LANDSCAPE IMAGERY IN PETRARCH'S 'CANZONIERE': DEVELOPMENT AND CHARACTERIZATION OF THE IMAGERY AND AN ILLUSTRATION IN THE VIRGIL FRONTISPIECE BY SIMONE MARTINI (RENAISSANCE, PAINTING, ITALIAN ART, LITERATURE, FOURTEENTH-CENTURY).

摘要

This study of the landscape imagery in the Canzoniere by Francis Petrarch shows his settings to be important vehicles for expression of the sensations and insights of the poet-lover. A review of models from classical and medieval literatures establishes his uses of motifs and important interpretative concepts of Nature found in these sources. It was, however, the region of Vaucluse which furnished specific landscape images critical to the concretion of Petrarch's imagery and his experiential understanding of the physical world. His direct observations of the outdoors inspired his writing, intensified and varied his poetic expression, and created credible and familiar environments which provide the reader with valuable orientation to the perspectives of the poetry.;The study demonstrates that Petrarch assumed a variety of physical and psychological positions from which he constructed the landscape settings which support his poetic insights in the Canzoniere. These include: (1) aerial views of sky and weather reflecting a lofty vantage point and his observations of the effects of climate and weather; these underscore his changing moods and vulnerability before the force of Nature, (2) high views of general topography which emphasize distance and wide horizons; these are stimulating expanses and vistas which conversely express the poet's exhilaration or fears of isolation from the familiar world, (3) views from the heights of the cliffs overlooking Vaucluse and the Avignon plains where Laura lived; these alternately inspire reassurance and grief relative to love, (4) the valley of Vaucluse with its myriad sights and sounds which are the bases for the majority of Petrarch's landscape images; these offer the multiple pastoral and woodland settings germaine to the antithetical character of the lyric sequence, (5) other specific locations from his travels which appear as settings to support the general themes of love and patriotism in the Canzoniere.;A singular visual representation of the favored Petrarchan setting appears in a painting by Simone Martini, the frontispiece of Petrarch's Virgil, which was planned and executed in a cooperative project between the poet and the painter. Its classical valley setting derives from both Virgilian pastoral environment and from Vaucluse.