Petrarca (Francesco, poet, 1304-74) Canzoniere or Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, decorated manuscript, on paper, in one hand, 263pp. on 132 ff., single column, 30 lines, the beginning of each poem with Lombard capitals in alternating blue and red, at the beginning of Rvf 264 penwork 4-line initial, in red and blue, some fingerposts and marginal reading marks, on final recto the ink date "1577" below an earlier hand has transcribed the last 10 verses of Rvf 366, adding a note in Italian vernacular "Dominacione Nascerà in questo dì homo grasso e pieno di carne e ben membruto [?] colore palid", a few wormholes, mostly marginal, fading in frequency and size as text proceeds, occasional worm trace to lower inner gutters (mostly at start and some repaired) and lower margins, some staining or soiling, lightly browned, modern limp vellum, leather ties, housed in a late 19th century/early 20th century burgundy morocco box, gilt, upper cover with initial P surmounted by a coronet, lacking spine, corners little worn, rubbed, 8vo (text 205 x 145mm., binding 209 x 149mm.), Italy, [second half of the 15th century].

⁂ An unrecorded decorated manuscript containing variant readings and variations in layout between compositions. The (almost complete) text of Petrarch's songbook, the Canzoniere or Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, supplemented here by the additional ballata Donna mi viene spesso ne la mente, belonging to Petrarch's disperse or uncollected poems (cf. Solerti, Rime disperse, no. 1). Owing to the loss of one leaf, Rvf 1-3 are entirely missing, while Rvf 4 is missing but the last verse ("onde si bella donna al mondo nacque").

Although the first leaf is lacking, it is evident that this manuscript was divided, as with the final version revised by Petrarch himself - see holograph codex Vat.lat. 3195 of the Vatican Library, here in two parts. The first part includes the poems Rvf 1-263, written by Petrarca in vita di Laura, and the second part includes the poems Rvf 264-366, composed by in morte, i.e. after her death. A penwork initial of I' vo pensando, e nel penser m'assale (Rvf 264) marks the beginning of Part Two. The poem is introduced by a 3-line heading in pale red ink "Queste cancione & sonetiseguenti furono facti dreto la morte di madona Laura per il predictoMiser Francesco petrarcha". The layout adopted by our anonymous scribe does not follow the two-column mise en page established by Petrarch's in his autograph. He prefers to align the verses according to the so-called "modern" one-column layout of poetry, into which Petrarch's poems are copied with one verse per line, in order to facilitate (together with the litterae notabiliores marking the beginning of each poem) reading and comprehension.

The manuscript tradition of Petrarch's Rerum vulgarium fragmenta - a veritable work in progress - is rather complex, and there are numerous areas of inconsistency in the order in which the poems actually appear in the various codices, often diverging from the sequence established in the final version of the Vat.lat. 3195. In our manuscript the poems are copied according to the following sequence (the numerals correspond to the physical position in which they actually stand in the manuscript): [one leaf missing], 4 (v. 14), 5-37, 39, 38, 40-79, 81-82, 80, 83-120, 122, Disp. 1, 123, 121, 124-242, 121^b (repeat), 243-327, 329, 328, 330-339, 342, 340, 350-355, 359, 341, 343, 356, 344-349, 357-358, 360-366.

In this sequence, some features are distinctive of the family called "Malatesta", from the copy of the Canzoniere, which Petrarch sent to Pandolfo Malatesta on 4 January 1373, such as the sequence of Rvf 80-81, inverted here in 81-82, 80, the ballad Donna mi viene spesso nella mente (Disp. 1) inserted between Rvf 122 and 123, the madrigal Or vedi Amor, che giovanetta donna (Rvf 121) placed between Rvf 242 and 243, like in the MS Laur. XLI.17 of the Laurenziana Library in Florence.

However, the manuscript offered here presents significant variations, and also shows contaminations from manuscripts belonging to other families. More specifically, the afore-mentioned madrigal Or vedi Amor, che giovanetta donna (Rvf 121) appears not only between Rvf 242 and 243, but also between Rvf 123 and 124. Wilkins records eleven manuscripts in which this madrigal appears with or near the dispersa ballad Donna mi viene spesso nella mente, but only in two manuscripts is it repeated between Rvf 242 and 243: the mss. Hamilton 498 and Hamilton 500 now kept at the Staatsbibliothek Berlin. The reversal of Rvf 38 and 39 in 39-38 seems so far to be a peculiarity of our manuscript.

Other significant variations are detectable in the sequence Rvf 337-366, if compared with the authorial manuscript Vat.lat. 3195. In this regard, the sequence Rvf 337-366 shown in our manuscript is identical to that of the 14^th-century MS 131 of the Fondation Martin Bodmer, Coligny.

Literature: E. H. Wilkins, The Making of the Canzoniere and other Petrarchan Studies, Roma 1951; G. Belloni, "Nota sulla storia del Vat. lat. 3195", G. Belloni, F. Brugnolo, H. Wayne Storey et al. (eds.), Rerum vulgarium fragmenta. Codice Vat. lat. 3195. Commentario all'edizione in facsimile, Roma-Padova 2004, 73-104; D. Del Puppo. "Remaking Petrarch's Canzoniere in the Fifteenth Century", Medioevo letterario d'Italia 1 (2004), 115-139; M. Pacioni, "Visual Poetics and mise en page nei Rerum vulgarium fragmenta", Letteratura italiana antica, 5 (2004), 367-383; C. Pulsoni, "Appunti sul ms. E 63 della Biblioteca Augusta di Perugia, L'Ellisse 2 (2007), 29-99. G. Savoca, Il Canzoniere di Petrarca tra codicologia ed ecdotica, Firenze 2008; G. Benghi, Giulia, "Transcribing Petrarch's Genres in the Late Fourteenth Century: Ongoing Conversation with the Observations from MSS Cologny Bodmer 131 and Gambalunga SC-Ms. 93", Textual Cultures 13, no. 1 (2020), 106-127.