Petrarch 3.16

This separately-published volume is one of a series that reprinted the texts established for the Basel edition. Le Preux brought them all together in 1610 as a two-volume set of "selections" from Petrarch, and made up a general title-page for the 1610 volumes. Its contents had, however, originally been printed between 1602 and 1610. The portability of this little book is obvious. What is slightly surprising is the elaborately tooled and clasped pigskin binding the volume wears. That binding is evidence, from the early years of the seventeenth century, of the cultural prestige that continued to accrue to Petrarch.