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PETRARCH 
 
 A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND WORKS. 
 
*BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 DANT E. 
 & &ketrfj of ftis ILiit ano OTorkg. 
 
 i6mo, Cloth, Price $1.25. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. 
 
PETRARCH 
 
 A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND WORKS 
 
 BY 
 
 MAY ALDEN WARD 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 DANTE : A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND WORKS 
 
 T 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS 
 
 1891 
 
Copyright, 1891, 
 By Roberts Brothers. 
 
 Enfbmsitg tyres*: 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambuidg*:, U.S.A. 
 
1/I/S7 
 
 CONTENTS.^j/V 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The First Modern Man .... 7 
 
 II. Early Years 21 
 
 III. Avignon 34 
 
 IV. Laura 45 
 
 V. Travels 57 
 
 VI. Rome 69 
 
 VII. Vaucluse 81 
 
 VIII. The Coronation ....... 97 
 
 IX. Petrarch's Popularity .... 114 
 
 X. Rienzi 127 
 
 XI. Sorrows and Losses 151 
 
 XII. Milan 162 
 
 XIII. Petrarch's Children 181 
 
 XIV. Boccaccio 192 
 
 XV. Venice 212 
 
 XVI. Padua and Arqua 230 
 
 XVII. Petrarch's Letters 249 
 
 XVIII. Latin Works 259 
 
 XIX. Italian Poems 274 
 
 Authorities 287 
 
 Index 289 
 
 225408 
 
LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE FIRST MODERN MAN. 
 
 A LL mankind love a lover, and for more 
 *** than five hundred years Petrarch has 
 been regarded as the ideal personification of 
 this character. So universal is the recogni- 
 tion of this pre-eminence, that the mere men- 
 tion of his name carries with it the suggestion 
 of Laura. And yet it was not as the lover of 
 Laura that Petrarch expected to be remem- 
 bered, nor as the writer of the sonnets to 
 which he refers slightingly as " a few trifles 
 in the vulgar tongue." 
 
 In the celebrated " Letter to Posterity " he 
 makes but little mention of his Italian poetry, 
 
$ ; / ; ; : * , <' hfFE\ DP' ^ETRARCH. 
 
 while he dwells with complacency on the 
 great Latin epic of " Africa" which was to 
 perpetuate his name, and which won him the 
 laurel crown from the Roman Senate. So 
 perverse however is posterity, that the very 
 name of the epic is almost forgotten while 
 the sonnets are immortal, his reputation as 
 a lyric poet having almost obscured his other 
 services to mankind. 
 
 But the life-work of Petrarch, one of far 
 more importance and far wider influence than 
 any of his writings, whether Latin or Italian, 
 was the opening of the gates of antiquity to 
 the modern world. It is as the apostle of 
 culture, the instigator of the revival of Letters, 
 the precursor of the Renaissance, that he will 
 always be gratefully remembered by the stu- 
 dent. " To have foreseen a whole new phase 
 of European culture," says Symonds, " to have 
 interpreted its spirit, and determined by his 
 own activity the course it should pursue, is 
 in truth a higher title to fame than the com- 
 
FIRST MODERN MAN 
 
 position of even the most perfect sonnets. 
 The artist however has this advantage over 
 the pioneer of intellectual progress, that his 
 delicate creations are indestructible, and that 
 his work cannot be merged in that of a con- 
 tinuator. Therefore Petrarch lives, and will 
 live, in the memory of millions as the poet 
 of Laura, while only students know how 
 much the world owes to his humanistic 
 ardor." 
 
 It is only by comparing his standpoint with 
 that of his predecessors that we can appre- 
 ciate the originality of Petrarch, or realize in 
 how many directions he anticipated the Re- 
 naissance. Ideas so familiar that we never 
 think of inquiring where they originated, 
 were exceedingly novel to the men to whom 
 he first presented them. 
 
 It was he, for instance, who first saw the 
 value of public libraries, and took steps to 
 found one. It was he who first advised the 
 1 Renaissance in Italy, vol. ii., " Revival of Learning." 
 
10 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 collection of coins and medals as historic ma- 
 terial. It was he who urged and entreated 
 his countrymen to preserve their ancient 
 ruins, both for sentimental and for scientific 
 reasons, as reminders of the past, and as aids 
 in the study of history. He encouraged the 
 study of Greek and the translation of the 
 Greek masterpieces. He preached to every 
 one with whom he came in contact the duty 
 of collecting manuscripts, of recovering the 
 lost treasures of classic literature from the 
 monastic libraries in which they were buried. 
 In short, nearly every characteristic feature 
 of the Renaissance was foreseen by Petrarch, 
 and his life was spent in the effort to turn 
 men's thoughts in these directions. 
 
 To him more than to any one else belongs 
 the glory of that which Michelet has so hap- 
 pily characterized as the " discovery of man;" 
 that is, a just conception of the real dignity 
 of man, and of the duty of self-development 
 devolving on each individual. His passion 
 
FIRST MODERN MAN 
 
 was self-culture, the acquisition of knowledge, 
 the ideal perfection of the intellect ; and the 
 inspiration for this development he found 
 only in the classic authors. 
 
 Petrarch is the first instance in the modern 
 world of a genuine man of letters, a de- 
 votee of literature for its own sake, liter- 
 ature pure and simple, unmixed with politics 
 or religion. 
 
 The circumstances of his life did much to 
 bring about this unique position. Born only- 
 fifty years later than Dante, he was born into 
 a wholly different world. The two causes 
 which inspired the elder poet had already 
 become dead issues in Petrarch's day. 
 
 The Church, or rather the Papacy (the 
 object of so much love and hatred on Dante's 
 part), had, by its removal to Avignon, become 
 a mere tool of the King of France. The 
 Papal court was as corrupt as ever, but by 
 withdrawing from Rome it had lost its pres- 
 tige and dignity, had lost " the poetry of its 
 
12 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 vices," and could no longer inspire even the 
 invectives of a poet. 
 
 Dante's other great theme had been poli- 
 tics ; but his intense partisanship was an un- 
 known tongue to Petrarch. Born in exile, 
 reared in a foreign land, how could he share 
 in the bitter feuds by which every Italian city 
 was torn? " His cradle carried from place to 
 place, from Arezzo to Incisa, from Italy to 
 Provence, what to him were Guelfs and 
 Ghibellines, or Blacks and Whites?" 1 His 
 country was not Florence but Italy, and not 
 the Italy of his day, divided into petty States 
 warring with each other, but the Italy of an- 
 tiquity, with Rome as its centre, the Italy 
 of Cicero and of Livy ; and it was this Italy 
 which he hoped to revive by unearthing all 
 the treasures of her ancient literature, by re- 
 covering and perfecting the Latin tongue. 
 
 By his untiring energy in collecting and 
 collating manuscripts Petrarch succeeded in 
 
 1 Quinet, " Revolutions d'ltalie." 
 
FIRST MODERN MAN 1 3 
 
 preserving many classic writings which might 
 otherwise have been lost to the world. Some 
 of these had lain for centuries buried in the 
 dust of monastic attics and cellars, and but for 
 his timely interference would soon have be- 
 come illegible. He also did much toward 
 the improvement of the Latin then in use, by 
 urging the abandonment of the corrupted 
 mediaeval Latin and the formation of a cor- 
 rect style from constant study of the classics. 
 Born with a natural instinct for harmony, he 
 had, as a child, been charmed by the periods 
 of Cicero before he was old enough to under- 
 stand the meaning of the words. 
 
 Cicero remained always his favorite author, 
 his master, as he loved to call him ; and one 
 of the happiest days of his life was that on 
 which he discovered in the cathedral of Ve- 
 rona a copy of Cicero's letters. He could 
 trust no eye but his own to decipher the 
 faded, worm-eaten manuscript, and therefore 
 copied the whole with his own hand. These 
 
14 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 volumes he never ceased to regard as his 
 greatest treasure. He not only made his 
 discovery known to the world, but announced 
 it to Cicero himself in an eloquent epistle. 
 
 Indeed, the idea of " Letters to Dead Au- 
 thors " by no means originated in the nine- 
 teenth century. Petrarch was very fond of ad- 
 dressing letters to the writers of antiquity. So 
 zealously had he studied them, so thoroughly 
 was he in sympathy with them, that he looked 
 upon them as familiar friends with whom he 
 loved to converse on paper, expressing freely 
 his reverence and affection, even adding oc- 
 casionally a few words of criticism. He has 
 left letters to Cicero, Seneca, Livy, Virgil, 
 Horace, Homer, and many others. 
 
 Next to Cicero he loved Virgil. The first, 
 he said, seemed to him like a father, the 
 second like a brother. It was in his copy of 
 Virgil that he recorded the death of Laura 
 and the death of his son, as if confiding his 
 sorrows to a trusted friend. 
 
FIRST MODERN MAN. 1 5 
 
 Petrarch's wonderful popularity, his literary 
 royalty, was due more than all else to this 
 enthusiasm for antiquity, which with him 
 amounted to such a passion, such a fanati- 
 cism, that he was able to impart a portion of 
 his own ardor to every one with whom he 
 came in contact. He was opening to his 
 contemporaries a new world, and urging and 
 entreating them to enter therein. He was 
 preaching not a new religion, but a new 
 civilization. " Not only in the literary his- 
 tory of Italy," says Voigt, " but in that of 
 the civilized world, and not only in this but 
 also in the spiritual history of humanity, 
 Petrarch's name shines as a star of the first 
 magnitude ; and it would not appear less if 
 he had never written a verse in the Tuscan 
 tongue. . . . We may forget his labors, but 
 only as we forget the foundations of a build- 
 ing while dwelling at ease in its spacious 
 apartments." 1 
 
 1 Wiederbelebung des classischer Alterthums. 
 
16 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 For some of the weaknesses of the Renais- 
 sance, Petrarch is not responsible, in particu- 
 lar, its conflict with Christianity. For him 
 there was no contradiction between the grand 
 thoughts of the pagan authors and the truths 
 of the Gospel. " I follow no sect," he said, 
 " but only truth. Sometimes I am a peripa- 
 tetic, at others a stoic, then an academician, 
 and again I am none of these when it con- 
 cerns some philosophical teaching which 
 seems to be in opposition to our true and 
 holy faith. If there were any danger that 
 these philosophical doctrines would withdraw 
 me from the highest good, I would freely 
 turn my back upon Plato and Aristotle, upon 
 Varro and Cicero." 1 His love for the classics 
 never lessened his esteem for the Bible, as was 
 the case with the scholars of the sixteenth 
 century ; nor had he their contempt for the 
 Fathers of the Church. He accepted truth 
 wherever he found it; and he loved Saint Au- 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., vi. 2. 
 
FIRST MODERN MAN 1J 
 
 gustine as if he had been an ancient Roman, 
 because he met in his " Confessions " with a 
 genuine human soul. 
 
