Clément Marot, traducteur évangélique du Canzoniere de Pétrarque

Clément Marot was the first French translator of Petrarch’s Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta. His translation, entitled Six sonnetz de Petrarque sur la mort de sa dame Laure, was intended as a celebration of the langue françoyse, in keeping with the ideals of Francis I’s court and the creation of a “royal Italianism” considered the founding element of the translatio studii et imperii. The refinement of this edition, together with a style derived in part from the tradition of the rhétoriqueurs, is reminiscent of courtly translation, which aimed at poetic ornamentation. A closer look also reveals Marot’s deep evangelical inspiration, as well as his innovative way of translating at a time when the distinction between translation and imitation was not yet clear.