Petrarch's Secretum

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A fresh translation of Petrarch's Secretum with critical apparatus and an anthology of representative critical essays from the best scholarship on this work since the turn of the century. This fundamental document in the history of Humanism is placed within its historical and scholarly tradition, with attention to its relevance to the modern age. The Secretum and the critical anthology show how Petrarch's literary consciousness, attitude toward ancient writers, and change in literary taste mark the dawn of a new civilization and the forming of an aesthetic ideal that will be accepted for many centuries in Europe.