 In another respect his successors failed to 
 reach the high level upon which Petrarch 
 stood. Like him, they adored the past, they 
 cultivated the Latin tongue, they surpassed 
 their master in many of the studies which 
 he inaugurated, " as the schoolboy of a new 
 generation may surpass in his knowledge of 
 geography the discoverer of a new conti- 
 nent," but they never attained to Petrarch's 
 lofty conception of Italian unity. His ideal 
 of Italy as a nation is only realized in the 
 present age. 
 
 Much has been said of the faults of Petrarch, 
 of his vanity, his many inconsistencies, his 
 ennui and restlessness ; but his very weak- 
 nesses are such as serve to emphasize his 
 detachment from the environment of the 
 Middle Ages and his relation to the modern 
 world. His vanity was but the natural out- 
 
1 8 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 come of his discovery of the duty of self- 
 development. This self upon which he had 
 labored so assiduously claimed recognition. 
 It was simply one phase of the desire for 
 fame, a motive by which mediaeval man had 
 not been governed. The latter had been 
 taught to humble and mortify self, and had 
 often been content to continue the works of 
 other men without attaching his own name 
 to them. If it had occurred to him to write 
 a " Letter to Posterity," he would have filled 
 it with precepts concerning the littleness of 
 man and the nothingness of this world, rather 
 than with a description of himself and an ac- 
 count of his own achievements. 
 
 Petrarch, with his new consciousness of the 
 dignity of the individual, was not content to 
 labor simply for the good of mankind, and 
 then vanish from the world and leave no trace 
 of himself. He longed to live in the minds 
 of men as did those dead authors with whom 
 he was in daily communion ; and, as some as- 
 
FIRST MODERN MAN 1 9 
 
 surance of this immortality, he thirsted for 
 recognition from his contemporaries. As to 
 Petrarch's contradictions and inconsistencies, 
 he has himself greatly exaggerated them. 
 His excessive introspection, his self-preoccu- 
 pation, led him to attach undue importance 
 to his own varying moods. 
 
 His ennui and restlessness were due to 
 the lack of harmony which he felt between 
 himself and his environment. " Oh, that 
 I had lived when those great men lived ! " 
 he was constantly exclaiming. The man 
 who marks a transition from the old to 
 the new must necessarily be restless and 
 discontented. 
 
 Had Petrarch been less vain, less inconsis- 
 tent, more evenly balanced, he might indeed 
 have made a pattern mediaeval saint, but he 
 would not have impressed himself upon the 
 age as he did, he would not have influenced 
 the minds of men for two centuries after his 
 death. He deserves to be remembered for 
 
20 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 his matchless lyrics; he deserves to be re- 
 membered as one of the great triumvirate 
 who created the Italian language and inaugu- 
 rated the Italian literature ; but above all he 
 deserves to be remembered as the " discoverer 
 of the new world of Humanism " and the in- 
 spired advocate of Italian unity. 
 
EARLY YEARS. 21 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 EARLY YEARS. 
 
 " T WAS born at Arezzo," says Petrarch, 
 -* " at dawn of day, on Monday, the 20th 
 of July, 1304. My parents were in humble 
 condition, to tell the truth, inclined to 
 poverty, and exiled from Florence, their 
 country." 
 
 This same Monday was also an important 
 day in the history of Florence; and for many 
 years the Florentines observed its anniversary 
 as a public holiday, wholly unconscious that 
 they were celebrating at the same time 
 the birthday of the second great poet of 
 Italy. 
 
 The battle of Lastra was the most 
 determined effort made by the party of 
 
22 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 the banished Whites, to return by force to 
 Florence. Their attack was made from 
 Arezzo, and it would seem that they might 
 have succeeded but for their own haste and 
 imprudence. As it turned out, however, the 
 invaders were seized with panic, and fled in 
 confusion, leaving the Blacks in peace, to 
 celebrate their victory. In this defeated 
 army, hastening back in wild disorder to 
 Arezzo, was the father of Petrarch. During 
 his absence the son had been born who 
 was to make the day memorable when the 
 battle, and the divisions which caused it, were 
 forgotten. 
 
 The Whites who were thus in arms against 
 their native city, had been banished from 
 Florence two years before, their estates con- 
 fiscated, and their homes destroyed. Among 
 the six hundred citizens thus driven into exile 
 were Dante Alighieri and the father of Pe- 
 trarch. That no influential members of the 
 White party might be left in the city, special 
 
EARLY YEARS. 2$ 
 
 charges were trumped up against those whose 
 names had been overlooked in the first pro- 
 scription. Petracco, the father of Petrarch, 
 was one of those thus found worthy of a 
 separate sentence. As a notary, and chan- 
 cellor of the recent municipal reforms, he was 
 accused of having forged a false enactment, 
 and was condemned to pay a fine of a 
 thousand livres within ten days, or lose his 
 right hand. 
 
 He preferred exile to either alternative, and 
 withdrew with his wife to Arezzo, the little 
 Ghibelline city, which was the natural refuge 
 of the exiles. The latter had no thought of 
 tamely accepting the decree of banishment. 
 Relying on a continuation of the past his- 
 tory of Florence, which was one long suc- 
 cession of mutual banishments and restora- 
 tions, they regarded their misfortunes as tem- 
 porary, and hoped that another turn of the 
 wheel would not only restore them to their 
 homes, but place them again in power. 
 
24 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 During the first two years of his exile 
 Petracco was occupied with the struggles of 
 his party to recover their rights ; but after the 
 unfortunate battle of Lastra he lost confidence 
 in these efforts, and turned his attention to the 
 support of his family. 
 
 The son born to him was named Francesco 
 di Petracco (the son of Petracco). For the 
 sake of euphony, the poet afterward softened 
 
 the name to Petrarca. 
 
 
 
 The little Francesco remained only half a 
 year in Arezzo, but the city always valued the 
 honor of being the birthplace of so great a 
 man. Upon his return, more than forty years 
 later, the officials pointed out to him the 
 house where he was born, " not large or mag- 
 nificent, but suitable for an exile ; " and he 
 was gratified to learn that any alteration had 
 been forbidden by the authorities. 
 
 When Petrarch was seven months old, his 
 mother received permission to return to the 
 Florentine territory. She settled in Incisa, 
 
EARLY YEARS. 2$ 
 
 a little village fourteen miles from Florence, 
 where Petracco had an estate which for some 
 reason perhaps because it was claimed by 
 his wife as her dower had escaped con- 
 fiscation. 
 
 The journey to Incisa was not without inci- 
 dent, for it came near being fatal to the little 
 Francesco, or Checco, as he was familiarly 
 called. He had been intrusted to the care of 
 a servant, who wrapped the child in a cloth, 
 fastened the knots to a stout stick, and slung 
 the bundle over his shoulder. In crossing 
 the Arno his horse stumbled, and the ser- 
 vant with his living burden was thrown 
 into the river, where both narrowly escaped 
 drowning. 
 
 In 1842, the dilapidated old house in In- 
 cisa which had been occupied by Petrarch's 
 mother, was honored with an inscription to 
 the effect that within these walls the poet 
 learned the use of his mother-tongue. And 
 certainly the fact that in these first years of 
 
26 LIFE OF PETRARCH, 
 
 his life he learned the Tuscan idiom instead 
 of any other, was of no small importance. 
 
 Seven years were spent at Incisa with occa- 
 sional fugitive visits from Petracco, the father. 
 In 131 2, Petracco summoned his little family, 
 which had been increased by the addition of 
 another son, to live with him in Pisa. 
 
 A year later, when the death of the em- 
 peror, Henry VII., had destroyed the last 
 hope of a return to Florence, Petracco re- 
 solved to leave Italy altogether, and to estab- 
 lish himself at Avignon, in Provence, where, 
 on account of the presence of the Papal 
 court, he hoped to find special opportunities 
 for a man of his profession. 
 
 The windy city on the banks of the Rhone, 
 with its narrow, dirty, evil-smelling streets, 
 has been repeatedly described by Petrarch, 
 who always- hated Avignon for having robbed 
 Rome of her rightful dignity as the seat of 
 the Church. 
 
 The presence of the Pope and the cardi- 
 
EARLY YEARS. 2J 
 
 nals, together with the crowd of strangers 
 which naturally gathers around the Papal 
 court, made it a difficult matter to find a 
 home in Avignon. Petracco therefore set- 
 tled his family in Carpentras, a little city a 
 few miles distant, while he himself remained 
 at Avignon. 
 
 From an old Italian, Convennole, who had 
 established a school at Carpentras, Petrarch 
 received his first regular instruction, " learn- 
 ing a smattering of grammar, and as much of 
 dialectics and rhetoric as the age could afford." 
 
 The old schoolmaster was an erratic genius 
 who had spent all his life in teaching, but 
 who had an ambition to shine in literature. 
 He was always beginning some pretentious 
 work, for which he would prepare a magni- 
 ficent titlepage, then cast it aside to turn his 
 fickle mind to some other subject. He was 
 an impractical man who was always in diffi- 
 culties, from which his friends were obliged 
 to extricate him. 
 
28 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 Petrarch's father was among those who had 
 been generous to him ; and after his father's 
 death Petrarch continued to assist him with 
 gifts of money and the loan of books, which 
 the old man pawned to relieve his necessities. 
 In this way the manuscript of one of Cicero's 
 works was lost to Petrarch and to the world. 
 
 Convennole was nevertheless an excellent 
 teacher, and Petrarch compares him to the 
 whetstone of Horace, "which sharpens steel 
 but cannot cut." He had in the poet a 
 brilliant pupil, who at the age when other 
 boys were occupied with ^Esop, was reading 
 Cicero, fascinated with the beauty of the 
 style. 
 
 Petrarch was greatly attached to his old 
 schoolmaster ; and forty years later, in a let- 
 ter to Guido Settimo, the earliest friend of his 
 childhood, he speaks with enthusiasm of those 
 four happy years spent at Carpentras. 
 
 As a notary and the descendant of nota- 
 ries, Petracco naturally destined his son for 
 
EARLY YEARS. 29 
 
 the same profession, the law being then con- 
 sidered one of the surest avenues to wealth 
 and distinction. Accordingly Petrarch, at the 
 age of fifteen, was sent to Montpellier to 
 begin his legal studies. The youth at first 
 offered no opposition to his father's plans; 
 but as his mind matured, and his love for 
 the classics increased, the " Pandects " and the 
 " Corpus Juris " were sadly neglected. The 
 periods of Cicero had spoiled his ear for 
 the barbarous Latin of the lawyers. 
 
 So great was his love for his favorite Latin 
 author, that he says, " There was no pastime, 
 or any other pleasant thing, on which I would 
 not willingly have turned my back to delve 
 in the books of Cicero." This taste was par- 
 tially derived from his father, who was himself 
 a scholar, " and who might have accomplished 
 great things in letters," says Petrarch, " had 
 not exile and the care of a family forced him 
 to turn all his energies in other directions." 
 
 Petracco, however, no longer encouraged 
 
30 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 this taste when he found it was leading his 
 son to neglect what he considered the more 
 practical studies. He urged him to apply 
 himself to the civil code, to learn the laws of 
 lending and borrowing, of wills and codicils, 
 lands and estates, and to thrust into a corner 
 the books of Cicero, " although they contain 
 the more healthful laws of life." 
 
