This volume explores the complex phenomenon of exegetical work produced from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century on Petrarch's vernacular poetry, that is, both his Rerum vulgarium fragmenta (Canzoniere) and his Triumphi (Trionfi). This body of exegesis takes the form of commentaries, annotations, academic lectures, and other forms of para-textual and critical intervention, from biographies and glossaries to marginal notes and illustrative programmes.

The volume gathers together ten contributions from Anglo-American, Italian and continental scholarship. It combines rigorous analyses of specific commentators and lecturers (the author of the 'Portilia' commentary, Silvano da Venafro, Giovan Battista Gelli) alongside contributions devoted to interpretative strategies in both commentaries and academic lectures. It also explores the reception in Italy, France and England of the major Petrarch commentary by Alessandro Vellutello, as well as forms of reception and interpretation in paratexts and images. The volume is divided into three sections: 'Philology, Materiality and Paratexts'; 'Exegetical Strategies in Commentaries and Lessons'; and 'Visual Exegesis and Reception in France and England'.