Petrarch’s Canzoniere: Scattered Rhymes, a New Verse Translation

 Francesco Petrarch’s Canzoniere (translated in English as ‘Scattered Rhymes’) is a  collection of 14th century poems famed for their deep exploration of  love, grief, spirituality and nature. Written over the course of forty  years (approximately between 1328-1368), this collection includes 317  sonnets, 29 canzoni, 9 sestine, 4 madrigals and 7 ballate. These  Scattered Rhymes almost always return to Laura, a women who Petrarch  loves deeply, whom he first saw on a Good Friday. On this same day, some  years later, Laura died. But Petrarch’s love does not wane, in fact at  points it burns brighter. Il Canzoniere also serves as a valuable  contemporary insight into 14th century religion and the role of the  papacy in Christendom. Petrarch’s work is one of civilization’s most  immaculate achievements. Michael R. G. Spiller regards Il Canzoniere as  ‘the single greatest inspiration for the love poetry of Renaissance  Europe until well into the seventeenth century’. Following his acclaimed  translation of Dante’s Inferno, which ‘immediately joins ranks with the  very best available in English’ (Dr Richard Lansing), Peter Thornton  brings the poetry of Petrarch to the 21st Century in direct and luminous verse.