La Dispersa 13 di Petrarca a Francesco Nelli

The article includes the critical text, translation, and commentary for the Dispersa 13 (= Var. 39) by Petrarch, a letter addressed to Francesco Nelli, written from Padua and dated April 6, 1351. This brief epistle, composed in a friendly and intimate tone, was entrusted to Giovanni Boccaccio, then in Padua as an ambassador for the city of Florence, for delivery to the addressee. The text has been reconstructed from five manuscripts, which preserve a small collection of Petrarch’s writings, named by Vittorio Rossi ‘Raccolta fiorentina’. Furthermore, certain ope ingenii interventions suggested by Giuseppe Fracassetti and Henry Cochin, though accepted by later editors, were deemed unnecessary. Several classical intertextual elements have been identified, along with clarifications regarding the libellus, a breviary that Nelli had gifted to Petrarch.