 Notwithstanding the wishes of his father, 
 Petrarch continued to devote his time to the 
 study of the classics, collecting as many man- 
 uscripts as he was able, but keeping them 
 carefully concealed from unfriendly eyes. 
 The notary one day made an unexpected 
 descent upon his son, and discovered the 
 precious manuscripts. In his anger he drew 
 them forth from their hiding-place and threw 
 them into the fire, " as though they were 
 works of heretical depravity." Petrarch 
 burst into tears. " I suffered," he says, " as 
 if the flames had been destroying my own 
 flesh." 
 
EARLY YEARS. 3 I 
 
 Moved by his tears and passionate entreat- 
 ies, the father finally snatched from the 
 flames two books, already half burned, and 
 handing him with one hand Virgil and with 
 the other the Rhetoric of Cicero, said smiling, 
 " You may keep one to console yourself at 
 rare intervals, and the other for encourage- 
 ment and aid in the study of the law." 
 
 After four years at Montpellier Petrarch 
 was sent to Bologna to complete his legal 
 studies. At that time the University of 
 Bologna was second only to that of Paris, 
 and was especially famed for its professors of 
 jurisprudence. 
 
 Petrarch was no more reconciled to the 
 course of study chosen for him than he had 
 been at Montpellier, but the three years spent 
 at Bologna were nevertheless happy and quiet 
 ones, years which he loved to recall in his old 
 age. It was Italian soil, always very dear to 
 Petrarch. The city with its fifteen thousand 
 students was in such an exceptionally pros- 
 
32 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 perous and peaceful condition that no high 
 walls were needed for protection, and the city 
 gates were rarely closed ; so that Petrarch and 
 his friends, returning late at night from their 
 long rambles in the country, had no difficulty 
 in getting into the city. 
 
 His companions were his younger brother 
 Gerardo and Guido Settimo, who had been 
 his friend and fellow-student at Carpentras. 
 He formed here many other friendships which 
 lasted through life, for Petrarch had to a re- 
 markable degree the gift of attracting people 
 to him, and of preserving their affection. 
 
 With the death of Petrarch's father, in 1326, 
 the life at Bologna came to an end, and the 
 brothers for the second time departed from 
 Italian soil. It is thought by some authorities 
 that the poet's mother died soon after her 
 husband, while others believe her to have been 
 living several years later. Not only is it im- 
 possible to give accurate information con- 
 cerning the death of the poor lady, but 
 
EARLY YEARS. 33 
 
 there is also warm discussion as to her very- 
 identity. 
 
 But since Petrarch has so rarely mentioned 
 his mother, and since she seems to have ex- 
 erted so little influence upon his life, it mat- 
 ters little to history whether she were named 
 Eletta Canigiani, and died in 1326, or whether 
 she were Nicolosa, daughter of Cino Sigoli, 
 who was still living in 1331. 1 
 
 Petrarch indeed composed a poem, in her 
 honor, consisting of thirty-eight verses, cor- 
 responding to the thirty-eight years of her 
 life, but the lines are stiff and pedantic and be- 
 tray little feeling and less genius. They are 
 only remarkable for the prophecy that both 
 he and his mother will be remembered by 
 posterity, showing that the writer at a very 
 early age had confidence in his own destiny. 
 
 1 For the different solutions of this question see 
 Fracassetti, Koerting, and Mezieres. 
 
34 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 AVIGNON. 
 
 XJO sooner was Petrarch made his own 
 master than he abandoned at once 
 and forever the hated law studies, nor did 
 he ever cease to mourn the years spent in 
 that pursuit as the seven lost years of his 
 life. 
 
 "I abandoned it, not because the authority of 
 the laws was irksome to me, which doubtless is 
 great, and redolent of that Roman antiquity in 
 which I delight, but because the practice of those 
 laws is depraved by the wickedness of men. I 
 was disgusted at the thought of having to study 
 thoroughly that which I was resolved not to turn to 
 dishonorable uses, and I could scarcely turn to 
 honorable, for such prudery would have been 
 attributed to ignorance." * 
 
 1 Letter to Posterity. 
 
AVIGNON. 35 
 
 In spite of the misfortunes of exile, 
 Petracco had amassed some fortune ; but 
 everything was swallowed up by dishonest 
 executors, with the exception of a manu- 
 script of Cicero, of which they did not know 
 the value. Thrown upon his own resources, 
 Petrarch was obliged to choose a profession 
 in place of the one which he had abandoned. 
 He entered the Church, as that seemed to 
 promise him the most liberty for the pursuit 
 of the classical studies which with every day 
 were growing more dear to him. 
 
 It must be confessed that Petrarch as- 
 sumed the clerical garb, not through devo- 
 tion to the Church, but as a means of support 
 which would enable him to fulfil the mission 
 upon which he had already entered, that of 
 " opening the gates of antiquity to the mod- 
 ern world." 
 
 That he should have settled at Avignon, 
 the city that he hated for having usurped 
 the rights of Rome, the city upon which he 
 
36 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 loved to lavish opprobrious epithets, calling 
 it the sink of iniquity, the modern Babylon, 
 can only be explained by the fact that he 
 hoped for some advantage from the Papal 
 court. Notwithstanding his abuse of Avig- 
 non, that city furnished a favorable atmos- 
 phere for a young man of letters, just 
 beginning his career. The Pontifical court 
 had indeed lost much of its power since the 
 days of Boniface VIII., and its dignity and 
 prestige had been greatly weakened by the 
 removal to Avignon, but it was still able to 
 gather about it a cultivated circle, com- 
 posed of scholars and prelates from all parts 
 of the world. The society at Avignon was 
 cosmopolitan, with interests widely different 
 from those of the Italian cities, absorbed in 
 their own political feuds. 
 
 Soon after his return from Bologna, Pe- 
 trarch gained a friend whose influence and 
 patronage were of the greatest importance in 
 shaping his whole future. James Colonna 
 
AVIGNON. 37 
 
 was the seventh son of the renowned old 
 Roman noble, Stephen Colonna, head of the 
 powerful family then playing so important a 
 rdle in the history of Rome. The young 
 Colonna had been a fellow-student at Bo- 
 logna, had noticed Petrarch among the 
 multitude who wore the students' garb, and 
 had been pleased with his appearance; but 
 the acquaintance had gone no farther. 
 When he saw him again on the streets of 
 Avignon, and learned that he was an Italian, 
 a poet, and poor, he summoned him to his 
 house. " I had already begun to be known," 
 says the poet, in his " Letter to Posterity," 
 " and my acquaintance to be sought by men 
 of eminence, though why, I confess now I 
 know not, and wonder. At that time, how- 
 ever, after the fashion of young men, I was 
 not surprised, seeming to myself well worthy 
 of all honor." 
 
 Petrarch, a born courtier, had no difficulty 
 in confirming the good impression already 
 
38 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 made, while on his own part he was com- 
 pletely captivated by the winning manners 
 and courteous bearing of his new friend. A 
 warm friendship sprang up between them, 
 founded upon genuine esteem and affection 
 on both sides. In the last year of his life 
 Petrarch drew an enthusiastic picture of this 
 first patron : 
 
 " I never saw, nor do I think there was ever in 
 the world, a man with more pleasant and courteous 
 manners, wise, virtuous, brave, modest in pros- 
 perity, and firm in adversity. In eloquence there 
 were none to compare with him. He held in his 
 hand the key of all hearts, and whether he spoke to 
 clergy or people he was sure of moving all who 
 heard him to his will. Singularly devoted to his 
 family, liberal with his friends, generous beyond 
 measure to the poor, affable and gracious with all. 
 This man then, to whom Nature had given such 
 majesty of countenance and of person, that seeing 
 him in a crowd you would have taken him for a 
 prince, so charmed me with the bait of his manners 
 and his words, that he took possession of my heart 
 and never left it." l 
 
 1 Let. Sen., xvi. i. 
 
A VIGNON. 39 
 
 James Colonna was also in the Church, and 
 was early enabled to render signal service to 
 the Pope, whereby he obtained promotion to 
 the bishopric of Lombes, although he had not 
 yet reached the canonical age. 
 
 In 1330, the new bishop prepared to visit 
 the seat of his bishopric in Gascony, at the 
 foot of the Pyrenees, and invited Petrarch to 
 accompany him. Among the companions 
 of the bishop were two other young men who 
 were soon numbered among the friends of 
 the poet, and to whom he remained devotedly 
 attached while they lived. 
 
 One of them was an Italian, Lello, to whom 
 Petrarch gave the name of Laelius, in honor 
 of the friend of Scipio. Lello was of a noble 
 Roman family, and was, in disposition, says 
 his friend, " an ancient Roman." He was 
 employed by James Colonna as his secretary 
 until the death of the latter, in 1341, when he 
 returned to Rome, and took a prominent part 
 in the political turmoil of his native city. 
 
40 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 The other new friend was the German, 
 Lewis, of barbarian origin in the opinion of 
 Petrarch and other Italians, but as enthusi- 
 astic in his love for Italy and for all things 
 Italian as Petrarch himself. To him, Petrarch 
 for some fanciful reason gave the name of 
 Socrates, addressing him always by that name 
 during thirty years of the closest friendship. 
 
 Many of the poet's letters are addressed 
 to these two friends, and the collection of 
 " Familiar Letters " is dedicated to Socrates. 
 One of the finest of them was written on the 
 occasion of a quarrel between Socrates and 
 Laelius, and discourses eloquently of the du- 
 ties and pleasures of friendship. 
 
 Petrarch declares that he has greater natu- 
 ral inclination for friendship than for anything 
 else; and certainly his relations with those 
 whom he admitted to his intimacy are ex- 
 ceptional for constancy and disinterestedness, 
 the ruling qualities of ideal friendship. 
 
 With these three friends he spent at 
 
AVIGNON. 41 
 
 Lombes " an almost heavenly summer," he 
 says, " so delightful that I always sigh when 
 thinking of that time." 
 
 Upon his return to Avignon, the bishop 
 presented Petrarch to his brother, Cardinal 
 John Colonna, " a man illustrious and blame- 
 less among cardinals," who received the poet 
 under his own roof, where he remained for 
 years, " not as it were, under a patron, but 
 under a father, nay, not even that, say 
 rather, a most affectionate brother, with 
 whom I lived as if at home and in my own 
 house." Petrarch was also introduced in 
 the same year to the father of his patrons, 
 the aged Stephen Colonna, who gave him his 
 friendship and confidence, treating him almost 
 as one of his sons. 
 
 The patronage of the Colonna family was 
 of the greatest importance to the poet, in 
 that it released him from all pecuniary cares, 
 and left him free to pursue his chosen studies. 
 His residence in the Colonna palace was also 
 
42 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 of advantage to Petrarch in spreading his 
 fame abroad ; for of the foreigners who 
 thronged Avignon from all parts of the world, 
 the most distinguished frequented the house 
 of Cardinal Colonna, and carried from thence 
 to their respective homes favorable accounts 
 of the young poet. He also made use of 
 these foreign friends to further the pursuit 
 of those classical studies into which he had 
 thrown himself with so much enthusiasm. 
 When they departed from Avignon, and 
 offered, as was customary, to perform some 
 service for him in their own country, he 
 only asked of them to send him such manu- 
 scripts of Cicero and other Latin authors as 
 they might find hidden in libraries. 
 
