A Classical Source for Petrarch’s Conceit of the Binding Knot of Hair: Apuleius’s Metamorphoses

The conceit of the beloved’s hair ensnaring and binding the poet’s heart and soul is common in Renaissance poetry and particularly widespread in the tradition of Petrarchan love lyric. The topos can be traced back to Petrarch’s canzoniere, or Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, in which Laura’s golden hair is often described in terms of knots and laces tying both the poet’s heart and soul. No classical antecedent has previously been identified for the image. In this study, I propose a possible classical source for the characteristic Petrarchan motif of Laura’s binding hair knot: Apuleius’s Metamorphoses, a manuscript of which the poet owned and which he read and annotated several times. In particular, I show how passages such as Lucius’s celebration of the beauty of women’s hair (Metamorphoses, II.8–9), and especially his declaration of love to Photis, an oath he takes on ʻthat sweet knot of your hair with which you have bound my spiritʼ (ibid., III.23), can be convincingly regarded as a source for Petrarch’s conceit. In addition to the value inherent in the detection of a new source for an influential Petrarchan topos, the present study may have some further implications. It could offer novel arguments for the dating of a series of Petrarchan poems, and it could foster a potentially fruitful reappraisal of the influence of Apuleius’s work on Petrarch’s vernacular poetry.

No one shall free me from that golden snareʼ); ʻ"Son questi i capei biondi, et l'aureo nodo / -dich'io -ch'ancor mi stringe"ʼ (ʻ"Is this the blond hair and the golden knot," I say, "that still bind me"ʼ). 8 Constantly expressed through the images of the ʻlaccioʼ (lace) and the ʻnodoʼ (knot) -two terms endowed with both a visual and a deep symbolic value -the conceit is frequent enough to be regarded as a characteristic feature of Petrarch's poetry and, as such, an easy object of imitation.
While the Renaissance use of the topos clearly originates from the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, we may wonder whether Petrarch himself was indebted to some other source for the conceit of Laura's entangling hair. In his study of the classical origins of poetic topoi, Marbury B. Ogle claims that this specific motif has no such antecedent and must therefore be the fruit of Petrarch's invention: This conceit does not appear, as far as I have discovered, in exactly this form in ancient literature, but the idea is evidently due to it. Both Greek and Latin poets often write of Love (Aphrodite, Venus, Eros, Amor, Cupido) as a hunter who ensnares lovers in a net, and Greek poets sometimes describe the eyes of their beloved, not the hair, as the net in which their gaze or their heart is held captive. … Who was responsible for this shift from eyes to hair it is impossible to say. Petrarch seems to have been the first to make the change, inspired, perhaps, by some such passage as Chrétien, Cligés 194 sq. where Fenice's hair is woven into the web garment and is indistinguishable from the gold thread. 9 In response to Ogle, Ted-Larry Pebworth claimed in 1971 to have found the source for Petrarch's conceit, not in classical literature, but in the Bible. In particular, he referred to the Song of Songs 7:5, where the male lover states that a king (presumably himself) is held captive in the woman's waving locks -a passage that Pebworth quotes in Hugh J. Schonfield's translation: ʻThe head of you is like Carmel, / And your tresses like purple threads. / A king could be caught by their coils.' 10 The idea is fascinating, especially since the Song of Songs was a significant source for Petrarch's poetry. There is, however, a major problem with this hypothesis. While the Hebrew text presents the motif of the woman's hair imprisoning the lover, 11 in 8  1 3 accordance with imagery typical of Eastern love lyric, 12 the Latin Vulgate Bible, which was the main biblical version circulating in the Middle Ages and the one almost certainly used by Petrarch, reads ʻcomae capitis tui sicut purpura regis vincta canalibusʼ (ʻthe hairs of thy head as the purple of the king bound in the channels'). Evidently, this version does not immediately invite a reading which sees the male lover imprisoned by the beloved's hair, and medieval exegetes -at least Western ones, basing their interpretations on the Vulgate -do not seem to favour this reading. 13 Ogle's claim about the absence of a classical source for Petrarch's conceit appears confirmed by the most recent and authoritative critical editions of the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, including those by Marco Santagata and Rosanna Bettarini, as well as the editions of Ugo Dotti, Paola Vecchi Galli and Sabrina Stroppa, which do not refer to any classical antecedent in relation to the relevant Petrarchan passages. 14 Indeed, these editors do not give any source for the Petrarchan topos, with the exception of Bettarini's mention, in her discussion of sonnet CXCVI, of Cino da Pistoia as the inventor of the conceit of love's knot, to which the poet is tied by his beloved's tresses: ʻOmè! ch'io sono all'amoroso nodo / legato con due belle trecce biondeʼ (ʻAlas! I am tied to the amorous knot / with two beautiful blonde tressesʼ). 15 There is doubtless an affinity between Cino's image and Petrarch's. Yet Bettarini does not seem to establish a necessarily direct relationship between the two poems; moreover, Cino's conceit is somewhat different from Petrarch's, above all because his knot appears to be primarily a symbolic one, rather than an actual knot of hair.
