Los lugares de Petrarca

Petrarch's life, a wandering peregrinus ubique, was a continuous journey through cities across Europe, but also a tenacious search for settings for himself, places where the poet strove to find solace in the beauty of the landscapes, fostering certain poetic rituals and creating the image he would bequeath to posterity. In "Petrarch's Places", literature, architecture and landscape, biography and essay, travelogue and anachronistic dialogue intertwine to describe the captivating journey from the sophisticated papal palaces in Avignon and the courts of Italian princes during the Black Death to the unique retreats Petrarch established in Fontaine-de-Vaucluse and Arquà. The diverse landscapes and settings allow us to answer some of the questions that troubled the author of the *Canzoniere* as much as they continue to trouble us: Why do we seek solitude in nature? What are we fleeing from?