<p><b>Francesco Petrarch&#39;s <i>Canzoniere</i> (translated in English as &#39;Scattered Rhymes&#39;) is a collection of 14th century poems famed for their deep exploration of love, grief, spirituality and nature. Written over the course of forty years (approximately between 1328-1368), this collection includes 317 sonnets, 29 canzoni, 9 sestine, 4 madrigals and 7 ballate.</b></p><p>These Scattered Rhymes almost always return to Laura, a women who Petrarch loves deeply, whom he first saw on a Good Friday. On this same day, some years later, Laura died. But Petrarch&#39;s love does not wane, in fact at points it burns brighter. <i>Il Canzoniere</i> also serves as a valuable contemporary insight into 14th century religion and the role of the papacy in Christendom.</p><p>Petrarch&#39;s work is one of civilization&#39;s most immaculate achievements. Michael R. G. Spiller regards <i>Il Canzoniere</i> as &#39;the single greatest inspiration for the love poetry of Renaissance Europe until well into the seventeenth century&#39;.</i></p><p>Following his acclaimed translation of Dante&#39;s Inferno, which &#39;immediately joins ranks with the very best available in English&#39; (Dr Richard Lansing), Peter Thornton brings the poetry of Petrarch to the 21st Century in direct and luminous verse.</i></p><p>Here&#39;s a madrigal, number 52 in the sequence.</p><p><b>52</b></p><p><b><i>However much Diana may have pleased<br>the lover who by like chance spied her bare<br>amid the frigid water, I no less</i></b></p><p><b><i>delighted in the shy hill shepherdess<br>washing a wisp of veil to keep her hair,<br>glinting with gold, protected from the breeze. </i></b></p><p><b><i>And even now, when the sky burns above,<br>she makes me shiver with a chill of love.</i></b></p>