I "nuovi Trionfi" di Lodovico Paterno

The appendix to Nuovo Petrarca, a book of poems published in Venice in 1560 by the Campanian poet Lodovico Paterno, contains a curious rewrite of Petrarch’s Trionfi. Starting from an exchange of letters between the writer and his publisher, Luigi Valvassori, the present paper reconstructs the editorial context in which the work was conceived, bringing Mario degli Andini, Nicolò Bevilacqua, and Remigio Nannini into the picture, while noting the more innovative aspects of Paterno’s Trionfi, studying the paratextual apparatus, and singling out some likely literary models (Petrarch, Ariosto, Castiglione). Particular attention is given to two chapters that are lacking in the hypotext, viz., the Trionfo della Fortuna and the Trionfo della Speranza, where Paterno’s verses engage in an articulate visual-poetic relationship with the accompanying xylographs.