Part 1. An enduring vernacular legacy. The self in the labyrinth of time (Rerum vulgarium fragmenta) / Teodolinda Barolini ; The poem of memory (Triumphi) / Fabio Finotti ; Petrarch's damned poetry and the poetics of exclusion (Rime disperse) / Justin Steinberg
Part 2. Literary debut, latin humanism, and orations. The rebirth of the Romans as models of character (De viris illustribus) / Ronald G. Witt ; Petrarch's philological epic (Africa) / Simone Marchesi ; The beginnings of humanistic oratory: Petrarch's Collatio laureationis / Dennis Looney ; Petrarch the courtier: five public speeches (Arenga facta venecijs, Arringa facta Mediolani, Arenga facta in civitate Novarie, Collatio brevis coram Iohanne Francorum rege, Orazione per la seconda ambasceria veneziana) / Victoria Kirkham ; The unforgettable books of things to be remembered (Rerum memorandarum libri) / Paolo Cherchi
Part 3. Contemplative serenity. Pastoral as personal history (Bucolicum carmen) / Stefano Carrai
"You will be my solitude": solitude as prophecy (De vita solitaria) / Armando Maggi ; A humanistic approach to religious solitude (De otio religioso) / Susanna Barsella
Part 4. Journeys into the soul. The burning question: crisis and cosmology in the secret (Secretum) / David Marsh ; Petrarch's personal psalms (Psalmi penitentiales) / E. Ann Matter ; The place of the itinerarium (Itinerarium ad sepulchrum domini nostri Yhesu Christi) / Theodore J. Cachey Jr.
Part 5. Life's turbulence. On the two faces of fortune (De remediis utriusque fortunae) / Timothy Kircher ; The art of invective (Invective contra medicum) / Stefano Cracolici ; The economy of invective and a man in the middle (De sui ipsius et multorum ignorantia) / William J. Kennedy
Part 6. Petrarch the epistler. A poetic journal (Epystole) / Giuseppe Velli ; The book without a name: Petrarch's open secret (Liber sine nomine) / Ronald L. Martinez ; The uncollected poet (Lettere disperse) / Lynn Laura Westwater ; Petrarch's epistolary epic: letters on familiar matters (Rerum familiarum libri) / Giuseppe F. Mazzotta ; Letters of old age: love between men, Griselde, and farewell to letters (Rerum senilium libri) / David Wallace
Epilogue. To write as another: the testamentum (Testamentum) / Armando Maggi.
