How Canzoniere drew on Confessions
A documented line of influence: Francesco Petrarca demonstrably engaged Augustine of Hippo’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Confessions
Augustine of Hippo · c. 398
Ancient RomeThe influenced
Canzoniere
Francesco Petrarca · c. 1374
MedievalRelevance
8/10
On Canzoniere’s page
- The book Petrarch carried in his pocket and read at the top of Mont Ventoux — Augustine's Confessions was his breviary
- The Canzoniere's long confessional self-scrutiny, above all the conversion canzone Rvf 264, maps onto Augustine's arc: the turn from Laura to the Virgin echoing Augustine's turn from the world to God
- Read it first and the Canzoniere reveals itself as the Confessions made lyric — the same restless soul, now in verse
On Confessions’s page
- Augustine taught the West how to scrutinize a soul on the page — Petrarch made it his breviary, carrying a pocket copy up Mont Ventoux to read at the summit
- He staged Augustine as his own interlocutor in the Secretum and modeled the Canzoniere's conversion arc on the Confessions
- The turn from earthly love to God — Petrarch's pivot from Laura to the Virgin in Rvf 264 — is Augustine's pattern transposed into lyric