Petrarch's Triumphs

TOP ROW The images shown here are from Bernard Quarich's edition of Works of The Italian Engravers of the Fifteenth Century, with introduction by G.W.Reid. The first book in this series was devoted to three sequences of images,
Il Libro del Monte Sancto di Dio, 1477
La Divina Commedia of Dante 1481
and The Triumphs of Petrarch.
Reid denies the credit for the Petrarch prints to Nicoletto da Modena and supports the authorship of Fra Filippo Lippi.

The Six States of Man

For each State - the Italian poet Petrarch wrote a "Triumph".

(the combination of Passion and Reason).

Love
Chastity
Death
Fame
Time
Eternity

This extends to other illustrations of the Triumphs - to the Triumphs of Apollo and the Muses

MIDDLE ROW

01 a woodcut from the second edition of Pacini's edition of the Triumphs printed in Florence in 1508. 

02 The Triumph of Death from the Predica dell'Arte del ben morire , Florence c1500.

 
03 Willem van Haecht, an envgraving of 1577 of The Triumph of Peace , 36 x 44cms.

 
  
BOTTOM ROW
01 two linked images The Triumph of Apollo and the Nine Muses , from Geofrey Tory's Champ Fleury ,Paris 1529 1488. "I will make below a drawing wherein Apollo, in a chariot of gold and precious stones, shall be drawn in triumph by the Nine Muses, the seven Liberal Arts, the four Cardinal Virtues shall hold the four corners of the chariot, and the three `Graces shall lead its three horses...." Champ Fleury in the Dover edition/ translation , New York, 1967.

02 The French edition of Petrarch's Triumphs (Janot, Paris ,1539) was illustrated with six emblematic woodcuts, here the Triumph of Time . The designs dispense with the clutter of the multi-figured composition in favour of an economic arrangements of objects. The size of the original page is 9 x 14cms, but reproduced larger here so you can see the detail.

from Petrarch's Sonnets, Venice 1549, the Triumph of Death
 

from Petrarch's Sonnets, Venice 1522, the Triumph of Love