LEVI-PEROTTI, GIUSTINA:
A poetess, supposed to be of Sassoferrato, and assumed, until recently, to have addressed to Petrarch a sonnet beginning "Io Vorrei pur Drizzar Queste Mie Piume." This poem, to which Petrarch is said to have replied with his sonnet "La Gola, il Sonno, e l'Oziose Piume," was published for the first time in 1504 by G. A. Gilio, who, however, attributed it to Ortensia di Guglielmo of Fabriano. It was republished by Tommasini, who attributed it to Giustina ("Petrarca Redivivus," p. 111). Subsequently it was included in various collections of poetry, down to 1885. Although Crescimbeni, Tiraboschi, and Zeno doubted the authenticity of the sonnet, scholars like Quadrio and, with some hesitation, Foscolo accepted it. Morici concludes that the sonnet is the work of some cinquecentist, and that Giustina Levi-Perotti never existed.
- Borgognoni, Le Rime di Francesco Petrarca, pp. 22 et seq., Modena, 1711;
- Carducci, Rime di Francesco Petrarca, pp. 3-4, Leghorn, 1876;
- Crescimbeni, Dell' Istoria della Volgar Poesia, iii. 164 et seq., Venice, 1730;
- Foscolo, Opere Edite e Inedite, x. 409, Florence, 1859;
- Kayserling, Die Jüdischen Frauen;
- Morici, Giustina Levi-Perotti e le Petrarchiste Marchigiane, in Rassegna Nazionale, Aug., 1899;
- Pesaro, Donne Celebri Israelite, in Il Vessillo Israelitico, 1880, p. 376;
- Quadrio, Della Storia e della Ragione d' Ogni Poesia, i.-ii. 187-188 194, 195, Milan;
- Tiraboschi, Storia della Letteratura Italiana, v. 581, Florence;
- Zeno, Dissertazioni Vossiane, i. 257b.
