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of the work were entitled, this phrase being a quotation from the first line of Sonnet 1: “Voi ch’ascoltate in rime sparse il suono”. The later title of Il Canzoniere or songbook is a reference to the twenty-nine canzoni that were also included in the volume. (The poetic form of the canzone had been defined at the start of the trecento by none other than the great Dante Alighieri.) In the field of music, the first decades of the 16th century are allied with the initial stirrings of a Renaissance of literature through innumerable polyphonic madrigals, a direct result of the first publication of printed music by Petrucci in Venice in 1501. The enthusiasm of composers for these rime sparse would continue for more than a century, continuing through the advent of the recitar cantando and the stil moderno of the 1600s. With the exception of a few later madrigals (notably Due rose fresche), Monteverdi’s Ottavo Libro de madrigali concludes the golden age of ‘Petrarchism’ embodied so well by the composers of the High Renaissance; this volume provides Petrarch with the finest swansong possible, ending with the sonnet Hor che ’l ciel e la terra (“Now that heaven and earth are silent.”). Thematically speaking, the “rime sparse” are entirely devoted to the mysterious Laura; her physical existence was even doubted by certain of Petrarch’s contemporaries, notably by his friends Boccaccio and Giovanni Colonna, who never saw her. The poet stood up against this idea by making frequent reference to his lady throughout his body of work; he was to divide this into two parts after Laura’s death, entitling them Rime in vita e in morte de Madonna Laura. In its definitive version, the work contains three hundred and sixty-six poems, the total number of these sonetti, canzoni, ballate, madrigali and sestine corresponding to the three hundred and sixty-six days of the leap year of her death in 1348. Whether she was a real person or an idealised character, the double meaning of Laura’s name is frequently used, “l’aura” meaning breath or breeze as well as presence. There is also much wordplay between “l’aurea” (honour), “l’aurora” (dawn) and “lauro” (the laurel tree). The laurel was the tree into