Nicolas Longinotti, Research Area 1: "Competing Communities"
Doctoral Research Project

The project "Petrarchan Memories" will study how elements of Franceso Petrarca’s work were used in Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in different political contexts. It was Petrarca’s wish to found an international, humanistic, erudite community that could compose new literature following his poetics of imitation. In fact, in these centuries — due in part to the need of a common cultural language — the Petrarchan model became popular and was reworked in various texts for different communities, from different perspectives and for different poetics and cultural programs. Drawing from the analysis of lyrical vernacular texts, the project "Petrarchan Memories" aims to, (1) investigate the arguments that accompanied the process by which Petrarca’s notions of language and love were established in fifteenth and sixteenth century literature, and (2) expose the complexity of relations and developments within Petrarchan literary communities.