Abstract

This article retraces the editorial history of the fourth Aldine edition of Petrarch’s vernacular works, ‘Il Petrarca’, published in June 1533. This edition stands as one of the inaugural editorial efforts piloted by Paolo, Aldo Manuzio’s son. The exegetical paratext of the Aldine edition, structured in the form of annotations, is situated within the broader landscape of the tradition of Cinquecento Petrarchan commentaries. This contextualization allows us to highlight the lexical entanglements shared between the Aldine paratext and the early works of Italian lexicography. Finally, we conjecture a possible enlarging of the socio-cultural environment in which these glosses originated.