''De remediis utriusque fortunae'' ("Remedies for Fortunes") is a collection of 254

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

dialogues Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American English) is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literary and theatrical form that depicts such an exchange. As a philosophical or didactic device, it is chi ...

written by the humanist

Francesco Petrarca Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited ...

(1304–1374), commonly known as

Petrarch Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited ...

. The dialogues display remarkably lucid ideas that are cogently expressed. Drawing on classical sources, Petrarch expounded on refinement in taste and intellect, on finesse and propriety in speech and style. The writing is a bouquet of moral philosophy, set out to show how thought and deed can generate happiness on the one hand, or sorrow and disillusionment on the other. In a recurring theme throughout the dialogues, Petrarch advises humility in prosperity and fortitude in adversity. The dialogue is a development of a type seen in Seneca’s ''De remediis fortuitorum.'' The 254 woodcut illustrations by the anonymous Master of Petrarch for the 1532 German edition are considered masterpieces of the German Renaissance. In 1579, the dialogues were translated into English by the Elizabethan physician Thomas Twyne (1543–1613) as ''Phisicke Against Fortune'', and by Susannah Dobson in 1791 as ''Petrarch's View of Human Life''.

References

External links

''Petrarch's View of Human Life,'' Susannah Dobson's translation
*''De remediis utriusque fortunae'', Cremonae, B. de Misintis ac Caesaris Parmensis, 1492. Online at Wikisource *„''Von der Artzney bayder Glück / des guoten vnd widerwertigen. Vnnd weß sich ain yeder inn Gelück vnnd vnglück halten sol.'' Auß dem Lateinischen in das Teütsch gezogen. Mit künstlichen fyguren durchauß / gantz lustig vnd schön gezyeret.“ Augsburg: Heynrich Steyner 1532
Online at gallica
*Catharina Ypes: ''Petrarca in de Nederlandse letterkunde''. De Spieghel, Amsterdam 1934

Medieval literature Petrarch {{manuscript-stub