Brandeis University and University of Vienna

Petrarch in Global Translation: A Genealogy of Western Love (PGT) is a collaborative humanities project across languages and national borders that is investigating the foundational conception of Western love as codified by Francesco Petrarch’s Canzoniere. PGT is funded by the NOMIS Foundation: https://nomisfoundation.ch/projects/petrarch-in-global-translation-a-genealogy-of-western-love/

The project, which began in spring 2024 and is projected to run until spring 2028, explores the extent to which Petrarchan norms are useful and adaptive models both within and outside of the Western tradition from which they arose. By re-engaging the practice of Petrarchism, which has spawned centuries of literary production and critical reception, PGT proposes a simultaneously theoretical and experimental, historical and systematic approach to identifying the dominant poetics of love. One of the project’s outcomes will be a website featuring translations of Petrarch’s sonnets along with relevant scholarship, artwork, audio recordings, and data visualizations that will enable users to explore the Canzoniere’s diverse and dynamic transcultural legacies.