Metempsychosis and 'Renaissance' between Petrarch and Boccaccio

Abstract

The idea of rebirth, used generically for the Renaissance, was however used almost literally by Boccaccio when talking about Dante and Petrarch. Petrarch also used the idea when crafting a surrogate role for himself in the Africa. Boccaccio's use of this metaphor can be traced directly back to Giovanni del Virgilio's reprise, for Dante, of classical references to the Homer–Pythagoras–Ennius chain of being, which are also the sources of Petrarch's substitution strategy in the Africa.

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