Petrarch’s Guide to the Holy Land

“In this very elegant volume Theodore Cachey presents one of Francis Petrarch’s lesser known gems, his Guide to the Holy Land. Cachey inserts Petrarch within the historical context of the fourteenth century, using modern methods to examine the Guide as travel literature, as self-fashioning monument, and as an anticipation of the spirit of discovery that was soon to launch Europe onto its expansion all over the world. His introduction, translation, and notes are clear, informative, and original. This is a precious little book to be treasured by all those who cherish literature, traveling, and delving into the past to discover the present.” —Piero Boitani, University of Rome, “La Sapienza”

“Petrarch’s Itinerarium is a fascinatingly paradoxical document in the emerging field of mobility studies—paradoxical, because it is at once the great poetís detailed guide to a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and his surprisingly personal and revealing refusal to embark on this very pilgrimage. Cachey has done a splendid job identifying each of the stops along the route and teasing out the implications of the work as a whole. And to anyone who has sailed on rough seas, Petrarch’s reason for declining the voyage—he is not afraid of death but he is deeply afraid of seasickness—makes perfect sense.” —Stephen Greenblatt, Harvard University

“Cachey’s edition of the Itinerary is a major scholarly accomplishment, restoring to the canon a hitherto neglected work. He reproduces in facsimile the authoritative and beautiful Cremona manuscript (Libreria del Civico Museo, MS BB.1.2.5), transcribes it, and gives a faithful and straightforward translation. His lengthy introduction provides necessary biographical and geographical background, surveys medieval pilgrimage texts, and locates Petrarch within the modern critique of travel literature. Reproductions of contemporary maps let the readers follow along with the text, and the copious annotations satisfy any lingering curiosity they may have about, say, piracy, the Monastery of St. Catherine, the sources of the Nile, or Scylla and Charybdis.” —The Journal of Medieval Latin

“Theodore Cachey’s introduction carefully sets the work in the wider context of travel-writing which has attracted growing attention in recent years. The book is beautifully produced, with a sensitive English translation facing each of the thirty-nine pages of the full facsimile of one of the earliest copies, and a transcription of the Latin text below; ample annotation follows. The manuscript is written in a fine example of the clearly written rotunda that Petrarch advocated in the mid-fourteenth century, before the development of humanistica some fifty years later.” —Journal of Ecclesiastical History

“In a slim volume of 235 pages, Theodore J. Cachey, Jr. has provided the reader with a rich, comprehensive, and engaging presentation of an example of Petrarch’s writings in the genre of travel literature that heretofore has received very little critical attention. . . . [T]his volume provides a clear and distinct image of one of the central figures of Trecento Latin literature and thought. Cachey is to be commended for his fine scholarship and for reviving sonorously the voice of a supreme humanist." —The Medieval Review

“This first Latin-English version of the Itinerarium is a useful and welcome addition to the canon of Petrarch’s works available to the modern English reading public. It is also a well designed, generously illustrated volume, a credit to its publisher.” —Renaissance Quarterly

“Cachey . . . has produced a volume both handsome . . . and scholarly. . . . Cachey does a fine job of making this provocative and surprising pilgrimage guide available and accessible to an English-speaking audience.” —Comitatus

“. . . this illustrated version of Petrarch’s guidebook of 1358 is a gem of small press fine publishing.” —ForeWord Magazine