 The Petrarch with whom we are familiar 
 from his portraits, in the clerical garb and 
 wreath of laurel, and with a serious and placid 
 face, was not the Petrarch known in Avignon 
 as the protigt of the Colonnas. At that 
 time he was an elegant young society man, 
 
A VIGNON. 43 
 
 a devotee of fashion. In a letter to his 
 brother Gerardo, written many years later, he 
 gives an amusing description of himself at 
 this period of his life : 
 
 " You remember, my brother, what our life was 
 once, and what pains, what suffering our pleasures 
 cost us ? You remember our foolish anxiety for ex- 
 quisite elegance of attire, which, although growing 
 less from day to day, has never wholly left me ? 
 What trouble to change our clothes morning and 
 evening, what fear lest a breath of air should disturb 
 our carefully curled locks ! How anxiously we 
 watched every passing horse, lest a drop of mud 
 soil our gorgeous mantles, or a rude jar disarrange 
 their perfumed folds ! Oh, foolish cares of men, and 
 especially of young men, who take so much trouble 
 to please others' ! And what others ? Those for 
 whom they care nothing. What folly to adorn the 
 person, not according to the dictates of reason, but 
 at the will of the vulgar crowd, and to govern our 
 lives by the opinions of those whose lives we 
 despise. Quite otherwise it seemed to us then, 
 however ; and we were rewarded for all our trouble 
 and pains by the knowledge that the eyes of all 
 were fixed on us. . . . And what shall I say of 
 our shoes, which made to protect the feet, served 
 
44 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 only to produce torture and martyrdom ? My feet 
 would have been rendered useless for their office, if, 
 warned by necessity, I had not preferred the sacrifice 
 of vain appearances to the continuous torture of 
 nerves and bones. And then the curling-irons, and 
 the torments of hairdressing ! How often were our 
 slumbers disturbed by that painful operation ! What 
 pirate could have treated us more cruelly than we 
 treated ourselves in that process ? How often, upon 
 waking in the morning, did the mirror show us fore- 
 heads so ploughed with wrinkles that instead of dis- 
 playing our frizzled locks we were constrained to 
 hide our disfigured faces." 1 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., x. 3. 
 
LAURA. 45 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 LAURA. 
 
 TT was this elegant young clerical dandy, 
 *- carefully curled and perfumed, with gor- 
 geous cloak and pointed shoes, who on an 
 April morning more than five hundred and 
 fifty years ago strolled into the church of 
 Santa Clara, at Avignon, and there saw the 
 face which at once and forever stamped itself 
 upon his heart. 
 
 Concerning the identity of Laura there is 
 wide divergence of opinion, the point of dif- 
 ference being whether she were a maid or a 
 wife, or a phantom of the poet's brain. 
 
 Critics are not wanting who dispute the 
 existence of Laura, who would make of her, 
 as of the Beatrice of Dante and the Fiam- 
 metta of Boccaccio, an allegory, a personifi- 
 
46 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 cation of poetry, or of the laurel-tree, the 
 emblem of fame. This theory is not a new 
 one. It was advanced in the lifetime of Pe- 
 trarch by one of his dearest and most intimate 
 friends, James Colonna, who in a letter to 
 the poet accused him of having created an 
 imaginary Laura, and of having pretended to 
 be enamoured of her, in order to have a subject 
 for his verses, and to get himself talked about. 
 He pronounces his verses a fiction, his sighs 
 feigned, and refuses to believe in any Laura 
 save the one for which all poets sigh, the 
 laurel. 
 
 To this, Petrarch replies, " Would to Heaven 
 it were true that my love was a fancy and 
 not a frenzy ! But one cannot feign long 
 without great labor ; and to labor to make the 
 world believe you mad, would certainly be the 
 height of folly. Besides, how could I feign 
 the pallor, the emaciation, which you have 
 seen?" 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., ii. 9. 
 
LAURA. 47 
 
 Yet to this day a number of pens are em- 
 ployed in the attempt to prove Laura a myth. 
 And among those who agree that the person 
 celebrated in Petrarch's verses was a real, liv- 
 ing woman, there is lack of harmony again, 
 as to whether she were a maid or a wife. 
 
 In the eighteenth century, a Frenchman 
 the Abbe de Sade claimed to have settled 
 the question definitely, from documents found 
 in the archives of his own family. According 
 to his account, Laura was the daughter of 
 Audibert de Noves, was born in Avignon in 
 1307, married in 1325 to Hugo de Sade, and 
 after bearing him eleven children, died of the 
 plague, in 1348. 
 
 De Sade's hypothesis is very ingenious, is 
 carefully built up by documents, and has been 
 accepted without question by a great many 
 biographers. Mezieres, the standard French 
 authority on the subject, declares that no 
 serious mind can longer doubt the marriage 
 of Laura. On the other hand, many distin- 
 
48 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 guished scholars in Germany and Italy con- 
 sider it a dishonor to Petrarch to receive De 
 Sade's theory. . They refuse to credit his doc- 
 uments, and stoutly deny that the object of 
 the poet's affection was the wife of another 
 man. Koerting, the author of the most ex- 
 haustive work on Petrarch which has yet ap- 
 peared, accepts the marriage of Laura, but 
 rejects the eleven children. There are pas- 
 sages in her lover's writings that make her 
 marriage almost a certainty. 
 
 Those who are offended at the thought of 
 Petrarch's bestowing his love on a married 
 woman, should remember that he was still 
 very near the days of the Troubadours, when 
 such a thing was by no means uncommon, 
 and that the standards of the nineteenth 
 century will not apply to the fourteenth. 
 
 Each of these theories is supported by 
 weighty arguments, mostly founded upon 
 " internal evidence " obtained from different 
 interpretations of Petrarch's writings. After 
 
LAURA. 49 
 
 five centuries of discussion, the question is 
 as far from settlement as ever. Granting 
 the authenticity of De Sade's documents 
 (which is by no means unquestioned), they 
 only prove that his ancestress Laura de 
 Sade died in the same year and month, 
 and perhaps on the same day, on which the 
 Laura of Petrarch died, and that she was 
 buried in the same church. But since the 
 plague was said to have carried off nearly 
 half of the inhabitants of Avignon in that 
 same month of April, it may easily have hap- 
 pened that two Lauras were among its vic- 
 tims, and that they found the same burial 
 place. The abbe lays some stress upon the 
 fact that his ancestress was known to have in 
 her trousseau a green dress and a red one, 
 and that Petrarch often describes his lady in 
 those colors. 
 
 An ancient tradition in Avignon had as- 
 signed Laura to the family of De Sade, and 
 in the sixteenth century her supposed tomb 
 
 4 
 
50 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 was opened and a sonnet found therein, as- 
 cribed to Petrarch. Little importance is now 
 attached to this pretended discovery. 
 
 Very meagre indeed are the details of the 
 life of Laura which can be given with any 
 certainty. But what matters it that her iden- 
 tity is lost, that we cannot prove her to have 
 been the wife of one man or the daughter of 
 another? It is honor enough to have been 
 remembered for five hundred years as the 
 Laura of Petrarch. 
 
 In a manuscript copy of Virgil, formerly 
 owned by the poet, and now in the Ambrosian 
 library at Milan, is a note believed to be in 
 his handwriting, which records the day of his 
 first meeting with her as well as the date of 
 her death and the place of her burial. This 
 record contains nearly all that we know 
 ' of Laura, except the fact that from that 
 April morning, when with one glance she 
 took possession of his soul, until her death 
 twenty-one years later, Petrarch never 
 
LAURA. 51 
 
 ceased to celebrate her praises in melodious 
 verse. 
 
 Another subject which has given rise to 
 endless discussion is the nature of Petrarch's 
 love. Granting the reality of Laura, was the 
 poet's love for her a poetic fiction, a pretext 
 for writing verses? Was it a purely Platonic 
 affection, a thing of the head rather than the 
 heart? Or was it a real and genuine human 
 love ? If we avoid all theorizing and rely only 
 upon the testimony of Petrarch himself, we 
 must accept the latter view ; for while some 
 of the sonnets may seem cold and artificial, 
 there are others which paint the torments 
 and uncertainties of love as only he who has 
 felt them can paint them. Could a poet who 
 had never really loved, give us poems which 
 should be found for centuries upon the lips 
 of lovers? The poems that live are the 
 poems of experience, those which have 
 lived first in the heart of the writer. 
 
 In a singular Latin treatise, " The Secret," 
 
52 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 which he claims was written for himself alone 
 and not for the public, Petrarch gives still fur- 
 ther insight into the nature of his love. The 
 work is in the form of a dialogue with 
 Saint Augustine, in which the saint reviews 
 and condemns the sins and faults of the poet, 
 while the latter attempts to defend and 
 excuse himself. Augustine reproves him for 
 having been for sixteen years the slave of a 
 woman, and portrays his unhappy condition : 
 
 "You are buried in groans, you have reached 
 a point where you feed with fatal pleasure on 
 tears and sighs. You pass sleepless nights calling 
 on the name of the loved one. You despise every- 
 thing, hate life, desire death, flee from man, and 
 love solitude. When she appears, the sun shines ; 
 with her departure night returns ; when she smiles 
 you are gay ; when she frowns you are sad. You 
 are nothing but a tool in her hands." 
 
 Petrarch refuses to admit that his love for 
 Laura can be a sin. He has loved only her 
 soul, he says. She has withdrawn him from 
 everything base, and taught him to look 
 
LAURA. 53 
 
 upward : " The little that I am, I am through 
 her. Whatever fame or glory I may have, 
 I could not have attained if the weak seed 
 of virtue which Nature has planted in my 
 heart, had not been developed by this noble 
 affection. " 
 
 Saint Augustine, however, convinces him that 
 there is much that is earthly mingled with his 
 love, and that it is due to Laura's virtue ana 
 not to his if it has been outwardly blameless. 
 
 Petrarch is never weary of describing his 
 lady's beauty, her ivory teeth and snowy 
 skin, her golden hair, forming so lovely a con- 
 trast to the brilliant black eyes which can 
 " darken the night or lighten the day, make 
 honey bitter or absinthe sweet." There is no 
 proof that he ever received from Laura one 
 word of love or encouragement in return for all 
 these years of devotion, these songs of praise. 
 His poems are not like those of other lovers, 
 concerned with meetings and partings, tender 
 words and caresses ; they deal rather with 
 
54 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 his own emotions and mental states, with 
 the effect of this absorbing passion upon 
 himself. If he describes her as now meek, 
 now proud, now pitying, now unkind, if at one 
 moment she seems to him " gentle above all 
 others, good, wise, modest, and beautiful," at 
 another " a living stone, colder than the snow," 
 he is describing his own moods rather than 
 any change in Laura. From all that can be 
 learned of her there is not the slightest rea- 
 son for calling her, as does Macaulay, a heart- 
 less coquette, or for pronouncing her, with 
 Zefferino Re, a creature without moral beauty. 
 
