"A very important study. Mazzotta not only gives us a dense and rich new portrait of a much-studied and absolutely major figure, but he also brings to the fore the abiding force and value of Petrarch's 'worlds' of discourse and thought to many of today's debates regarding, for example, the relation of aesthetics and rhetoric to the politico-historical realm, or the epistemological validity of poetry, or the constructedness of the self."--Rebecca West, University of Chicago
"A richly textured, deeply learned, and broadly inclusive study of Petrarch's writing, his historical situation, and his contribution to our own cultural formation."--William Kennedy, Cornell University
