A luminous biography and intellectual history that traces Petrarch’s restless life and enduring influence. Essential reading for understanding the man behind the sonnets.

“Young’s translations capture the raw ache of Petrarch’s longing. A fresh take that honors the original’s musicality.” — Modern Poetry Review

Here is my review of the excellent Petrarch Commentary and Exegesis in Renaissance Italy and Beyond

This amazing contribution to scholarship, Petrarch and the Origins of Textual Interpretation, edited by Teodolinda Barolini and H. Wayne Storey in 2007, and including chapters by both of the editors, as well as Martin Eisner, Furio Brugnolo, Marcello Ciccuto, John Ahern, Roberta Antognini, and Kathy Eden, offers a brilliant study of the key philological issues undergirding – and constituting – Petrarch’s work.

Published in the William and Katherine Devers Series in Dante and Medieval Italian Literature at Notre Dame, this 2009 volume edited by Zygmunt Baranski and Theodore Cachey (Petrarch and Dante:Anti-Dantism, Metaphysics, Tradition), is an informative read that helps elucidate the dynamic nature of the early vernacular tradition. See especially the chapters by Cachey, Barolini, Steinberg, Sturm-Maddox, and Martinez in this volume.