Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.19594

    Portrait of Francesco Petrarca

    Date
    late 18th century
    Sitter
    Francesco Petrarca (1304 - 1374, Italian) , Humanist
    Creator
    Unknown, Engraver
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (print): 172mm
    width (print): 100mm
    Subject
    Description
    Half-length study of Petrarch, facing, holding a book in his left hand. Dressed in a hood, crowned with a wreath of laurel.

    Plate from a grangerized copy of A history of the Royal Society, with memoirs of the Presidents…by Charles Richard Weld (London, John W. Parker, 1848). In this edition, the original two volumes were extended to eight volumes with the addition of extra-illustrations and documents, by Alexander Meyrick Broadley.

    The engraving appears at pp.5/6, as Weld’s text discusses the relationships between Italian humanists and poets of the early Renaissance.

    Inscribed below: ‘PETRARCH’, with six lines of verse from Petrarch to Laura, a poetical epistle, by Charles James (London, J. Walter, 1786).

    Francesco Petrarca, known as Petrarch (1304-1374) Italian humanist and poet.
    Object history
    Print from Charles Richard Weld's A history of the Royal Society, vol. 1... (London, John W. Parker, 1848) grangerized by the writer and collector Alexander Meyrick Broadley (1847–1916) into 8 volumes, adding illustrative material and manuscript items to Weld's text. The books were initially owned by Ludwig Mond FRS (1839–1909), and according to an inscription by his son Robert Ludwig Mond FRS (1867–1938) they were intended for presentation to the Society. This eventually happened in late 1959, the donor being the politician Harry Nathan (1889–1963), Lord Nathan of Churt.
    Related fellows
    Charles Richard Weld (1813 - 1869, British) , Author
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > Italy
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
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