In this article the catalogue entries of Petrarch's ›Secretum‹ manuscripts in England, France, the German area - including Bohemia - and Spain are examined in order to find clues about the work's audience. It becomes apparent that it is not possible to distinguish (as has occasionally been done) between a monastic and a humanistic audience of Petrarch's Latin oeuvre. The ›Secretum‹ was often read in the cloister and the author explores the causes of this interest. She argues that Petrarch begins this work by evoking conventions of monastic literature, only to subvert them in the following dialogue, and thus present a new model of spiritual lif
