Canzoniere: A New Translation

The iconic Renaissance songbook—an inspiration to love poets since the fourteenth century—in an elegant, fluid, and inviting translation.

Petrarch’s Canzoniere stands as one of the greatest and most influential collections of love poetry ever written. In a classic story of love at first sight, the young poet expresses in beautiful verse his unrequited reverence for Laura, a muse who would prove as inspirational as Beatrice to Dante. Stricken with grief after Laura’s death, Petrarch transmute...