Ambiguità del petrarchismo : Un percorso fra trattati d’amore, lettere e templi di rime

Abstract

The volume draws attention to some elements of ambiguity in the Italian Petrarchism of the 16th century, with insights also into the early 17th century. In particular, the book analyses: the debate on some contradictory or at least problematic aspects of Petrarch’s statements on love; the tension between literary artificiality and ostentation of sincerity in love letters; the ambiguity between sacred and profane in the encomiastic field, with special reference to the metaphor of the ‘temple’ in the so-called ‘temples of poems’. The path here proposed offers an idea of Petrarchism as a phenomenon less rigid and stereotyped than usually perceived. Its ambiguities or even contradictions can be subjects of debate, without necessarily taking the path of anti-petrarchism and parodic deformation.