Without necessarily dismissing Cino's poem, I would like to propose a new potential source for Petrarch's conceit: a classical antecedent of which the poet was surely aware. It is a passage in Apuleius's Metamorphoses, a work which Petrarch knew well, since he owned and annotated a manuscript containing the text. Possibly compiled as a gift to Petrarch, perhaps under his direction, 16 the codex, Vatican City, 12 The conceit of a woman's hair imprisoning her lover is found in other Eastern poetic traditions, including the Palestinian -ʻOh, your black drooping hair: / seven tresses take us prisonersʼ -and in the Egyptian love lyric tradition, as in these two poems from the Chester Beatty and the Harris 50 papyruses: ʻWith her hair she threw the rope at me / with her eyes she caught meʼ; ʻmy hands are caught in her hair, / a bait under a trap ready to catchʼ; see Cantico dei cantici, ed. and transl. G. Barbiero 17 This is shown by the number of his glosses, the long timespan over which they were made 18 -revealing that the text accompanied Petrarch throughout his mature years and old age -and by the substantial traces that this attentive reading left in his glosses to other manuscripts, most notably his copy of Virgil (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, MS A 79 inf.), in which he entered a remarkable number of glosses referring to Apuleius. 19 Further proof of Petrarch's careful and fruitful reading of Apuleius is found in his own writings. Many studies have underscored the significant influence of Apuleius's works on Petrarch, even though he claimed, in a famous letter to Boccaccio on the norms of imitation, that he had read Apuleius ʻOnly onceʼ and ʻhastily and quicklyʼ, and that, of the several things he had seen in his work, he had culled only a few and retained even fewer, ʻand these I laid aside as common property in an open place, in the very atrium, so to speak, of my memory. Consequently, whenever I happen either to hear or use them, I quickly recognize that they are not mine, and recall whose they are; these really belong to others, and I have them in my possession with the awareness that they are not my ownʼ. 20  is very different from that exerted by authors such as Virgil, Horace, Boethius and Cicero, whose works he had read ʻnot once but countless timesʼ, not hastily but very attentively, so that their writings ʻhave so become one with my mind that were I never to read them for the remainder of my life, they would cling to me, having taken root in the innermost recesses of my mind. But sometimes … I may adopt them and for some time regard them as my own … I may forget whose they are and whether they are mine or othersʼ. 21 Without entering the complex discussion of Petrarch's (un)reliability -though there are several examples of his conscious ʻreshapingʼ of the truth, with his well-known treatment of Dante emblematic in this sense -his claim to have read Apuleius only once and hurriedly is contradicted by the evidence of his own annotated manuscript. Furthermore, the idea that he had retained only a very few things from this reading is equally challenged by both his glosses to other manuscripts and the several references to Apuleius in his writings, such as those found by Giuseppe Billanovich in the Rerum memorandarum libri, 22 or others highlighted in the Familiarum rerum libri by various scholars, including Caterina Tristano, who also noted that some Apuleian passages were useful to Petrarch when writing the Africa, 23 and Robert H. F. Carver, who has identified references to Apuleius also in Petrarch's Invective contra medicum. 24 Among the works of the Apuleian corpus, the Metamorphoses -a text to which Petrarch had repeated exposure 25 -appears to have been especially influential. In the Familiarum rerum libri, for instance, there are many references to Apuleius's novel; 26 and, in at least one case, the work had a specifically stylistic influence. ... with the same kind of attitude shown by Apuleius while visiting Ipatea, a city of Thessalyʼ), is indebted to Metamorphoses II.1-2, not only for the general situation, but also for some specific lexical choices. 