon again at his age!) and you don't want to start here. Start with book 1 of his Familiar Letters and read them all slowly, and when you get here you'll cry too, because he's been dead since 1374, and it's not that you didn't know that before you started reading, it's just that by then you'll be his posterity too. I could do with some company here, actually, mourning Petrarch. Appreciating Petrarch. I've written a ton of poetry about him. It's on my webpage.
I began to read these letters because Steven Greenblatt mentioned (in _The Swerve_), in an offhand and slightly patronizing way, as if it was weird and charming but also childish and eccentric, that Petrarch had written letters to Cicero, in response to reading Cicero's letters. And my immediate response was a deep feeling of kinship with Petrarch because as a teenager I had done the same thing. In Latin. Of course in Latin. And yes, I knew Cicero was dead, and so did Petrarch, but Petrarch and I know something about time and death and art that Greenblatt doesn't, quite. I did not triage the Petrarch letters and find the Cicero one, I started at the beginning and read all of them over the course of the last 2 years, and I am so glad I did.
Thank you Aldo S Bernardo for translating them, thank you Italica Press for putting them out in relatively affordable e-book editions, thank you Steven Greenblatt for getting me interested in the first place, and thank you Petrarch for starting the Renaissance and saving the world.
Posterity remembers, cares, is deeply grateful, and loves you ridiculously much. I don't know what you'd think of me as a woman with a classics degree and a poet, because that was too much out of your imagination of the world. But neither of us is what Cicero was expecting either. You have to take what posterity you get.
Displaying 1 of 1 review