Title: Librorum Francisci Petrarche Impressorum Annotatio
Description: <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;"> Folio. Signatures: a¹⁰ b-e⁸ f¹⁰ ff⁸ g-o⁸ p-r¹⁰ s-y⁸ ç⁸ A-F⁸ G-I⁶ K¹⁰ L-M⁶ N-O⁸; -⁴ 1-7⁸ 8-11⁶ 12-13⁸ 14-15¹⁰ 16-17⁶ 16-18⁶ 19⁸ 21-23⁸ 24⁶. Later calf. Without pagination or catchwords. Double columns. Contains initial-directors. Ownership inscription “Societatis Jesu Monachii 1606.” Stamp “May 30 1939 From the Library of dr. Tenney Frank Rare Book Room.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">Second collective edition of Petrarch’s Latin works (in prose, with his verse epic ‘Africa’), incorporating the first printing of the ‘Epistolae seniles’ (‘Rerum senilium libri,’ or ‘Letters of old age’), which include Petrarch’s key treatment of literary forgery, in an epistolary essay that arguably represents the initiation of the scholarly detection of imposture (Book XVI, letter 5). The Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV had sought Petrarch’s opinion of the authenticity of two ‘privileges’ supposedly granted by Julius Caesar and Nero to the rulers of transalpine Austria, and in this four-column report Petrarch obligingly demolishes them as modern fakes, on grounds of diction, address, precedent, and geographical detail. Couched as a letter ‘ad Karolum quartum romanum imperatorem de falsitate privilegii austriam’ (sigs. 12:7–8 in vol. II), his response ‘has become well known as a landmark in the humanist criticism of documents,’ and ‘marks the beginnings of a new attitude to the antique basis of political authority’ (A. Hiatt, The Making of Medieval Forgeries. False documents in fifteenth-century England. London, 2004, p. 156).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">The collection also includes the first printing of Petrarch’s Latin epic ‘Africa,’ which itself furnished lines toward a fraudulent enlargement of Silius Italicus in 1781 (see Bib# 4102821/Fr# 293 in this collection).
</span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://catalyst.library.jhu.edu/permalink/01JHU_INST/1lu78g9/alma991022850189707861" rel="nofollow">Click here to view the Johns Hopkins University catalog record.</a></span></span></p>