28 Even more significantly, Ezio Raimondi has underlined the influence of the Metamorphoses on Petrarch's satirical novella about an old, lascivious cardinal in Epistle XVIII of the Liber sine nomine. The stylistic impact here goes far beyond Petrarch's explicit and intentionally parodic reference to Apuleius's narrative of Cupid and Psyche -a narrative which, Igor Candido argues, Petrarch recognized as the source of Boccaccio's tale of Griselda and which influenced his own Latin translation of Boccaccio's text. 29 Not only does Petrarch describe the miserable young woman yielding to the ancient prelate as entering the bed-chamber ʻvelut Psyche illa Lucii Apulei felicibus nuptiis honestandaʼ (ʻjust like the famous Psyche of Lucius Apuleius, destined to be honoured with a happy marriageʼ); 30 but, as Raimondi writes, the ʻridiculosa historiaʼ of the libidinous prelate was a skilful adaptation of Apuleius's narrative, revealing substantial traces of Petrarch's reading of the Metamorphoses on many levels, from the construction of the scene to its dramatic syntax and lexical texture. 31 As these examples indicate, Apuleius's impact on Petrarch was not limited to mentioning his name and taking brief quotations from his works. While Petrarch's claim that he possessed and used Apuleius's words ʻwith the awareness that they are not my ownʼ may find some confirmation in the fact that most of his references to the Metamorphoses are not assimilated into his discourse but instead explicitly attributed to Apuleius, 32 the Latin novel also inspired Petrarch's writing in a deeper manner, orienting his style and vocabulary.
Scholarly attention, as we have seen, has primarily been devoted to Apuleius's influence on Petrarch's Latin prose writings, and not on his vernacular poetry -no doubt because the Metamorphoses is itself a Latin prose work. In their editions of the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, Santagata and Bettarini between them refer 28

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to Apuleius only four times in total: once in relation to De mundo and three times to the Metamorphoses, only one of which is clearly a source reference: ʻVien poi l'aurora, et l'aura fosca inalbaʼ (ʻDawn comes and brightens the dark airʼ, CCXXIII, l. 12), connected by both editors to Metamorphoses, X.20: ʻAt intus cerei praeclara micantes luce nocturnas nobis tenebras inalbabantʼ 33 ('Inside wax candles sparkled with brilliant light and whitened the night's darkness for usʼ). 34 There are, however, other passages in the Metamorphoses which merit consideration.
Lucius, the protagonist of the novel, is a great admirer of female beauty and appears to have a particular weakness for women's hair. He commences the portrayal of his lover Photis by stating that a woman's chief beauty is her hair and continues with a long demonstration of this claim, which includes a laudatory description of different types of hair and hairstyles, culminating with Photis's (Metamorphoses, II. [But think what it is like when hair shines with its own lovely colour and brilliant light, and when it flashes lively against the sunbeams or gently reflects them; or when it shifts its appearance to produce opposite charms, now glistening gold compressed into the smooth shadows of honey, now with raven-blackness imitating the dark blue flowerets on pigeons' necks; or when it is anointed 33 Apuleius, Metamorphoseon libri XI, ed. M. Zimmerman, Oxford Classical Texts, Oxford, 2012. All references to the Metamorphoses are to this edition. Both editions of the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta refer to Apuleius in connection with XXXIV, l. 11 (though the reference is more to Petrarch's gloss on Apuleius's De mundo rather than to Apuleius's text itself). The other Apuleian references are to CCLXX-III, l. 13 in Petrarch, Canzoniere, ed. Santagata (n. 8 above) and to CCCLX, l. 9 in id., Canzoniere, ed. Bettarini (n. 14 above). 