Petrarch's Horace

Petrarch's Horace

The Odes by Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65-8 BC), commonly known as Horace, are some of the most quoted and influential texts from antiquity. He is also the author of famous phrases like Carpe diem / “seize the day!”, Nunc est bibendum / “Now is the time to drink!”, and Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori / “It is sweet and honorable to die for one's country”. An ode is a type of lyrical poetry glorifying an event or individual, describing nature intellectually as well as emotionally. Divided into four books, the Horatian odes imitated the style of ancient Greek poets like Alcaeus and Anacreon and have in turn been imitated by other poets from Late Antiquity up to the modern period.

Petrarch’s Personal Copy

The Odes enjoyed a revival during the Carolingian Renaissance and most literate people in the West we familiar with his works by the mid-9th century and they were particularly popular during the 10th and 11th centuries, when this manuscript was created, and again during the Late Middle Ages. What makes this manuscript especially precious is the identity of one of its former owners: the famous Italian humanist Francesco Petrarch (1304-74), who acquired the work in 1347. Petrarch is a key figure in the imitation of Horace in accentual meters and also borrowed from Horace when composing Italian sonnets. His verse letters in Latin were modelled on the Epistles and he wrote a letter to Horace in the form of an ode.