In Padua, Petrarch wrote his will four years before his death. In this document, he prescribed a very simple funeral and that he be buried in the church of Sant'Agostino in Padua, should he die there, or in a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary, assuming he could build one in the meantime; otherwise, somewhere near the parish church, should he die in Arquà; or in various other places depending on where he ended his life: Venice, Milan, Pavia, Rome (where he was about to go), Parma, or anywhere else. To Francesco il Vecchio da Carrara, he left the painting of the Virgin by Giotto, which had been donated to him by Michele di Vanni of Florence and which is now lost; to Donato Albanzani, he forgave a minor debt; the horses were to be drawn by lot by Bonzanello da Vigonza and Lombardo Della Seta. To the latter, "whose care for his affairs may be deposed so that meager things may be," he declared himself obligated for the sum of 134 gold ducats and 16 soldi he had advanced, and bequeathed him a small round gilded silver cup. To Giovanni da Bozzetta he gave his breviary, the only book mentioned in his will, on the condition that it remain in the sacristy of the church of Padua for the use of priests after his death; to Boccaccio, 50 gold florins to buy a winter robe for study and night vigils; to Tommaso Bambasi, his lute; and to Giovanni Dondi dall'Orologio, 50 gold ducats to buy a small ring to wear on his finger in his memory.

The work is preserved in nine manuscripts. The original is lost, and no manuscript or printed source claims direct derivation from the original. The critical edition edited by Theodor Mommsen is based on five manuscripts, two of which he deemed of little use for the purposes of the constitutio textus (they are the last two in the following list), and on the present print by Bernardino de Vitalibus (undated, but datable after 1498: ISTC No.ip00414000). Only nine copies of this edition are known, only one in Italy at the Civica Hortis in Trieste.