This is a complete translation of the works of Petrarch into English verse, featuring a variety of translators including Chaucer, Spenser, and Leigh Hunt. The book includes the life of the poet. This volume fills a notable gap in the English translations of the Italian poets, as Petrarch is the fourth and most popular poet of the "I Quattro Poeti Italiani" series, and has had a significant influence on English poetry from Chaucer to the present day.

Ineffable sweetness, bold, uncanny sweetness that came to my eyes from her lovely face; from that day on I'd willingly have closed them, never to gaze again at lesser beauties. --from Sonnet 116 Petrarch was born in Tuscany and grew up in the south of France. He lived his life in the service of the church, traveled widely, and during his lifetime was a revered, model man of letters. Petrarch's greatest gift to posterity was his Rime in vita e morta di Madonna Laura, the cycle of poems popularly known as his songbook. By turns full of wit, languor, and fawning, endlessly inventive, in a tightly composed yet ornate form they record their speaker's unrequited obsession with the woman named Laura. In the centuries after it was designed, the "Petrarchan sonnet," as it would be known, inspired the greatest love poets of the English language--from the times of Spenser and Shakespeare to our own. David Young's fresh, idiomatic version of Petrarch's poetry is the most readable and approachable that we have. In his skillful hands, Petrarch almost sounds like a poet out of our own tradition bringing the wheel of influence full circle.

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Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca, 1304–74), best known for his influential collection of Italian lyric poetry dedicated to his beloved Laura, was also a remarkable classical scholar, a deeply religious thinker and a philosopher of secular ethics. In this wide-ranging study, chapters by leading scholars view Petrarch's life through his works, from the epic Africa to the Letter to Posterity, from the Canzoniere to the vernacular epic Triumphi. Petrarch is revealed as the heir to the converging influences of classical cultural and medieval Christianity, but also to his great vernacular precursor, Dante, and his friend, collaborator and sly critic, Boccaccio. Particular attention is given to Petrach's profound influence on the Humanist movement and on the courtly cult of vernacular love poetry, while raising important questions as to the validity of the distinction between medieval and modern and what is lost in attempting to classify this elusive figure.

An enlightening study of the contradictory character of this canonical fourteenth-century Italian poet. Born in Tuscany in 1304, Italian poet Francesco Petrarca is widely considered one of the fathers of the modern Italian language. Though his writings inspired the humanist movement and subsequently the Renaissance, Petrarch remains misunderstood. He was a man of contradictions—a Roman pagan devotee and a devout Christian, a lover of friendship and sociability, yet intensely private. In this biography, Christopher S. Celenza revisits Petrarch’s life and work for the first time in decades, considering how the scholar’s reputation and identity have changed since his death in 1374. He brings to light Petrarch’s unrequited love for his poetic muse, the anti-institutional attitude he developed as he sought a path to modernity by looking backward to antiquity, and his endless focus on himself. Drawing on both Petrarch’s Italian and Latin writings, this is a revealing portrait of a figure of paradoxes: a man of mystique, historical importance, and endless fascination. It is the only book on Petrarch suitable for students, general readers, and scholars alike.