34  with Arabian oils and parted with a sharp comb's fine tooth and gathered at the back so as to meet the lover's eyes and, like a mirror, reflect an image more pleasing than reality; or when, compact with all its tresses, it crowns the top of her head or, let out in a long train, it flows down over her back. In short, the significance of a woman's coiffure is so great that, no matter how finely attired she may be when she steps out in her gold, robes, jewels, and all her other finery, unless she has embellished her hair she cannot be called well-dressed. In my Photis's case, her coiffure was not elaborate, but its casualness gave her added charm. Her luxuriant tresses were softly loosened to hang down over her neck, then they spread over her shoulders and momentarily rested upon the slightly curved border of her tunic; they were then gathered in a mass at the end and fastened in a knot to the crown of her head.] Apuleius's detailed praise of the beauty of women's hair was unlikely to go unnoticed by an author aiming to celebrate female loveliness. It clearly captured the attention of Boccaccio, an enthusiastic reader of Apuleius, 37 who, in his Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine (Ameto), draws extensively from Lucius's account of his lover's hair for the portrayal of a lady encountered by Ameto: Egli rimira la prima, la quale, e non immerito, pensava Diana nel suo avvento; e di quella i biondi capelli, a qualunque chiarezza degni d'assomigliare, senza niuno maesterio, lunghissimi, parte ravvolti alla testa nella sommità di quella, con nodo piacevole d'essi stessi, vede raccolti; e altri più corti, o in quello non compresi, fra le verdi frondi della laurea ghirlanda più belli sparti vede e raggirati; e altri dati all'aure, ventilati da quelle, quali sopra le candide tempie e quali sopra il dilicato collo ricadendo, più la fanno cianciosa. A quelli con intero animo Ameto pensando, conosce i lunghi, biondi e copiosi capelli essere della donna speziale bellezza ... . Adunque tanta estima la degnità de' capelli alle femine quanta, se, qualunque si sia, di preziose veste, di ricche pietre, di rilucenti gemme e di caro oro circundata proceda, sanza quelli in dovuto ordine posti, non possa ornate parere; ma in costei essi, disordinati, più graziosa la rendono negli occhi d'Ameto. 38 [He admired the first maiden, who he thought was Diana at her arrival -and not undeservedly. He observed her very long blond hair, worthy of comparison to any splendour, which was gathered in part on top of her head without any 37 Among the many studies on Boccaccio's reading and use of Apuleius, see, e.g. Candido, ʻPsyche's Textual Journeyʼ (n. 29 above); id., Boccaccio umanista. Studi  artifice, and bound with a lovely knot of her same hair; and other locks, either shorter or not bound in the knot, were still more beautifully dispersed and twisted in a laurel wreath, while still others were blown by the wind around her temples and around her delicate neck, making her even more delightful. Completely absorbed in her, Ameto recognized that the long abundant blond hair was the special beauty of this maiden ... . Therefore he deems the beauty of her hair so important for a woman that anyone, whoever she may be, though she go covered in precious garments, in rich stones, in glimmering gems and bright gold, without her hair tressed in due order, she cannot seem properly adorned; yet in this maiden the disorder thereof renders her still more charming to Ameto's eyes.] 39 Through passages such as this, Carver writes, ʻApuleius' Photis helps to define Renaissance ideals of feminine pulchritude: the hair as the chief glory of women's beauty; the tresses gathered up "without any artifice" (sanza niuno maesterio); the seeming paradox of graceful disorderʼ -an inordinatus ornatus which would be easily absorbed, in the 16th century, ʻinto the notion of sprezzatura ("artful artlessness", or "studied nonchalance"), that Castiglione establishes as one of the chief marks of the successful courtierʼ. 40 Boccaccio's reference to Apuleius is unmistakable; however, he might not have been the only one of the 'tre corone' (the so-called 'three crowns' of Italian literature: Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio) to be inspired by the passage. Petrarch, for whom Laura's hair was one of her chief ornaments and a constant source of fascination, might also have been receptive to Lucius's rapturous description of women's hair, particularly Photis's. The impression of golden hair shining brighter than the sun, flowing down onto feminine shoulders or gathered up in tresses, was evoked by Petrarch in relation to Laura's hair on many occasions. No less attentive than Lucius to his beloved's hairstyle, Petrarch could have taken from Apuleius the idea of Photis's artfully neglected hairdo -a style dear to classical lyric poets -and especially her knot of hair, the beautiful ʻnodusʼ, an image which Petrarch also used several times when describing Laura's hair. 41 This image acquires far greater significance in a passage a little further on in Metamorphoses which is highly relevant for our purposes, and which appears on a page in Petrarch's Apuleius manuscript that the poet read carefully, as it features at least one of his glosses, as well as some marks made by him. 42 In the third book, Lucius promises Photis that he could never prefer another woman to her, and he does so 39 Giovanni Boccaccio, L'Ameto, transl. J. Serafini-Sauli, New York, 1985, pp. 27-8, with minor changes. 