 The few slight incidents mentioned in the 
 " Canzoniere " seem to show that the relation 
 was only one of respectful friendship. A 
 friendly nod, a modest glance, an ungloved 
 hand, suffice to call forth a sonnet. Did she 
 let fall a glove and allow her lover to pick it 
 up, he had matter for three sonnets on " that 
 lovely hand which holds my heart." 
 
 The evil that her lover says of her is more 
 
LAURA. 55 
 
 than effaced by the good. At one moment 
 he deplores his lost liberty, and curses his 
 love as the Medusa who has turned his heart 
 to stone, at another he blesses the day, the 
 month, the year, the hour, when first he saw 
 her face. These contradictions were due to 
 the conflict continually going on in his own 
 heart ; for after the first glow of youthful fer- 
 vor, his love began to be poisoned by the stings 
 of a troubled conscience. His remorse was 
 not occasioned by the thought that Laura was 
 the wife of another, nor does this fact seem to 
 have entered into the question. Saint Augus- 
 tine in his reproof makes no reference to it. It 
 was love in itself that was a sin. The wrong 
 consisted in lavishing upon any human being 
 the devotion which belongs only to the 
 Divine, in worshipping the creature instead 
 of the Creator. Tormented by this thought he 
 made repeated efforts to cure himself of his 
 passion by absence, by travel, and by solitude ; 
 but all to no avail. " I have wandered far 
 
$6 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 and wide," he says, " but like a wounded deer, 
 I carry my wound always with me." Her face 
 was always present, whether mirrored in the 
 clear waters or in the snow-white clouds ; her 
 voice was heard in the rustle of the wind, in the 
 song of the bird, or the ripple of the fountain. 
 
 At times he believes himself cured, and able 
 to venture back in safety into the dread pres- 
 ence, but no sooner does he set foot in 
 Avignon than he is convinced of his mistake. 
 The wound is only superficially healed. " My 
 heart is so accustomed to clinging to her, and 
 my eyes to beholding her, to drawing life 
 from her, that not to love her would be to die." 
 
 The conflict between love and mysticism 
 continued until the death of Laura; and to 
 this, more than to the hopelessness of his 
 love, was due the melancholy tone of his 
 poems. 
 
TRAVELS. 57 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 TRAVELS. 
 
 /^NE observation occurs so constantly to 
 ^^ the biographer of Petrarch that he is in 
 danger of repeating it on every page. It is 
 that Petrarch is the first modern man. He 
 has not indeed entirely freed himself from 
 the Middle Ages, he still stands within their 
 grasp, but his face is turned toward us. His 
 life is full of events which the Germans call 
 " epoch-making." He personifies the transi- 
 tion from the tastes, habits, and opinions of 
 the Middle Ages to those of the modern 
 world. For instance, the ascent of a moder- 
 ately high mountain is to-day so ordinary an 
 affair in a man's life that it is hardly deemed 
 worthy of special mention, and the impor- 
 
58 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 tance attached to Petrarch's ascent of Mont 
 Ventoux seems at first thought out of pro- 
 portion to the event. But had it ever before 
 occurred to mediaeval man to clamber up the 
 steep and rugged sides of a mountain, merely 
 for the sake of the view to be obtained 
 from the summit? If a shrine were placed 
 there, he might indeed have made the toil- 
 some ascent as an act of worship or of pen- 
 ance ; but he would never have thought of 
 undergoing such hardship and fatigue with no 
 other motive than a love of the picturesque. 
 In fact, the taste for landscape was not yet 
 awakened in him. 
 
 Another of the many traits which show 
 Petrarch's departure from the mediaeval stand- 
 point, is the love of travel for its own sake, 
 the desire for change, the passion for behold- 
 ing with his own eyes all things new and 
 strange. " I know not," he says, " whether 
 through the influence of the stars or through 
 the natural inconstancy of my mind, or 
 
TRA VELS. 59 
 
 through the hard law of inevitable necessity, 
 or for some other reason unknown to me, I 
 have hitherto spent almost all my life in 
 continuous travel." 
 
 So unusual was this taste that Petrarch 
 frequently feels obliged to aoptogi; 
 unsteady life, and to assigndifferent reasons 
 for his frequent joup*eys, not the jst impor- 
 tant being thexnope of discovering, hidden 
 away in the libraries of*"Europe, unknown 
 manuscripts of the Latin authors. Another 
 fuse was the desire to free himself from 
 the yoke of passion which he felt was a 
 hindrance to his highest development But 
 neither the search for ancient manuscripts 
 nor the desire to escape from the chains 
 of Laura would have sufficed to drive him 
 from country to country, over land and sea, 
 had they not been seconded by that rest- 
 less curiosity which he confesses was a 
 part of his nature. " Other reasons were 
 invented," he says, " to recommend my going 
 
60 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 in the eyes of my elders, but the real 
 reason was my ardor and eagerness for new 
 scenes." 
 
 His were not the restless wanderings of the 
 exile, moving from place to place in the vain 
 search for contentment and a home. His 
 journeys were those of a curious, enthusi- 
 astic traveller, eager to see the world, filled 
 from his youth, he says, " with a desire to see 
 the cities and customs of many nations, and 
 with a lively curiosity to visit high mountains, 
 deep seas, hidden fountains, celebrated lakes, 
 and famous rivers." 
 
 It was while an inmate of the Colonna 
 household that Petrarch began his wander- 
 ings, probably at the cardinal's expense, 
 travelling through France, Belgium, Ger- 
 many, and Switzerland. At the cardinal's 
 request he sent detailed reports of his 
 impressions and observations, thus fore- 
 shadowing at an early day the " foreign 
 correspondent." 
 
TRAVELS. 6 1 
 
 Petrarch was a keen observer and a clever 
 narrator; and if his letters of travel could 
 have been preserved, they would be an in- 
 valuable help toward the understanding of 
 the civilization of that day in the countries 
 visited by him. Unfortunately only two of 
 these letters to Cardinal Colonna are in ex- 
 istence. One relates his visit to Paris, where 
 both days and nights were given up to sight- 
 seeing, then recounts his journey through 
 the cities of Flanders, and closes with a le- 
 gend of Aix-la-Chapelle, which he heard 
 on the spot. 
 
 The second letter refers to Cologne, and 
 describes the quaint ceremony witnessed by 
 him, of a throng of damsels bathing their 
 hands and arms in the Rhine, on the eve of 
 St. John's day, to ward off evil from the city. 
 He also refers to the unfinished cathedral of 
 Cologne, to the bones of the eleven thousand 
 virgins, and the relics of the three wise men. 
 He is astonished to find in this barbarous land 
 
62 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 " so much courtesy, so much splendor in 
 the cities, so much dignity in the men, so 
 much grace in the women." The letter 
 closes with an account of his solitary journey 
 on horseback through the forests of the Ar- 
 dennes, dangerous enough at all times, but 
 rendered still more so by the fact that it 
 was a time of war. 1 
 
 Tradition ascribes to this long and lonely 
 ride the composition of the one hundred and 
 forty-third sonnet, in which the poet pictures 
 himself, unmindful of the dangers that sur- 
 round him, lost in dreams of Laura, seeing 
 her form in every tree, hearing her voice in 
 the songs of birds, in the sighing leaves and 
 the murmuring rill. 
 
 Another incident of his journey was the 
 finding at Liege of two works of Cicero 
 hitherto unknown to him. One of these he 
 copied with his own hand, intrusting the 
 other to a friend. He relates that it was 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., i. 3 and 4. 
 
TRA VELS. 63 
 
 only after a long and tedious search through 
 the city that they were able to obtain ink 
 for the purpose, and when found it was 
 as yellow as saffron. 
 
 One important result of Petrarch's jour- 
 ney was a friendship formed with Father 
 Dionigi, an Italian monk who was professor 
 of theology and philosophy at the University 
 of Paris. 
 
 Dionigi became the trusted confidant of 
 Petrarch, if not his confessor ; and to him was 
 laid bare the struggle between love and duty 
 which was poisoning the poet's life. The 
 monk gave him, together with much good 
 advice, a copy of the " Confessions of Saint 
 Augustine," as the best help and counsel he 
 could offer ; and the little book became from 
 that time his constant companion, exerting 
 the greatest influence upon his spiritual 
 development. 
 
 The effect of Petrarch's travels at this 
 time, as well as in later years, was to make 
 
64 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 him more than ever in love with Italy, and 
 more grateful for having been born an Ital- 
 ian. It was with the keenest delight there- 
 fore that he was looking forward to the 
 first sight of Rome, the city of his desires. 
 It had been arranged that upon his return 
 to Avignon he should accompany his pa- 
 tron, the Bishop of Lombes, on a visit to 
 Rome, and Petrarch was hastening home for 
 this purpose with glad anticipations. Bitter 
 was his disappointment when on his arrival 
 at Lyons he learned that the bishop had 
 already set out for Rome, where his imme- 
 diate presence was needed on account of 
 the renewed troubles between the Orsini 
 and Colonna families. 
 
 The letter which Petrarch addressed to the 
 bishop on this occasion shows the degree of 
 intimacy existing between them. It is not 
 the letter of a protfgt to a patron who had 
 disappointed him of a promised favor. Pe- 
 trarch writes as friend to friend, reproach- 
 
TRA VELS. 65 
 
 ing Colonna for his broken promise, de- 
 manding explanations and excuses, mak- 
 ing no effort to conceal his disappointment, 
 surprise, and indignation at such treatment. 
 
 Not until four years later was Petrarch 
 enabled to carry out his long-cherished plan 
 of a visit to Rome. In the mean time his 
 hopes for the future of the beloved city 
 were raised to the highest pitch by the prom- 
 ise of Pope John XXII. to remove the Papal 
 See to Bologna, which would be a long step 
 on the way toward Rome. But scarcely had 
 he expressed his joy at this prospect in a 
 melodious sonnet, when the death of the 
 Pope put an end to his hopes. 
 
 Petrarch showed his loyalty to Rome 
 by addressing to the new pope, Benedict 
 XII., two eloquent Latin epistles, vehe- 
 mently urging him to restore the chair of 
 Saint Peter to its rightful home, and paint- 
 ing in the darkest colors the desolation 
 and widowhood of the bereaved city. Bene- 
 5 
 
66 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 diet seemed at first inclined to carry out 
 the plans of his predecessor, but finding 
 the undertaking too great for his weak will, 
 he abandoned it altogether, and built him- 
 self a magnificent palace at Avignon. The 
 cardinals gladly followed his example ; splen- 
 did palaces sprang up on every hand, and 
 the Papacy seemed permanently transplanted 
 to Avignon, to the wrath and distress of 
 Petrarch. 
 
 Benedict, however, showed his good-will to 
 the poet, whose prayers he could not grant, 
 by bestowing upon him the canonicate of 
 Lombes, the first benefice Petrarch had ever 
 received. He was thus for the. first time in 
 his life in possession of a definite income, 
 which rendered him independent of pat- 
 ronage. 
 
