Around 1508-1510, in Rouen, two tall volumes were written out and illuminated to carry Petrarch’s Trionfi into French. Petrarch’s Triumphs, now Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 2581 and Cod. 2582, was probably made for Antoine II, Duke of Lorraine.
A Prose Petrarch Remade for a French Readership
Of the five French translations of the Trionfi made between 1470 and 1550, only one turned the poem into prose, and the Vienna volumes carry its most expansive form. That redaction reworks an anonymous version formerly attributed to Georges de La Forge, enlarging it with long didactic and moralizing passages drawn chiefly from the commentary of Bernardo Ilicino.
Three manuscript witnesses of it survive. The same text went to press in Paris in 1514 and was reissued seven times before 1554, so that a book shaped for a ducal library ended as a printed staple.
Rouen Illumination, Gold Initials, and Painted Arms
Both volumes are decorated throughout in the manner of the School of Rouen. Large miniatures mark the divisions of the poem, gold initials run through the text, and painted coats of arms appear in each volume.
The present binding, marbled brown calf over pasteboard with gold tooling, was made in France at the end of the seventeenth century, long after the volumes had left Lorraine; they later belonged to Prince Eugene of Savoy and reached the imperial library in Vienna with his collection.
Six Triumphs Divided Across Two Volumes
Cod. 2581 carries the Triumphs of Love, Chastity, and Death and opens that of Fame; Cod. 2582 completes Fame and closes with Time and Eternity. The break falls inside a triumph rather than between two, a reminder that the two codices were planned as one reading.
A Poem Explained as Much as Translated
What a French court wanted from Petrarch, these pages suggest, was not only the verse but the apparatus around it: the allegory unfolded, the exemplary lives spelled out, the moral drawn before the reader could miss it.
We have 4 facsimiles of the manuscript "Vienna Triumphs by Petrarch":
- I Trionfi di Petrarca facsimile edition published by Imago, 2021
- I Trionfi di Petrarca (Cod. 2581) facsimile edition published by Imago, 2021
- I Trionfi di Petrarca (Cod. 2582) facsimile edition published by Imago, 2021
- Trionfi - Les Triumphes de Petrarque facsimile edition published by De Agostini/UTET, 2011
