Imagining the Author in Print > Petrarch
This 1533 edition of Petrarch's poetry was once owned by Cuthbert Tunstall. The poetry's commentary was supplied by Giovanni Andrea Gesualdo, while the order of the poetry accords with that of Velutello, who rearranged the sonnets found in Petrarch's manuscript so that they read like a narrative, part of which takes place during “Vita di Madonna Laura” and part of which takes place after her death. In early modern England, there was no edition of Petrarch; rather, there were loose translations of selected poems as well as Petrarchan verse, with its emphasis on the icy fire of love. A renewed popularity of Petrarchan verse, as well as its eventual demise, is evident in England in the 1590s, when a number of sonnet sequences were published and when Shakespeare too wrote some, if not all, of his sonnets.
The first poem of Rime Sparse, like all the poems in this volume, is crowded by commentary. This commentary provides a detailed explication of the poem's content. The biography of Petrarch, which appears before the poetry, works in conjunction with the commentary to construct Petrarch as a deeply philosophical love poet, whose biography can be read into his poetry, and vice versa.
One of the book's owners – possibly the Nicholas Lanier on the title page – has provided an ink transcription of missing poetry and commentary. It is obvious, based on the size of the handwriting, that the writer did not copy Gesualdo's commentary exactly. Instead, he fills in what he perceives to be relevant prose.
What we see here is one of the book's readers engaging with the commentary. In this case, the reader tries to supply an alternate interpretation of Petrarch's verse.