Abstract
The descriptions of Secretum manuscripts in England, France, the German area – including Bohemia – and Spain are examined in this article to get clues about the audience of the work. It is shown that it is not possible to distinguish (as it has been occasionally done) between a monastic and a humanistic audience of Petrarch’s Latin oeuvre. The Secretum was often read in the cloister and the author asks for the cause of this interest. She argues that Petrarch evokes in this work conventions of monastic literature to subvert them and present a new model of spiritual life.
Cardelle de Hartmann, Carmen