This book is titled Il Petrarcha by Francesco Petrarca, the renowned 14th century Italian poet, commonly known as Petrarch. This edition contains extensive commentary by Giovanni Andrea Gesualdo and was published in Venice in 1581 by Alessandro Griffio, it has two sections (tables), one of sonnets and one of songs (canzoni), and the title was first published as a manuscript way back in the 1300’s - the printing press was not introduced in Europe until the 1450’s by Johannes Gutenberg, decades after Petrarch’s death in 1374.
During the 14th century, books were handwritten, expensive commodities usually owned only by wealthy individuals or religious institutions, and the first printed edition of Il Canzoniere was published in Venice in 1470 by Vindelino da Spira, almost a century after the poems were written and circulated in manuscript form. Later editions, like those with commentary, were published much later.
The full title in Italian reads Il Petrarcha Con L’Espositione Di M. Gio. Andrea Gesvaldo. Nuovamente Ristampato, E Con Somma Diligenza Correto, Et Ornato Di Figure. Con Doi Tavole, una de’Sonetti e Canzoni, & l’altra di tutte le cose degne di Memoria, che in essa Espositione si contengono.
The book is one of the most celebrated works by Petrarch. It was a collection of 366 vernacular poems, also known as “Rerum vulgarium fragments” (Fragments of Vernacular Matters), which Petrarch wrote over a period of 40 years, and it is considered a masterpiece of Italian poetry and one of the most influential works in Western literature, helping to establish the sonnet as a legitimate form of writing. The poems are primarily about his unrequited love for a woman named Laura, the poems are divided into those written "in vita" (during her life) and "in morte" (after her death), and this work heavily influenced subsequent European love poetry.
(Vernacular poems were written in the everyday, spoken language of a particular region or group, as opposed to formal or literary language, and they created a sense of immediacy and connection with the audience.)
Francesco Petrarca (also Francis Petrarch, Francesco di Petracco 1304 - 1374) was born in the Tuscan city of Arezzo, Italy, and was a scholar, poet, and Catholic cleric. He spent his early childhood near Florence and studied law at the University of Montpellier (1316–20) and Bologna (1320–23), but was primarily interested in writing and studying Latin literature and considered those seven years wasted, so he traveled widely in Europe, collecting old Latin manuscripts; at a cathedral library in Verona, he rediscovered letters of Cicero that were not previously known to have existed, and from there, he was credited with reviving the study of writers from Rome and Greece, which helped to launch the Renaissance and the field of Humanism.
His first large-scale work was an epic poem about the Roman general Scipio Africanus; in 1341, Petrarch became poet laureate of Rome, and he is considered one of the "Three Crowns" of Italian literature, along with Dante and Boccaccio.
Petrarch had a love for mountaineering and the outdoors, and coupled with a desire for a virtuous Christian life, he climbed Mont Ventoux, more than 6000 feet high, and was the first recorded Alpinist of modern times; he did it just to enjoy the view from the top, and when he reached the peak, he took St. Augustine’s Confessions from his pocket and reflected that his climb was merely an allegory of aspiring toward a better life.
Petrarch spent the latter part of his life journeying through northern Italy and southern France as an international scholar and poet-diplomat. His career in the Church did not allow him to marry, but it is believed he fathered two children by a woman unknown to history. He later legitimized both, but his son died of the plague in Avignon, France in 1361. In 1362, shortly after the birth of a daughter, the family moved to Venice to flee the plague that was ravaging Europe, and in 1368 he moved to a small town near Padua, where he passed his remaining days in religious contemplation.
Petrarch is best known for his Italian poetry, but was an enthusiastic Latin scholar and did most of his writing in Latin; Cicero, Virgil, and Seneca were his literary models, and the book here is written in Italian, with notes or commentary by Gesualdo.
In 1327, after Petrarch gave up his vocation as a priest, he fell in love with a woman called Laura, but she refused to see him because she was already married, and after she died in 1348, he released his grief through poetry - he consoled himself with poetry - and his unrequited love became the inspiration for many of his poems. He expresses his longing for her and his internal struggle, often oscillating between the happiness of seeing her and the despair of her being unattainable.
Before his death, he arranged for his collection of Greek and Roman manuscripts to be donated to the Republic of Venice. This significant gift helped establish the Biblioteca Marciana, one of the greatest libraries of the Renaissance period; it was one of the first public libraries in Italy, though Petrarch’s collection was unfortunately lost over time.
Petrarch is often referred to as the father of humanism and considered by many to be the "father of the Renaissance", and in Secretum meum (My Secret), he points out that secular achievements do not necessarily stop a person from having an authentic relationship with God, arguing instead that God gave humans their vast intellectual and creative potential and people should use that gift to their fullest. He inspired humanist philosophy, which led to the intellectual flowering of the Renaissance, he believed in the immense moral and practical value of studying ancient history and literature, and he was a devout Catholic who did not see a conflict between realizing humanity's potential and having religious faith; he believed that human potential and religious faith could coexist.
