User:Michael Hurst/Trionfi (poem)

Francesco Petrarch's I Trionfi (The Triumphs) was the most popular and influential poem of 15th-century Italy, eclipsing even Dante's Commedia and Petrarch's own Rerum vulgarium fragmenta (Rime or Canzoniere). Like the Commedia, the Triumphs described an allegorical vision, written in the vernacular, and Petrarch used Dante's terza rima form as well.

The poem is structured in six allegorical triumphs. The ancient Roman triumph survived the Middle Ages in various forms, and was used as a literary device with the entrance of Beatrice in the Commedia. The triumphs are concatenated, so that the Triumph of Love (over Mankind and even gods) is itself triumphed over by another allegorical force, the Triumph of Chastity. In its turn, Chastity is triumphed over by Death; Death is overcome by Fame; Fame is conquered by Time; and even Time is ultimately overcome by Eternity, the triumph of God over all such worldly concerns.