Note 75 — VI. TO TITUS LIVY

We are indebted to the excellent study of P. de Nolhac so often cited (Pétrarque et l’humanisme) for exact information on this point. The book missing from the manuscript of Livy which Petrarch possessed was book xxxiii. On fol. 317, in commenting on the words “Cynoscephalas, ubi debellatum erat cum Philippo” (Livy, xxxvi, 8), Petrarch wrote in the margin, “Sed quando hoc fuerat deficit sine dubio, et ut puto unus liber.” Even book xl was not complete, although Petrarch may not have been aware of the fact, since he does not complain thereof. His manuscript ended with the words, “conciliabulaque edixerunt” (chap. 37) which seemed to close the book in a manner making complete sense (P. de Nolhac, II, p. 16). Bacumker (Quibus antiquis auctoribus Petrarca in conscribendis rerum memorabilium libris usus sit, p. 14), went so far as to say (in 1882) that Petrarch did not have books xxxi-xxxv. It is now certain that Petrarch possessed the first and the third decades entire, and books xxxi, xxxii, and xxxiv to xl, the last of which ended with chap. 37—in all nearly twenty-nine books.