The Art of Publishing one’s own work: Petrarch’s De vita solitaria

Petrarch began writing his De vita solitaria for Bishop Philippe de Cabassole in Vaucluse in 1346. The process of composition took time: the work was sent to the dedicatee only in 1366. While that act constituted publication, it did not conclude the authorial process as Petrarch kept on revising the text. Engaging with his letters, manuscripts (some containing autograph marginalia), and the complex manuscript tradition of the treatise, this chapter sheds light on Petrarch’s strategies for promoting the circulation of De vita solitaria. In addition to the dedicatory volume, Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, 9633, with its autograph interventions, the manuscript Vat. lat. 3357, written when Petrarch was still alive, is of particular importance. The latter bears marginalia which attest to dialogue between the author and an anonymous reader, attentive to textual issues and various minutiae of the contents. Study of these notes demonstrates that after the first formal dedication copy had been sent to Philippe de Cabassole, Petrarch remained concerned for details of the text and the work’s further circulation.