Klug und von hehrer Gestalt. Petrarca-Bildnisse aus sieben Jahrhunderten

The First Modern Human Being – Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374) – alongside Dante and Boccaccio one of the Tre Corone of Florence – is regarded as the first humanist of the early modern age. His world-famous “Canzoniere,” the cycle of poems on the life and death of Madonna Laura, ranks among the most celebrated love poetry of the Western world. Beside the image of his soul and his mind another must be placed: that of an imagined and idealised physiognomy. With the burgeoning awareness of the individual and the increasing need for representation that developed from it, even the early portraits show Petrarca as an outstanding personality of his age. Depending on how his works were received, the most diverse depictions were produced in the course of later centuries in miniatures, book printing and graphic art, on coins and medals, or as monuments and sculptures. The present volume is the first monograph on the portrait of Petrarca and on the variants of it that have arisen over the centuries. The selection of portraits and the accompanying texts create a richly illustrated anthology that offers the general reader as much as the specialist an insight into the image of Petrarca as mirrored in his personality, his posthumous fame and the history of his influence. Reiner Speck, born in 1941, Dr med., is a physician, collector and writer as well as the founder of the Marcel Proust Gesellschaft in Cologne. His art collection is as well known as his extensive library on the work of Marcel Proust or his important collection on Francesco Petrarca, which is regarded as the largest in private hands anywhere in the world. Reiner Speck has published on art, literature and the history of medicine. His most recent titles with Snoeck are “I hate Paul Klee. Arbeiten auf Papier und Künstlerbücher aus der Sammlung Speck” and, as a bilingual edition (German/French) together with Jürgen Ritte, “Cher ami … Votre Marcel Proust. Marcel Proust im Spiegel seiner Korrespondenz.”