40 Carver, The Protean Ass (n. 24 above), p. 130. 41 On the specific features of Photis's hairstyle, particularly the hair knot, and on the preference of classical poets for this kind of artfully neglected style, see van Mal-Maeder, Apuleius (n. 35 above), pp. 179-82. 42 MS Vat. lat. 2193, fol. 51ʳ. Among several marks, many of which are undoubtedly Petrarch's, there is one next to the passage in question that has the same unusual appearance (two vertical dots separated by a horizontal line) as the marks next to the passage celebrating women's hair (see n. 36 above). These marks, however, were probably not made by Petrarch. through an image which is very close to Petrarch's conceit: ʻAdiuro per dulcem istum capilli tui nodulum, quo meum vinxisti spiritum, me nullam aliam meae Photidi malleʼ 43 (ʻI swear by that sweet knot of your hair with which you have bound my spirit that there is no other woman I prefer to my Photisʼ, Metamorphoses, III.23). The reference to the sweet knot of the beloved's hair binding the lover's spirit (and we should recall that Petrarch identified Lucius with Apuleius himself) 44 is reminiscent of the knot of Laura's hair binding the poet's heart and soul. In Petrarch, the Latin ʻspiritusʼ turns into the Italian ʻcorʼ (heart) and the more Christian ʻalmaʼ (soul); but this is a small and predictable change. The similarity between the two images, on the other hand, is remarkable: both Apuleius's and Petrarch's knots are real hair knots, which acquire a metaphorical value in the lovers' refined language and, in this way, become the centre of a striking conceit signifying the power of the beloved women over the narrative/lyrical ʻIʼ. The image of the knot appears in virtually all the Petrarchan occurrences of the motif of binding hair, as sonnet CCLXX, the only exception, 45 did in fact feature the 'nodo' in its first version, preserved in the so-called ʻcodice degli abbozziʼ, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS 3196: 46 ʻSpargi co le tue manj le chiome al uento, / Stringimj al nodo usato, e son contentoʼ (ʻwith your hands spread the locks upon the wind / Bind me to the same old knot, and I am happyʼ). 47 All these indicate the importance of the knot for Petrarch's conceptualization of the topos, strengthening the hypothesis that Apuleius was his source.
Some Petrarchan images and specific terminological choices further reinforce the connection between Apuleius and Petrarch. In sonnet CXCVIII, for instance, Petrarch uses the verb folgorare to express the shining of Laura's binding golden knots: ʻvedendo ardere i lumi ond'io m'accendo, / et folgorare i nodi ond'io son presoʼ ('to see those lights that burn and make me burn / and those knots which have bound me, shimmeringʼ, ll. 9-10). This verb, usually applied by Petrarch to Laura's eyes and not to her hair, may appear here, as Bettarini remarks, because the hair is 43 In MS Vat. lat. 2193, fol. 51ʳ, the 'l' in ʻdulcemʼ is missing. 44 See Rizzo, ʻNote alle Familiariʼ (n. 28 above), p. 608. It is worth noting that in MS Vat. lat. 2193 the author of the Metamorphoses is given the name 'Lucius'. 45 CCLXX, ll. 59-61: ʻspargi co le tue man' le chiome al vento, / ivi mi lega, et puo′ mi far contento. / Dal laccio d'òr non sia mai chi me sciogliaʼ (ʻwith your hands spread her locks upon the wind / and bind me there, and you will make me happy. / No one shall free me from that golden snareʼ). 46 MS Vat. lat. 3196 is an autograph manuscript composed of 20 sheets, bound together long after Petrarch's death, which features several Petrarchan texts, including 54 poems later included in the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta. These texts are in various redactional states, ranging from first drafts to texts ready to be transcribed in fair copy. close to the eyes, sharing their intense luminosity. 