He was a famous aficionado of numismatics - after visiting Rome, he would ask peasants to bring him old coins they found, which he would buy from them, and he wrote of his delight at being able to identify the names and features of Roman emperors.
The book has three raised bands on the spine, brown boards, pencilled notes on the front paste-down that mention the Brunet catalogue (Manuel du libraire et de l'amateur de livres - The Bookseller's and Book Lover's Manual) created by French bibliographer Jacques-Charles Brunet in 1810 - an essential reference for rare books for 19th-century booksellers, librarians, and collectors, with pencilled notes on the front flyleaf, the title page has an engraving of an angel blowing its horn, five pages by Gesualdo are dedicated to the Marquess de La Palude, the engraving on the next page depicts Petrarch opposite Laura with a sonnet about Laura below the engraving, then twelve pages about the early life of Petrarch (“La Vita Del Petrarcha”), four pages about the studies and doctrines of the poet (“Li Studi e La Dottrina del Poeta”), four pages about habits of the poet, one page about his physical condition and health and two more about the Sorgue River and Avignon, where Petrarch used to live, then five pages about Petrarch’s intentions and love for Laura (“La’Ntentione e L’Amor Del Poeta” and “De La Vita M. Laura”), two pages about how the book is divided and organized (“L’Ordine e La Divisione de L’Opra”), two pages about the quality and usefulness of the book (“La Qualita Deversi” and “L’Utilitate”), a four-page biography about Petrarch (“I Luoghidel Petrarcha, Onde Lo Espositore Ha Raccolto Quanto Ha Qui Scritto Di Lui”), a five-page table of contents listing the sonnets and songs (“La Tavola De’ Sonnetti E De Le Canzoni”) and one page describing the biographical and historical inaccuracies about Petrarch’s life, a six-page table of subjects in the commentary of Gesualdo (“Tavola Delle Code Piu Notablili, Che in Questo Comment O Del Gesualdo Si Contengono”), then 414 pages of text, and the last page at the rear has a register of the names of the printer and publishing details of the book - it says the book was printed in Venice in 1582 at the press of Alessandro Griffio - and there are actually 830 pages of text because the page numbers are doubled up - the text starts on a right-hand page and carries over to the next page which is unnumbered, then begins again with a numbered page on the right and the obverse page is unnumbered, for a total of 830 pages, counting the registration page at the rear, and it seems like page 415 was misnumbered 413, and there already was a page numbered 413 a couple of pages back, so it seems like this was an error by the printer.
There are six engravings in the book, including the one on the title page and the one with Petrarch and Laura facing each other at the end of the dedication to the Marquess de La Palude, and all the engravings, pages, and text are present.
The book measures 8 3/8 x 6 1/4 inches wide and is in good condition for its age. The binding is solid and there are no loose or missing pages. The crown has loss and there is a chip at the heel and wear along the edges of the spine, wear at the tips and two tips are turned in, there are wormholes in some margins at the bottom, but the wormholes don’t touch the text, there are faint watermarks and occasional brown spots, corner creases on some pages, corner loss on 152, and still a good copy even with those blemishes.
WorldCat lists only four copies of this book in Special Collections around the world, but only two actually have a copy from 1581: Yale in New Haven, Conn. and Oxford in the UK. The University of Pennsylvania and Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, Italy listed the book in their collections, but when we checked, they no longer have the book in their holdings.
Auction records show that an illuminated manuscript from the 1300’s sold at Christie’s in 2009 for £349,250 ($462,000), which means manuscript copies are pricey, and other auction records show a 1514 copy with annotations by Pietro Vettori was sold by Forum Auctions for £5,000 (we don’t know when), a 1521 copy was sold by Freeman’s for $2250 in 2020 (we don’t know the condition), a 1538 copy was sold by IL Ponte in 2025 for €1200, and Swann’s sold a copy from 1553 for $552 (with some loss), but all these copies were by a different publisher.
A copy from 1521 is being offered for sale for $13,700 on the rare book website we use, a 1538 copy is being offered for $5455, one from 1544 is going for $16,366 on the same website, but it’s by a different publisher, a 1547 copy by another publisher is going for $4180, 1553 copies are going for $1200 to $7100, a 1574 copy is going for $2000 and $2600 on the rare book website we use, copies from 1581 are going for $765 to $1045, and we’ve set the opening bid low to get the bidding going for this important work by Petrarch, a medieval poet who revived the study of ancient classics and was a major influence on Renaissance poetry and the field of Humanism.
All items are sold AS IS. Lot and condition details are for descriptive purposes only. Sarasota Estate Auction is not responsible for errors and/or omissions of condition. The absence of a condition report does not imply that the lot is perfect or free from wear, flaws, or characteristics of age. Please bid according to your own expertise, or request any additional information and/or photographs you deem necessary.
