PETRARCH
No authority for Petrarch’s life is equal to his own letters, published complete in the edition of Fracassetti, 1859-63. An English translation has been announced. There are recent biographies corresponding to the requirements of modern research by Geiger, 1874, and in the first volume of Koerting’s Geschichte der Litteratur Italiens, 1878. Petrarch’s position and resources as a scholar have been thoroughly investigated by Pierre de Nolhac, Pétrarque et l’Humanisme, 1892. The best commentary is Leopardi’s, always printed with the current Florentine edition of the Canzoniere. The most critical edition is Mestica’s, 1896. The best literary criticism is Zumbini’s Studi sul Petrarca, 1895.