 About the same time the poet had an 
 opportunity of putting to practical use the 
 legal knowledge obtained in his seven years' 
 university course. The Scaligers, lords of 
 
TRA VELS. 67 
 
 Verona, had sent two ambassadors to Avig- 
 non to lay before the Pope their claims to 
 the rulership of Parma, disputed by their 
 rivals, the Rossi. 
 
 The Italian ambassadors soon became ac- 
 quainted with Petrarch, and were so im- 
 pressed by his eloquence that they begged 
 him to undertake the defence of their claim 
 before the Papal consistory. Petrarch won 
 the case, and won at the same time the 
 good-will and protection of the Scaligers, 
 and the lasting friendship of the two 
 ambassadors. 
 
 One of these, Guglielmo da Pastrengo, 
 was a man of great learning, inspired like 
 Petrarch with an intense love for the literature 
 of antiquity, and the confidential relation in 
 which he stood to the poet from this time 
 forward is readily explained. The other am- 
 bassador, Azzo di Correggio, was a man of 
 so opposite a character, a man so devoid 
 of moral perceptions, that it is not so easy 
 
68 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 to understand how he could have won the 
 friendship of Petrarch and preserved it till 
 death. Both of these men were destined 
 to play an important part in the poet's 
 after life. 
 
ROME. 69 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ROME. 
 
 " T^ROM my infancy," says Petrarch, "I 
 A have burned with the desire of seeing 
 Rome." His enthusiasm for Rome amounted 
 to a passion. His reverence for the Eternal 
 City far surpassed that of the Humanist of the 
 Renaissance, as it surpassed that of the Cath- 
 olic of the Middle Ages. 
 
 To the Humanist, Rome was dear as the 
 home of antiquity, to the Catholic the city 
 was sacred as the chosen head of the Holy 
 Church. For centuries before Petrarch, medi- 
 aeval pilgrims had reverently trod the soil of 
 Rome, worshipping her sacred relics. For 
 centuries after him, scholars inspired with the 
 love of antiquity have wandered through the 
 city revelling in its classic associations. In 
 
70 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 Petrarch these characters met. To him alone 
 was it given to be at one and the same time 
 a devout Catholic and the prophet of the 
 Renaissance. Hence to him alone was it 
 given to see Rome with the reverent eyes of 
 a mediaeval pilgrim, and with the prophetic 
 vision of the first Humanist. He saw in her 
 the birthplace of the heroes of antiquity, and 
 the burial place of the Apostles. The Capi- 
 tol was the seat of Jupiter ; it was also the 
 place where Augustus, under the guidance 
 of the sibyl, was permitted to see the infant 
 Christ. 
 
 The soil of Rome was ennobled by the dust 
 of emperors; it was also sanctified by the 
 blood of martyrs. Pagan ruins and Christian 
 relics were equally dear to Petrarch, and were 
 constantly mingled together in his descrip- 
 tions of Rome. " Here," he says, " is the 
 palace of Evander and the cave of Cacus. 
 Here the wicked Tullia drove in her chariot, 
 giving the street the name of infamous. This 
 
ROME. yi 
 
 was the home of Publicola. Here Quintus 
 guided the plough when he was called to 
 the dictatorship. Here is the gulf into which 
 Curtius threw himself. Here the Tarpeian 
 rock. Here Caesar triumphed, and here he 
 was slain. Here is the portico of Pompey, 
 the column of Trajan, the tomb of Hadrian. 
 Here the building of Agrippa, taken from 
 the mother of false deities and given to the 
 mother of the true God. Here Christ ap- 
 peared to his fleeing vicar, and left his foot- 
 prints for the worship of mortals. Here 
 Peter was crucified, Paul beheaded, and 
 Lawrence burned. Here is the kerchief of 
 Veronica, bearing ' the imprint of the Sa- 
 viour's face. Here is the cradle of Christ, 
 the ring of Agnes, the fountain which sprang 
 up where the dying Paul shed his blood, 
 and the spot where, at the birth of Christ, a 
 stream of pure oil flowed into the Tiber. 
 Here, too, are the ruins of proud palaces, 
 the homes of the Fabii, and of the Caesars 
 
72 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 and the Scipios, the seven hills with their 
 circle of walls, the arches of triumph adorned 
 with the spoils of conquered nations and 
 subject monarchs." x 
 
 To these two sources of inspiration, so fan- 
 tastically mingled, Petrarch added the enthu- 
 siasm of the Italian patriot. To him, as to 
 Dante, Rome was still the centre of the uni- 
 verse, destined to become again the mistress 
 of the world. As an Italian he feels himself 
 the direct descendant of the ancient Romans, 
 and his heart swells with pride when he reads, 
 " Great is the fortune, great and terrible the 
 name of the Roman people." 
 
 When Philip di Vitry sent to Cardinal 
 Guido of Bologna a letter of condolence on 
 his being ordered to Italy, Petrarch's indigna- 
 tion knew no bounds. He poured reproaches 
 and invectives on the unhappy Philip, and 
 pitied his weakened intellect. " Instead of 
 calling it banishment to be sent to Italy," 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., vi. 2. 
 
ROME. 73 
 
 he said, " you should rather call exiles those 
 who are not permitted to live in Italy. Rome 
 is eternal, mistress and queen of the world, 
 a city the like of which has never been 
 and never will be, for she is called even by 
 her enemies the * city of kings.' " l 
 
 It is easy then to understand with what joy 
 and eagerness Petrarch embraced the first 
 opportunity of treading this sacred soil, of 
 viewing with his own eyes these inspiring 
 ruins, an opportunity which did not come 
 to him until he was more than thirty years 
 of age. 
 
 The Bishop of Lombes, who had disap- 
 pointed him four years before, was still in 
 Rome ; and it was through his invitation that 
 the poet was finally enabled, in 1337, to make 
 the journey to which he had all his life looked 
 forward. " It is past belief," he says in a let- 
 ter to his patron, written shortly before setting 
 out, " how I long to behold that city, which 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., ix. 13. 
 
74 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 although desolated is still the image of ancient 
 Rome. Seneca seems beside himself with joy 
 when he writes to Lucilius from the villa of 
 Scipio Africanus, and he deems it a grand 
 thing to have seen the place where so great a 
 man lived in exile, and where he left the bones 
 which he refused to his country. If he, a 
 Spaniard, felt thus, what must I, an Italian, 
 feel at the thought of seeing, not merely 
 Linturnum or the tomb of Scipio, but Rome 
 itself, where he was born and grew up, and 
 where he triumphed with equal glory over his 
 enemies and his accusers, and where countless 
 other great men have lived whose fame will 
 never grow less? " l 
 
 Having travelled by sea from Marseilles to 
 Civita Vecchia, Petrarch landed in Italy early 
 in January, 1337. The war between the Or- 
 sini and Colonna families made all roads to 
 Rome unsafe, especially for a known adherent 
 of the Colonnesi. The Orsini were on the alert 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., ii. 9. 
 
ROME. 75 
 
 to avenge the murder of two of their followers 
 by the Colonna faction some time before. 
 Petrarch therefore found it advisable, instead 
 of proceeding directly to Rome, to wait at 
 the castle of Capranica, twenty or thirty 
 miles distant, until he could announce his 
 arrival to the bishop, and receive instructions. 
 His host at Capranica was Count Orso of 
 Anguillara, who had married Agnes Colonna, 
 the sister of Petrarch's two friends and pa- 
 trons. In addition to his many virtues the 
 count was well acquainted with the muses, 
 and was " an elegant admirer and praiser of 
 excellent geniuses," adds Petrarch, naively. 
 
 With so congenial a host, a charming cli- 
 mate, beautiful scenery, and the classic asso- 
 ciations of the neighborhood, Petrarch would 
 have found Capranica delightful but for the 
 one dark shadow which hung over the 
 land : 
 
 " Peace alone is wanting to it, peace, exiled by 
 I know not what crime of the people, what decree 
 
?6 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 of Heaven, what fate, or what malign force of the 
 stars. Every one is in arms. The shepherd, clad 
 in armor, guards his flock from robbers rather than 
 from wolves. The farmer wears a cuirass, and uses 
 a lance to goad his oxen. The fowler covers his 
 nets with a shield, the fisherman hangs his bait from 
 a sword, and it would make you laugh to see them 
 draw water from the well with a rusty helmet tied to 
 a dirty rope. Everything suggests war. I hate the 
 night-cries of the watchman upon the walls, I hate 
 the voices calling to arms on every hand. There 
 is nothing safe, peaceable, or human among the 
 people. Always in war and enmity everything is 
 like the works of devils." 1 
 
 The Bishop of Lombes, when he heard of 
 Petrarch's arrival in Italy, himself set out for 
 Capranica to escort the poet to Rome. He 
 took with him his brother, Stephen Colonna, 
 the younger, and a guard of two hundred 
 horsemen. The Orsini were known to have 
 five hundred horse in the neighborhood, 
 but the terror of the Colonna name was 
 sufficient to counterbalance the difference 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., ii. 12. 
 
ROME. 77 
 
 in numbers, and the journey to Rome was 
 made in safety. 
 
 Petrarch has left little record of his first 
 impressions of Rome. In a letter written to 
 Cardinal John, at Avignon, soon after his 
 arrival, he says : 
 
 " What did you think I would write from Rome, 
 I who have written so much from the mountains ? 
 You perhaps expected me to send you something 
 great when I arrived here, and perhaps I may in 
 the future, for great indeed is the subject ; but here, 
 now, upon my feet, I know not what to say, so 
 great is my wonder and amazement. One thing 
 only will I say, for it has fallen out contrary to your 
 expectations : you used to try to dissuade me from 
 coming, lest the sight of these ruins not correspond- 
 ing to their fame and to the conception I had 
 formed from books, my love for Rome might cool. 
 And I too, though longing to see it, not unwillingly 
 put off coming, for fear lest my eyes and the actual 
 presence, which is always injurious to fame, should 
 lessen the great idea I had formed. But sight has 
 diminished nothing; it has marvellously increased 
 everything, and Rome and her ruins are far greater 
 than I had imagined them. I no longer wonder 
 
78 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 that this city conquered the world, but that she was 
 so long in doing it." 1 
 
 In his walks in Rome Petrarch often had 
 for a companion the aged Stephen Colonna, 
 who for many years had been not only the 
 head of the powerful Colonna family, but the 
 first citizen of Rome. The grand old Roman 
 loved to treat Petrarch as a son, and at one 
 time even allowed him to mediate between 
 himself and his son James, and to effect a 
 reconciliation after a bitter quarrel. 
 
 Another old man who frequently accom- 
 panied the poet was Stephen's brother, a man 
 of great cultivation, who had travelled through 
 Egypt, Persia, and Arabia, and who was able 
 to give the ardent enthusiast much valuable in- 
 formation as they wandered in and out among 
 the ruins of Rome, or rested on the roof of 
 Diocletian's Baths, to enjoy the prospect. 
 
