The illuminated manuscript of the "Trionfi" preserved in Vienna, created at the beginning of the sixteenth century, belongs to the artistic production of the School of Rouen. The artists that worked on this manuscript broadened their interests towards the characters, the mythical, legendary or historic stories that Petrarch mentions in the poem. This manuscript is the French translation of the Italian text.
The peculiarity of this manuscript consists mainly in the extraordinary number of miniatures: in almost all the other illuminated manuscripts of the "Trionfi" the illustration is limited to six miniatures of six triumphal carriages, while this copy has eighty-six large miniatures and over 1800 gold initial letters.
The illuminators, taking inspiration from the text, also developed a sort of "visual hypertext": in fact, in each illustration different plains of action in its temporal development are represented.
Binding description
Binding
The original binding of both books went lost and was replaced with a leather binding in the late seventeenth century.
We have 4 facsimiles of the manuscript "Vienna Triumphs of Petrarch":
- I Trionfi di Petrarca facsimile edition published by Imago, 2021
- I Trionfi di Petrarca (Cod. 2581) facsimile edition published by Imago, 2021
- I Trionfi di Petrarca (Cod. 2582) facsimile edition published by Imago, 2021
- Trionfi - Les Triumphes de Petrarque facsimile edition published by De Agostini/UTET, 2011
