Petrarch, the “father of Humanism”, has exerted a striking impact on early modern intellectuals. This volume discusses how Petrarch’s writings were understood, read and used by intellectuals, writers and artists from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. Specialists from various disciplines (Italian, French, Neo-Latin, Dutch, art history, history of science) demonstrate that early modern reception is an extremely variable phenomenon; that it is largely dominated by the various discourses, paradigm’s, literary genres, interests, needs and experiences of the users, and to a much lesser degree by the author’s text, even if safeguarded with such great care and by such a famous author as in Petrarch’s case. The volume is important for all scholars interested in literature, Humanism, Renaissance Studies, Petrarch, reception, history of reading and the intellectual history of the early modern period.

Contributors include: Jean Balsamo, Dóra Bobory, Dina De Rentiis, Ugo Dotti, Karl A.E. Enenkel, Reindert L. Falkenburg, Ursula Kocher, Marc Laureys, Reinier Leushuis, Jan Papy, Paul J. Smith, and Bart Van den Bossche.