 The beginning of the Renaissance, or the 
 rebirth of antiquity, dates from these walks of 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., ii. 14. 
 
ROME. 79 
 
 Petrarch in Rome. He was the first to see 
 the value of these ruined temples, monu- 
 ments, and palaces as historic material, as 
 the foundation upon which a bygone civili- 
 zation might be reconstructed. Nothing so 
 impressed him as the shameless indifference 
 of the people of Rome to her former great- 
 ness. " Who," he asks, " is so ignorant of 
 Rome as the Romans? Nowhere is Rome 
 less known than in Rome itself. Who can 
 doubt that Rome would instantly rise again 
 if she but began to know herself ? " l 
 
 So indifferent were the people of Rome to 
 classic associations that the nobles them- 
 selves were not ashamed to carry on a dis- 
 graceful traffic in their ruined monuments 
 and palaces, defacing them still further to sell 
 marbles to the Neapolitans. 
 
 From this time Petrarch made it one of the 
 objects of his life to prevent further despolia- 
 tion of this kind, and to awaken in the Roman 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., vi. 2. 
 
80 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 nobility a proper reverence for the ruins of 
 Rome as the witnesses of her glorious past. 
 The impulse given by him to the preserva- 
 tion and understanding of these ruins led to 
 the study of the antiquities of Rome as a 
 science, which was a necessary preparation 
 for the revival of the classical taste in art. 
 It was not until sixty years later that the 
 two young Florentine artists, Brunelleschi 
 and Donatello, began the exploration of 
 Rome which heralded the Renaissance in 
 sculpture and architecture. 
 
VAUCLUSE. 8 1 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 VAUCLUSE. 
 
 A FTER wandering for months amid the 
 ^ * ruins of Rome, breathing to the full 
 the congenial atmosphere of antiquity, Pe- 
 trarch found life in Avignon, " that most 
 wearisome of cities," more intolerable than 
 ever. The bustle and confusion of its 
 crowded streets, the political intrigues of the 
 Papal court, the petty interests of society, 
 filled him with hatred and weariness, and he 
 sought refuge in solitude. 
 
 To withdraw from the world, however, he 
 did not think it necessary to enter a monk's 
 cell, as did his brother Gerardo, and to spend 
 the time in prayer and fasting. His ideal of 
 solitude was to be alone with Nature and 
 with his books. 
 
 6 
 
82 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 For such a retreat no more fitting spot 
 could be imagined than Vaucluse. " Only 
 fifteen miles from Avignon," says Petrarch, 
 " and yet so different from that noisy city, 
 that every time I come here from thence 
 I feel as if I had made a journey from 
 the farthest east to the most distant west. 
 Except the sky above, everything is different, 
 the aspect of the people, the waters, the 
 landscape." 
 
 Vaucluse is, as its name implies, an en- 
 closed valley, shut off from the rest of the 
 world by the great gray cliffs which surround 
 it, some of them rising to a height of six or 
 eight hundred feet. The river Sorgue with 
 its crystalline waters winds in and out " like 
 transparent emerald." At the head of the 
 valley is the mountain from which the famous 
 fountain of Vaucluse, the source of the Sorgue, 
 flows out of the grotto so often described by 
 Petrarch. The " grotto " is a great cavern 
 sixty feet high, cleft in the rocks as if by an 
 
VAUCLUSE. S3 
 
 earthquake. Within it is the basin which 
 forms the source of the river, an immense 
 pool or lakelet of the clearest, bluest, stillest 
 water, whose depths have never been sounded. 
 The dark blue water on account of its depth 
 seems almost black, and its smooth surface, 
 which reflects like a mirror the rocks and 
 stray bits of green that surround it, is abso- 
 lutely unruffled. Great, however, is the con- 
 trast when it slips over the brink and dashes 
 away in a noisy cataract over the rocks and 
 bowlders below. Petrarch's descriptions do 
 not prepare one for the grandeur of the place, 
 and the feeling of loneliness and solemnity 
 which it inspires. 
 
 This was the spot which the poet selected 
 for a retreat, and which, with various in- 
 terruptions, he made his home for more than 
 sixteen years. 
 
 That a young man of thirty-three, gifted, 
 popular, and successful, should voluntarily 
 exile himself to a country life, was a wide 
 
84 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 departure from the city-loving tastes of his 
 contemporaries. But Petrarch's love for 
 Nature was something exceptional, and is 
 another of the many traits which serve to 
 emphasize his rupture with the Middle Ages, 
 and his heralding of the new era. 
 
 Dante has, it is true, given us wonderful 
 bits of description, but he uses them as 
 similes or comparisons, as accessories to the 
 expression of some other thought ; but with 
 Petrarch 
 
 " Beauty is its own excuse for being." 
 
 A charming scene, a striking phenomenon 
 of Nature is worthy of being described for 
 its own sake, and not merely as an illustration 
 of some great truth. 
 
 The simple, idyllic life led by the poet in 
 this secluded valley is frequently described 
 in his letters : 
 
 " Where, outside of Italy, can you find a more 
 tranquil dwelling than this? . . . From morning 
 
VAUCLUSE. %S 
 
 till evening you may see me wandering alone over 
 the hills, through the meadows, the streams, and the 
 forests, cultivating the soil, avoiding contact with 
 men, following the birds, resting in the shade, en- 
 joying the mossy caves and the green plains, de- 
 testing the deceits of the court, avoiding the noise 
 of the city, keeping far from the thresholds of the 
 proud, despising the cares of the vulgar ; neither 
 too sad nor too gay, absorbed day and night in the 
 sweetest peace, with the company of the muses, the 
 songs of birds, the murmur of the proud and glo- 
 rious waters. Poor in servants, rich in books ; now 
 hesitating whether to walk or stay at home, now 
 listening to the music of the fountain, now stretched 
 at length upon some grassy bank, and (not the least 
 cause of my content) no one to come, at least not 
 often, to pour his sorrows into my ear." 1 
 
 " This lovely region," he says again, " is as well 
 adapted as possible to my studies and labors, so 
 long as iron necessity compels me to live outside 
 of Italy. Morning and evening the hills throw 
 welcome shadows ; in the valleys are sun-warmed 
 gaps, while far and wide stretches a lovely land- 
 scape in which the tracks of animals are seen 
 oftener than those of men. Deep and undisturbed 
 silence reigns everywhere, only broken now and 
 1 Ep Fara., vi. 3. 
 
86 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 then by the murmur of the falling waters, the low- 
 ing of cattle, and the songs of birds." * 
 
 ik Would you know what I do here ? I live. Do 
 you expect me to finish the verse, ' and draw out 
 my life in the midst of sorrow ' ? No, no. On the 
 contrary, I am alive and content, and care not at all 
 for many of the things for which men strive. Here 
 is a picture of my everyday life : I rise from my 
 bed at midnight, and at break of day I go forth; 
 but in the fields I study, think, read, and write as 
 if in the house. So far as possible I drive sleep from 
 my eyes, weakness from my body, sinful thoughts 
 from my soul, and laziness from my actions- Over 
 the steep mountains, through the flowery valleys 
 and mossy caves, I wander all day long, measuring 
 both banks of the Sorgue, seen by no living person, 
 with only my thoughts for company." ' 2 
 
 " My tongue is growing sluggish. It is often 
 silent from morning to night because I have no 
 one but myself with whom to converse. I have 
 disciplined my throat and stomach until I am 
 satisfied with the black bread of the peasants, and 
 neglect the white which they bring me. ... My 
 delicacies are grapes, figs, nuts, and dates. I enjoy 
 the little fish in which these streams abound, and 
 frequently employ myself in catching them. 
 1 Ep. Var., 42. 3 Ep. Fam., xv. 3. 
 
VAUCLUSE. 87 
 
 " My attire is entirely changed. Formerly I had 
 a singular vanity in distinguishing myself and being 
 pointed out for my elegant and fashionable cloth- 
 ing. If you could see me now, you would take 
 me for a shepherd; not that I lack clothes, but 
 because I no longer care for that which once 
 pleased me. My house might have belonged to 
 Cato or Fabricius, and I live here with no compan- 
 ion but my dog, and two servants. My steward 
 lives close by within call, but in a separate house 
 that he may not disturb me. I have made myself 
 two little gardens so adapted to my tastes and en- 
 joyment that I cannot describe them. I believe 
 there is nothing like them in the world, and I only 
 regret that anything so beautiful should be found 
 outside of Italy. One, which I call my transalpine 
 Helicon, is directly under the source of the Sorgue. 
 It is surrounded by dense shade, is well fitted for 
 study, and is sacred to Apollo. Back of it are 
 steep, naked rocks, inaccessible except to animals 
 and birds. The other, sacred to Bacchus, is near 
 the house, and is marvellously situated in the mid- 
 dle of the swift and limpid river. Near by, and 
 reached by a little bridge, is a stone grotto, whose 
 cool shadows protect me from the summer heat. 
 It is a charming place to study, and resembles per- 
 haps the little cave where Cicero was wont to de- 
 
88 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 claim. Here I pass the midday hours. In the 
 morning I wander over the hills, in the evening 
 through the meadows, or in that other more rocky 
 garden near the fountain, which Nature has made 
 more beautiful than could the art of man. This 
 little spot under the rocks, in the midst of the 
 waters, is more suited than any other to inspire 
 profound thoughts by which the most idle minds 
 may feel themselves lifted to lofty contemplation. 
 I could pass my whole life here, were it not so far 
 from Italy, so near to Avignon." 1 
 
 " How often has night found me still wandering 
 in the fields ! How often have I risen in the silence 
 of a summer night to offer up my prayers and mid- 
 night orisons to Christ, and then to steal forth alone, 
 without disturbing the servants, to wander by the 
 light of the moon over the fields and mountains ! 
 How often at the same hour have I gone, without 
 any companion, with mingled feelings of terror and 
 delight, into that terrible cavern of the Sorgue, where 
 even in daylight, and with company, one cannot 
 enter without awe ! Do you ask me how I came to 
 be so bold ? I have never been afraid of shadows. 
 No wolves are ever seen in this valley, and there is 
 no one of whom I need to be afraid." 2 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., xiii. 8. 
 a Let Sen., x 3. 
 
VAUCLUSE. 89 
 
 Petrarch mentions repeatedly the absence 
 of all sights and sounds save those of Nature. 
 The harmony of lutes and strings and of 
 songs he must do without. His eyes no 
 longer rest upon gold and gems, upon fine 
 horses or beautiful women. The only woman's 
 face that he looks upon is that of the old 
 steward's wife, which resembles a desert of 
 Lybia or Ethiopia, dry and withered and 
 parched by the sun: "If Helen had pos- 
 sessed such a face, Troy would still be 
 standing. Had Lucretia or Virginia resem- 
 bled her, Tarquin would not have been ex- 
 pelled from the throne, nor Appius have 
 ended his days in a dungeon." 
 
