Abstract

In July 1353, Boccaccio sent Petrarch an indignant letter protesting that he had settled in the Visconti’s Milan, considering this an offense to the common homeland. From the predominant perspective in the critical literature, the letter has been considered as evidence of the political distance between the two authors, who are, in any case, united by a marked attention to the events of their time. A careful consideration of the text, in relation to the different contexts and time of writing, seem instead to indicate the absence of any effective political motivation in this polemic, as in any other decision of their lives. It is a suffered reflection on the duties of the intellectuals, that ends with the need for a radical disengagement from a hopelessly corrupt world.