The volume focuses on the study of Petrarchan "affects". These "affects", "passions", or "emotions" are omnipresent in Petrarch's writings. In addition to feelings of love so frequently expressed in his work, other emotions – sorrow, compassion, anger, envy, for example – are also represented and these too play a crucial role in his interactions with friends, patrons, favorite authors, and readers. Analyzing Petrarch's complex engagements with those "affects" in both his Latin and vernacular works, the essays in this volume explore the different types of emotional, intellectual, and political communities that his writings helped forge.