TEHRAN – Affinities between Persian poet Sadi (C. 1213-1291) and Renaissance Italian poet Francesco Petrarca (1304 -1374), commonly known as Petrarch, will be examined during a seminar at the University of Bologna in Italy.

Fourteen Iranian and Italian scholars are scheduled to deliver speeches during the two-day seminar, which will open on November 8, Iran’s Book City Institute, a co-organizer of the meeting, announced on Wednesday.

“Italian literature has been under Petrarch’s influence and his poetry is comparable in content to the works of Sadi and his fellow poet Hafez,” the institute said in a statement.

“Sadi and Petrarch are similar in their poems, morals, and humanism and these connections will be scrutinized during the seminar,” it added.

Book City Institute deputy director Ali-Asghar Mohammadkhani, the director of the Center for the Study of Sadi, Kurosh Kamali, and Mitra Mazaheri of the University of Tehran are among the Iranian literati who will deliver lectures at the colloquium.

Mario Mancini, Maurizio Silvio Pistoso and Carlo Saccone of the University of Bologna will speak at the session.

The Book City Institute in Tehran hosted a conference on Sadi and Petrarch on April 17 and 18, 2018. The conference was organized in collaboration with the Sapienza University of Rome and the University of Bologna. 

Photo: A combination photo shows Italian poet Francesco Petrarca (L) and Persian poet Sadi.

MMS/YAW