The Triumphs of Petrarch at Hampton Court Palace: Weaving an Italian Iconography in a Netherlandish Tapestry

This article explores the double-chariot iconography found in the early sixteenth-century Triumphs of Petrarch tapestries at Hampton Court Palace. The first section introduces Petrarch's poem I Trionfi, illustrated in the tapestries, and outlines earlier Netherlandish tapestries that portray the same subject. The article then turns to the development of Petrarchan imagery in Italy in the fifteenth century, addressing specifically the visual similarities between Florentine cassoni from the mid-fifteenth century and the tapestries at Hampton Court Palace in England. Special focus is placed on the double-chariot iconography. The final section begins with a study of Giovanni de' Medici's Triumphs tapestry commission of the 1450s, proposing that his Italian designs for the Netherlandish-woven works may have been influenced by the Triumphs of Petrarch designs on cassoni. The section examines why interest developed in Italian Petrarchan imagery in the early sixteenth-century Netherlands, finally concluding with a study of the role the Triumphs of Petrarch tapestries played for their eventual English owner, Cardinal Wolsey, at Hampton Court Palace.