Reading Petrarca and Becoming Laura: Pellegra Bongiovanni’s Epistolary Canzoniere

Abstract

This article examines Risposte a nome di Madonna Laura alle rime di Messer Francesco Petrarca in vita della medesima (1762) by Pellegra Bongiovanni, a distinctive contribution to the tradition of Petrarchan reception. The work comprises 235 poems responding to those texts of the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta addressed to Laura during her lifetime, thereby constructing a dialogic canzoniere in which Laura’s voice stands “opposite” Francesco’s. Far from constituting a mere exercise in imitation, the Risposte enact a systematic resemanticization of the Petrarchan model: by reusing the original rhyme words, Bongiovanni reorients their meaning through a gendered interpretive perspective. The article argues that this operation transforms Petrarca’s lyric monologue into a dialogue and offers an innovative reading of the Petrarchan code within the cultural context of the eighteenth century.