L'epitaffio per il cane Zabot attribuito a Petrarca

The epitaph to the dog Zabot, among Petrarch’s ‘carmina minora’ del Petrarca, is analysed from the intertextual point of view, as well as for what concerns the rhetorical structure. The reconstruction of the manuscript tradition has focused on its popularity circumscribed to the second half of the fifteenth and to the sixteenth century, especially within anthologies of humanistic epigrams. On the other hand, it cannot be found in the collections of ‘carmina’ definitely attributed to Petrarch. We have also identified a citation from the ‘distichon’ in the last version of Lorenzo Valla’s “De vero bono”, spoken by Maffeo Vegio, one of the characters in the dialogue. The study of the direct and indirect tradition allows the identification of a more correct textual situation, once more casting doubt on the attribution to Petrarch.