The Sonnets Triumphs and Other Poems of Petrarch: The Canzonieres Ballatas Madrigales and Sestinas - Complete with Biography and Excerpts of Letters

The full compendium of Francesco Petrarchs poetic verses rendered in English in this high quality edition which also includes a biography of the great poet by Thomas Campbell. Notable for being the pivotal figure whose work commenced the Italian Renaissance Francesco Petrarcas significance is gargantuan. His personal rediscovery of authentic correspondences written by the Roman statesman and legal scholar Cicero was the spark that set the enthusiasm for the arts and sciences alight throughout Italy and later much of Europe in a trend which would span centuries. Petrarchs personal creative proclivities were for poetry a form in which he innovated and excelled. Serving as a model for later Italian poets such as Dante and Giovanni Boccaccio Petrarchs poems are the vivid forebear of the wellspring of lyrical creativity which underpinned the Renaissance era. For Petrarch his lifes love and foremost poetic subject was Laura de Noves a woman who for decades he considered a purely platonic muse.