Italia Mia Resources

This site is a testament to what the dedication of an independent scholar can do. Peter Sadlon, a Canadian scholar who wears many hats, has created a convenient resource for students new to Petrarch's life and works. You will find biographical info, texts of his poems and prose, mp3 files, and general information about the poet's world.

This website is dedicated to Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron, but has great, useful information on the fourteenth century, which the great writer shared with his mentor, Petrarch.

If reading Canzone126 inspires you to chuck it all and dedicate your life to Petrarch's works, you should start with The Oregon Petrarch Open Book Project. This is digital humanities work at its finest—and a project to aspire to if you think you've got that calling.

Indiana University has created an accessible collection of digitized manuscripts of Petrarch's Canzoniere. It's a very cool resource for all of you aspiring medievalists and those who just want to see how poetry physically takes shape over time.

Moro Silo performs Canzone 128 in Italian—highly recommended for those interested in how Petrarch sounds and feels.

Composer Philippe Verdelot (ca. 1528) created a beautiful madrigal out of the opening of Petrarch's "Italia mia." Scroll to the bottom of the page to find the mp3.

Contemporary composer Loretta K. Notareschi has composed choral arrangements for stanzas 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, and 8 of "Italia mia."

Behold, a painting of the man himself. You gotta love the hood.

The British Library offers us eye-popping images from MS. King's 321, a copy of Petrarch's Canzoniere , circa 1400. You can click on the image to enlarge it, and if you scroll to the bottom of the original page in this link, you'll find several more images to peruse.

Petrarch has a beef with the employment of German mercenaries in Italy, as we see in Canzone 128. But mercenary soldiers were an age-old issue, as we can see in this overview of the elite mercenary units that tore late medieval Italy apart.

New research has found that those plundering bands of soldiers for hire had opt out clauses for certain issues that touched their hearts.

Check out Arquà Petrarca in northern Italy, where Petrarch built a home and spent his final years. It may be hard to get to, but you will get to see his mummified cat when you get there. (Yes, you read that right.)

Feeling woefully undereducated about history in medieval Italy? This page will give you a good grounding—at least enough to survive a 122-line poem.

If your medieval Italian is a little dusty, Mark Musa's translation of Petrarch's Canzoniere will pull you through. His work is careful and poetic in its own right (he's even metrically correct on most lines).

If you prefer long-standing authority in your academic resources, Durling's translation of the Rime Sparse (that's the Canzoniere to us) has been the go-to translation since 1976.