48 Yet, it is worth recalling that Apuleius uses the Latin equivalent of this verb (fulgurare) in the passage quoted above celebrating women's hair, where the splendour of luminous locks ʻcontra solis aciem vegetus fulguratʼ ('flashes lively against the sunbeams', Metamorphoses, II.9). He also employs it in the famous episode of Cupid and Psyche, which is surely behind Petrarch's reference in the Liber sine nomine, in which Cupid's golden locks, arranged in ringlets and falling down on his milk-white neck (images reminiscent of so many Petrarchan sonnets), have a flashing splendour: ʻquorum splendore nimio fulgurante iam et ipsum lumen lucernae vacillabatʼ (ʻthe lightning of their great brilliance made even the lamp's light flickerʼ, Metamorphoses, V.22). Furthermore, in sonnet CCLXX, the golden lace/hair tying the poet -which, as we have seen, was a knot (ʻnodoʼ) in the poem's first version -is described as ʻnegletto ad arte, e 'nnanellato et hirtoʼ (l. 62), that is, ʻartfully neglected' and 'curled' or 'thick with ringlets' and 'high on her headʼ. Not only does Laura's hairstyle bring to mind the passage of Apuleius (Metamorphoses, II.9), but its specific features recall Photis's hair, which was gathered in a knot high on her head (ʻin summum verticem nodus adstrinxeratʼ) and distinguished by an artful artlessness (ʻinordinatus ornatusʼ). 49 The hair of Photis and of Laura is so beautiful that both Lucius and Petrarch ask for it be loosened and to flow freely: ʻspargi co le tue man' le chiome al vento, / ivi mi lega, et puo′ mi far contentoʼ ('with your hands spread her locks upon the wind / and bind me there, and you will make me happyʼ, CCLXX, ll. 59-60), 50 ʻSed ut mihi morem plenius gesseris, in effusum laxa crinem et capillo fluenter undante redde complexus amabilesʼ ('But humour me even more: unloose your tresses and let them flow, and embrace me lovingly with your hair rippling like wavesʼ, Metamorphoses, II.16). Finally, and most significantly, Apuleius's adjective ʻdulcisʼ in the passage most relevant to our discussion -ʻAdiuro per dulcem istum capilli tui nodulum, quo meum vinxisti spiritumʼ (ʻI swear by that sweet knot of your hair with which you have bound my spirit', Metamorphoses, III.23) -appears to have left traces in Petrarch's version of the conceit. Not only is the binding knot of hair presented, in sonnet CXCVII, as the equivalent of the ʻdolce giogoʼ (ʻsweet yokeʼ, l. 3), but the knots of Laura's hair, this time in the plural form, are described in sonnect XC as ʻdolci nodiʼ (l. 2), just like Photis's ʻdulcem nodulumʼ. 51 Since several indications suggest that the passage in Metamorphoses could be the source for Petrarch's conceit of the binding hair knot, it will be helpful to consider 48 Petrarch, Canzoniere, ed. Bettarini (n. 14 above), p. 919. 49 Another possible source for Petrarch's ʻnegletto ad arteʼ, underscored by several critics, is Ovid's Ars amatoria III.153-5: ʻEt neglecta decet multas coma; saepe iacere / Hesternam credas; illa repexa modo est. / Ars casu similisʼ (ʻEven neglected hair is becoming to many; often you would think it lay loose from yesterday; this very moment it has been combed afresh. Art counterfeits chance'); all Latin text and English translations are from Ovid, The Art of Love, and Other Poems, transl. J. H. Mozley, The Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge MA, 1957. These lines belong to a passage similar to Apuleius, Metamorphoses, II.9, in which Ovid describes several feminine hairstyles. 50 Petrarch is here addressing Love. 51 The term ʻdolce nodoʼ reappears in Triumphus Mortis II (ll. 128-9), supposedly composed after sonnet XC, to express the amorous knot tying Laura's heart. In this case, however, there is no reference to hair (since it is Laura's heart which is tied, the conceit would not make much sense). Petrarch the dating of the poems in question in relation to his reading of Apuleius's text. Before doing so, however, it is important to stress that while the strong literary connections between the texts of Apuleius and Petrarch are the basis of my hypothesis, the chronological considerations are highly conjectural, given the great uncertainty among scholars surrounding the date of composition of these poems. Nevertheless, it is still possible to make some potentially interesting observations.
