Spaces of Memory

Abstract

Abstracts The essay aims to explore the theme of memory in Petrarch’s Latin Works and in his intellectual experience, analysing especially one of the two metaphoric fields of memory, namely that which defines memory as a space that can be created, organised, filled with contents, and revisited with the specific aim of learning and discovering while remembering past events. Petrarch’s constant interest in the structure and processes of memory and in the heuristic quality of the act of remembering seems to be effectively condensed into some metaphors (like thesaurus, arca, arx, cella, etc.) involved with the idea of repository that can be depicted in different ways depending on whether the aim is that of emphasising the value of the memories contained in it, or its possible religious applications, or its creative function.