Les "Tristes" et les "Pontiques" d'Ovide dans l'"Epystola" I 1 de Pètrarque

This paper aims to investigate the presence of Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto by Ovid in the Epystola I 1 by Petrarch. The Epystole are a collection of sixty-six letters in verses, dedicated to his friend Barbato da Sulmona (1304-1364) and published in 1364. Petrarch wrote the Epystola I 1 to Barbato probably in 1350 when the former was staying in the northern Italy (Mantova), the latter in Neaples at the Anjou’s Court. It is known that Petrarch read and studied the letters from the exile by Ovid, i. e. Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto, from his youth, even if he called the latter a liber non exiguus interwoven with lamentations in Familiarium rerum libri VII 1, 6 and did not appreciate his lifestyle during the exile in Tomis (see De vita solitaria, p. 284 ed. Noce). In the Epystola I 1 we can find of course iuncturae and syntagms Petrarch borrowed from the classical authors, like Vergil, Horace, Ovid maior, etc., but there are at least sixteen allusions to some passages of the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto by Ovid. Thus we can say that when Petrarch wrote to Barbato from the “exile” in the northern Italy, far from his friend and far from Naples, recalled to the mind many passages of the letters from the exile by Ovid.