The first thing to note is that, while it is not easy to establish the exact date of the conceit's first appearance in the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta (for reasons I shall explain), all the poems featuring it were most likely written after Petrarch's first reading of Apuleius's Metamorphoses, which is certainly not later than the first layer of his glosses in MS Vat. lat. 2193, dating back to 1340-1343. 52 We might go as far as to claim that the characteristically Petrarchan image of the ʻnodoʼ of Laura's hair makes its first appearance only after these years, and perhaps precisely at this time. Indeed, sonnet XC, possibly the first poem to feature the image in both textual and chronological terms, which presents a version of the motif particularly close to Apuleius's, with Laura's ʻdolci nodiʼ recalling Photis's ʻdulcem nodulumʼ, is tentatively dated by several scholars to the early 1340s, when Petrarch was probably reading and annotating Apuleius's text for the first time. 53 Although there were other sources from which he could have drawn the image, the dating and specific wording of the Petrarchan passage suggest that Apuleius's Metamorphoses may well have been his source. 54 Dating the earliest appearance of the conceit of the binding hair knot, as I have already indicated, is far from easy. The difficulty is mainly due to the complex Many critics, however, agree that sonnet CXCVI is probably the first of the group written by Petrarch, 59 and, I would add, most likely the antecedent, in terms of date of composition, of all the other poems featuring the conceit in question (CXCVII, CXCVIII, CCLIII, CCLXX, CCCLIX). Some critics even maintain that CXCVI may be much older than the other sonnets of the ʻciclo dell'auraʼ, 60 attributing its first composition, following Wilkins, to 1342-1343. 61 In this dating, the sonnet would seem to be contemporary, like sonnet XC, with Petrarch's first reading and glossing of Apuleius's Metamorphoses, further strengthening the hypothesis that Photis's sweet knot of hair was the source of Laura's binding hair knots. 62

Conclusion
The characteristic Petrarchan motif of Laura's knot of hair binding the poet's heart and soul, which is prominent in the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, has a classical antecedent, and one that can be plausibly regarded as a source for Petrarch. It is found in Apuleius's Metamorphoses, a manuscript of which Petrarch owned and which he read and annotated several times. Such passages as Lucius's celebration of the beauty of women's hair (Metamorphoses, II.8-9), and especially his declaration of love to Photis, an oath he takes on ʻthat sweet knot of your hair with which you have bound my spiritʼ (Metamorphoses, III.23), could well have captured the attention of Petrarch, who was acutely sensitive himself to the charms of feminine hair and was disposed to appreciate a conceit like the binding hair knot. Perfectly combining an exquisite naturalistic detail with a wide symbolic potential, this conceit was especially suited to Petrarch's praise of Laura's comely locks, while also expressing the indissoluble nature of his love for her through a term, ʻnodoʼ, endowed with profound symbolic significance both in the Italian poetic tradition and in Petrarch's specific vocabulary. The abstract image of the amorous knot, recurrent in Petrarch's vernacular poetry, 63 thus acquired a powerful plastic physicality, which materialized into a knot of golden hair.
In addition to the value inherent in the detection of a new source for an influential Petrarchan conceit, the present study may have some further implications. On the one hand, it could offer novel elements for the dating of a series of Petrarchan poems, especially sonnet XC and the sonnets of the ʻciclo dell'auraʼ (CXCIV, CXCVI, CXCVII, CXCVIII). Even more significantly, it could foster a potentially fruitful reappraisal of the influence of Apuleius's work on Petrarch's vernacular poetry. This study has shown that Apuleius's influence was not limited to Petrarch's Latin prose works and extended to his vernacular poetry. It has also suggested that this influence might have been deeper than is traditionally acknowledged -surely deeper than was acknowledged by Petrarch himself in his letter to Boccaccio. Apuleius's words, rather than hurriedly read and possessed ʻwith the awareness that they are not my ownʼ, appear instead to ʻhave so become one with [the poet's] mindʼ that they shaped the expression of one of his most recurrent and significant conceits. Whether or not Petrarch forgot ʻwhose they are and whether they are mine or othersʼ, Photis's beautiful, binding hair knot entered the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta and, consequently, became a widespread topos in Renaissance poetry, destined to influence love lyric for many centuries.

Author Contributions Not applicable
Funding Open access funding provided by Università degli Studi di Perugia within the CRUI-CARE Agreement. This study was supported by the Università degli Studi di Padova through the MSCA Seal of Excellence @ Unipd