Petrarch’s letters to Cicero coming on Monday! 📜

The book will present two let­ters writ­ten by Francesco Petrar­ca (1304–1374) addressed to the Roman states­man and ora­tor Mar­cus Tul­lius Cicero (106–43 BC).

In 1345, Petrar­ch dis­cov­ered a man­u­script of Cicero’s Epis­tu­lae ad Atticum in the Chap­ter Library of Verona. This dis­cov­ery pro­vid­ed Petrar­ch with his first glimpse of Cicero’s pri­vate cor­re­spon­dence, reveal­ing the Roman author’s per­son­al anx­i­eties and polit­i­cal entan­gle­ments dur­ing the col­lapse of the Roman Repub­lic. In response, Petrar­ch com­posed these let­ters as if writ­ing to a liv­ing con­tem­po­rary.

I find them very fas­ci­nat­ing and hope you’ll enjoy them too! Today I’ll care­ful­ly proof­read every­thing again so that the book can be pub­lished on Mon­day.

Wish you a great week­end! ☺️