Petrarch's Secret

Complete and unabridged, with 60 full-page plates by Giovanni Antonio Guardi, Francesco Guardi and Canaletto. Three dialogues in which Petrarch argues with Saint Augustine about his own soul, his ambition and his love for Laura, with Truth standing silent between them. He wrote it for himself and never published it; it is the first modern self-examination in European letters. This edition is accompanied by sixty plates of Venetian views by Canaletto, Bernardo Bellotto and Francesco Guardi, and is translated by William H. Draper.