La "conversio" de Agustín en las "Confesiones" traducida por Petrarca como una "imitatio" humanistauna lectura de su polémica carta del Ventoux (Fam. IV, 1)

  1. Páez de la Cadena Tortosa, Francisco 1
  1. 1 Universidad de La Rioja
    info

    Universidad de La Rioja

    Logroño, España

    ROR https://ror.org/0553yr311

Journal:
Ecozon@ [Ecozona]: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment

ISSN: 2171-9594

Year of publication: 2014

Issue Title: Translating Environmental Humanities

Volume: 5

Issue: 1

Pages: 11-32

Type: Article

DOI: 10.37536/ECOZONA.2014.5.1.584 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR

More publications in: Ecozon@ [Ecozona]: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment

Abstract

On April 26, 1336, Petrarch climbed Mount Ventoux. The account of his ascent is written in a letter adressed to Dionigi da Borgo, whose highlight is the reading of a passage from Augustine of Hippo's Confessions on the summit of the mountain. The letter is included in the collection Familiarum rerum libri, and has often been considered as the beginning of a new look onto the landscape that puts an end to the medieval period and culminates with the emergence of the Renaissance. This account has created contradictory analyses on the true nature of Petrarch's religious feelings or about the truthfulness of the letter. This article argues that this should be interpreted in a new way in terms consistent with its own text. Firstly, Petrarch chooses carefully the texts he cites (Virgil, Ovid, Paul of Tarsus) and the way he deals with them. Secondly, the story of his experience cannot be taken as a most faithful replica of Augustine's. Finally, this letter reworks in a most original way the process experienced by the poet, very precisely adapting its form and its contents to his confessional objectives pursued. Petrarch's experience can be understood as a triple translation of Augustine's Confessions: in the use of its literary model transferred to a most personal situation; in the emulation of the spiritual journey of his model although reinterpreting its stages and consequences; and in the creation of a phenomenological text that can be understood as an empirical appropriation of nature against the backdrop of Augustine's. The result is a humanist imitatio, a true translation of meaning and spirit of Petrarch's original experience, but betrayed when written as a new narration based upon Augustine's.

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Data source: Dialnet