La rappresentazione del poeta nel paesaggio

[Autom. eng. transl.] In words and with the drawing Boccaccio describes Petrarch in profound interrelation with the landscape, which is not a neutral background but an integral part of the poetic and moral definition of the character. He captures one of the happiest and most original self-representations of his friend, who shows himself intent on reading, writing and praying not in the enclosure of the bedroom but en plein air, in a solitary, rural and wooded landscape, rich in water, such as that of Vaucluse. Petrarch also precisely delineates his posture: he is sitting on the grass or on a bed of flowers. This image coincides with that of Virgil in the miniature of Virgilio Ambrosiano, whose iconography was conceived by Petrarch himself: the two poets, Petrarch and Virgil, are represented in the same way. Petrarch's love for nature is real and at the same time deeply connected with his poetry: his numerous and vain attempts to plant laurels in his gardens are not separated from his dazzling and early success in obtaining the poetic laurel; his attraction to the mountains, from Ventoux to Montgenèvre, acquires a profound autobiographical and spiritual perspective in his story.