Riccardo Magli
Francesco Petrarca's "De Otio Religioso": Textual Reconstruction, Commentary, and Humanistic Circulation
The research project, focused on the De Otio Religioso, aims to study Petrarch’s work from its genesis to its circulation in the Humanistic era. Apparently secondary among the author’s Latin works, the De Otio synthesizes Petrarch’s position as a “Christian humanist,” balancing patristic readings and pagan sources, starting already from the very concept in the title, while the path of monasticism—understood as contemplative solitude—lends itself to methodological and autobiographical echoes. After attempting to reconstruct the text of the De Otio by delving into its manuscript tradition, the project will seek to analyze its main themes and issues also in light of the author’s poetics and his figurative inner split. Finally, the study of the work’s diffusion at least up to the first half of the 15th century may yield further evidence of its various interpretations.
Interessi di ricerca
History of Italian literature, contemporary Italian literature (poetry and prose), studies on the reception of Greek and Latin classics,
Latin works of Francesco Petrarca, the relationship between paganism and Christianity in medieval and humanistic literature.