 The poet does justice however to the 
 beauty of her character : 
 
 u Her soul is as white as her face is black. There 
 is not a woman in the world more faithful, more un- 
 assuming, more industrious than she. In summer, 
 when the grasshopper can scarcely endure the heat 
 of the sun, she passes whole days in the open fields. 
 At night she returns, as fresh as a young girl, and 
 
go LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 without a groan or a murmur, looks after the needs 
 of her family and myself with incredible zeal. This 
 woman of iron throws a little straw on the ground 
 for a bed. Her food is coarse bread, black as iron, 
 her drink vinegar and water, which goes by the name 
 of wine; . . . yet she never appears weary or 
 afflicted, never shows any desire for a more easy 
 life, nor was she ever heard to complain of the 
 cruelty of fate and of mankind." * 
 
 Her husband, the old steward, receives 
 equal praise : 
 
 "To call him faithful would be to do him in- 
 justice, he was fidelity itself. He cultivated for me 
 a few acres of indifferent land. I intrusted to his 
 care everything I had, especially my books ; and 
 of the many volumes of all sizes that I possessed, I 
 never, after long absence, found one missing or out 
 of place. Unlearned, he loved books. Those 
 which he knew to be dear to me, he guarded with 
 jealous care. By long practice he had learned 
 to distinguish the ancient manuscripts and those 
 which I had written. When I gave a volume into 
 his custody he was delighted ; he pressed it to his 
 bosom with sighs, and repeated in a low tone the 
 author's name. He seemed to feel as if the mere 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., xiii. 8. 
 
VAUCLUSE. 91 
 
 sight and touch of a book imparted learning and 
 happiness." 1 
 
 Petrarch's life in the valley was for the 
 most part a solitary one ; for with the ignorant 
 peasants of the village, fishermen, farmers, 
 and vinedressers, he could have nothing in 
 common. His solitude, however, was fre- 
 quently broken by visits of friends from 
 Avignon. He also exchanged visits with the 
 Bishop of Cavaillon, a prelate who lived 
 within two or three miles of Vaucluse, and 
 whose society was so congenial to the poet 
 that the two often wandered all day long 
 in the woods or among the rocks, unmindful 
 of the dinner hour, or sat the whole night 
 through, reading and discussing what they 
 read, without a thought of sleep, until dawn 
 surprised them. To this friend the poet 
 dedicated his work " On a Solitary Life," 
 written at Vaucluse. 
 
 Petrarch speaks of " spinning out his leis- 
 
 1 Ep. Fara., xvi. 1. 
 
92 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 ure " in this retreat, but the years spent here 
 were the most industrious of his life as well as 
 the most productive. Besides the book " On 
 a Solitary Life," he wrote here a work " On 
 the Leisure of a Monastic Life," the lives of 
 the illustrious men of the past, the most of 
 his Latin eclogues, and hundreds of those 
 long Latin letters for which he is famous. 
 " The aspect of the place," he says, " sug- 
 gested a bucolic poem and a pastoral." The 
 Latin epic of "Africa," which he then hoped 
 would make him immortal, was also begun at 
 Vaucluse. " In fact," he says in the " Letter 
 to Posterity," " nearly every work that I have 
 published, was either finished, or begun, or 
 conceived there." 
 
 Sixteen hours a day were given to study 
 and writing. Six hours were allowed for 
 sleep and two for meals, although he often 
 read at mealtime. Exercise did not disturb 
 his labors, as he could compose equally well 
 on horseback or while walking. Nor were 
 
VAUCLUSE. 93 
 
 the six hours allotted to sleep always care- 
 fully kept. 
 
 A friend who visited him feared he was 
 working too hard, and begged the poet to 
 grant him a favor. Petrarch unwittingly 
 promised, and the friend asked for the key of 
 his study. Having locked therein all the 
 books and writing material in the house, he 
 departed with the key in his pocket, declaring 
 that Petrarch should have a ten day's vaca- 
 tion, during which time he should neither read 
 nor write a word. 
 
 The first day Petrarch declared to be the 
 longest of his life. He could scarcely get 
 through with it. On the second day he arose 
 with a headache, which grew constantly worse, 
 and on the third day he was in a raging fever. 
 His friend returning unexpectedly found his 
 condition so serious that he restored the key, 
 acknowledging that his judgment had been at 
 fault in prescribing rest to a man like Petrarch. 
 
 In his little garden at the source of the 
 
94 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 Sorgue, sheltered by the overhanging rocks, 
 and soothed by the murmur of the waters, 
 the poet could write better than in any other 
 spot in the world. Here were written the 
 greater number of those incomparable son- 
 nets in which the beauties of Nature and the 
 beauties of Laura are so exquisitely mingled. 
 He had hoped to find in solitude a remedy 
 for his unhappy passion. He says : 
 
 " I retired here, and shut myself up as if in 
 a fortified castle, hoping to find restoration from 
 that burning fever with which I have battled for 
 so many years, even from my youth. But, alas ! it 
 was a rash step. The remedy itself became fatal. 
 Inflamed by the troubles which I carried with me, 
 and deprived in that solitude of all succor, the fire 
 in my heart increased grievously, and breaking forth, 
 made the valleys and the heavens echo with my 
 cries of misery, which in the ears of many seemed 
 not devoid of sweetness. Hence came those poems 
 in the vulgar tongue concerning my youthful errors, 
 of which now I am ashamed, and which I repent, 
 but in which those who suffer with the same malady 
 take delight, as you see." * 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., viii. 3, and note to 5 in Fraticelli. 
 
VAUCLUSE. 95 
 
 Petrarch's innocent vanity is betrayed in 
 the complacent reference to the fact that 
 Vaucluse is more famous through his verses 
 than through its own beauties. He might 
 therefore feel no repugnance at the thought 
 that the village still makes his memory its 
 chief stock in trade, and that the little inn 
 where the modern tourist is entertained is 
 called the " Hotel de Laura." But the shade 
 of the poet, I fancy, must be disturbed by 
 the noisy millwheels which now utilize the 
 wonderful waters of the Sorgue; and his 
 good taste would certainly be offended by 
 the still worse desecration of the obsequious 
 guide, who meets you as you enter the 
 ravine, offering you a brush dipped in tar 
 wherewith to inscribe your name upon those 
 rocks which so long sheltered him from the 
 world. 
 
 The years spent in the valley were not 
 only the most fertile, they were also the hap- 
 piest of the poet's life, " That part of my 
 
96 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 life that I have passed at Vaucluse," he said 
 in his old age, " I have passed in such tran- 
 quillity, in such sweetness, that, since I know 
 what human life is, I consider it as almost the 
 only time in which I have lived, and all the 
 rest as a punishment." 
 
THE CORONATION. 97 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE CORONATION. 
 
 r I ^HREE years had passed in this ideal her- 
 mitage before any event occurred to 
 disturb the tranquillity of the poet's life. 
 
 On the 31st of August in 1340, as he was 
 taking his customary morning ramble over 
 the hills, he received a letter from the Roman 
 Senate, inviting him to come to Rome to re- 
 ceive at their hands a public coronation as 
 poet laureate. In the afternoon of the same 
 day, while walking along the banks of the 
 Sorgue, he was met by another messenger, 
 who brought a letter from the chancellor of 
 the University of Paris, proffering him the 
 same honor in that city. This would indeed 
 seem a marvellous coincidence were we not 
 obliged to confess that for many months 
 7 
 
98 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 Petrarch had been planning, working, and 
 almost intriguing in both quarters to obtain 
 this honor. 
 
 It is difficult to comprehend the importance 
 which Petrarch attached to the laurel, the 
 eagerness and intense longing with which he 
 pursued so apparently unimportant an object. 
 To him it was not an empty ceremony, nor 
 was it merely the recognition by his contem- 
 poraries of his pre-eminence. His reverence 
 for antiquity invested the laurel crown with a 
 peculiar charm in his eyes. He believed that 
 to receive a public coronation at the hands of 
 the Roman Senate would be to write his name 
 on a line with the names of Virgil, of Horace, 
 and of Statius, all of whom, according to 
 tradition, had received like honors. The 
 bestowal of a crown of olive or laurel upon 
 successful poets and orators was a feature of 
 the Capitoline games introduced by Domi- 
 tian, in imitation of the Greek festivals. The 
 custom died with the Empire, but some dim 
 
THE CORONATION. 99 
 
 memory of it must have survived through the 
 Middle Ages, for already in the early part of 
 the fourteenth century, poets had begun to 
 dream of it. Even Dante, while viewing the 
 splendors of Paradise, had longed, for such a 
 tribute from ungrateful Florence. One or two 
 of the smaller Italian cities and universities 
 had bestowed the laurel upon some unimpor- 
 tant poet; but in Rome, upon the Capitol, 
 the ceremony had not been observed for 
 many centuries. 
 
 The desire for a revival of this honor in 
 himself amounted almost to a mania with 
 Petrarch. The passion for glory is one 
 of the most striking characteristics of this 
 contradictory nature. He loved solitude, but 
 wished that the world which he despised 
 should applaud him, and that the echo of that 
 applause should penetrate to his retreat. 
 He confesses that the desire for the laurel 
 cost him many piteous sighs and long vigils. 
 Its value was enhanced by the fact that its 
 
IOO LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 name (laurd) was identical with that of his 
 loved one, which made it an emblem of 
 love as well as a symbol of fame. To ob- 
 tain this distinction he was willing to use 
 any means in his power, even resorting to 
 methods which we could wish he had left 
 untried, not that his efforts were ever dis- 
 honorable, but they were sometimes undig- 
 nified and unworthy of a great mind. 
 
 Next to Rome the city most worthy to con- 
 fer this honor was Paris, then the centre of 
 learning in Western Europe. Should his 
 efforts in Rome prove unavailing, Petrarch 
 would content himself with the laurel of 
 Paris. He had there a warm friend and an 
 advocate of his cause in Roberto de* Bardi, a 
 Florentine, who, as chancellor of the Univer- 
 sity of Paris, had great influence. In Rome 
 the powerful friendship and patronage of the 
 Colonna family-did much to further Petrarch's 
 interests. His strongest ally however was 
 Robert, King of Naples, whom he had never 
 
THE CORONATION. 1 01 
 
 seen, but whose favor and friendship he had 
 won by correspondence. 
 
 King Robert loved to pose as the patron 
 of letters. His attention had been called 
 to Petrarch by the poet's friend and con- 
 fessor, Father Dionigi, who held some office 
 at Naples. 
 
 The king, having composed an epitaph 
 upon the death of his favorite niece, sent it 
 to Petrarch, asking his opinion. The poet, 
 who well understood the arts of a courtier, 
 was not slow to take advantage of such an 
 opening. With all due allowance for the 
 hyperbolical language in use in those days, 
 one can but wonder if so intelligent a 
 monarch as Robert could take seriously the 
 fulsome praise which Petrarch lavished upon 
 his epitaph. He says : 
 
 "The splendor of an unaccustomed light has 
 dazzled my eyes. Blessed the pen which can write 
 such things ! I know not which most to admire, the 
 wonderful conciseness, the sublimity of the ideas, 
 
102 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 or the divine elegance of the style. I would not 
 have believed, illustrious King, that anything so 
 great could be written in so few words, or that I 
 could expect from human genius anything so per- 
 fect. . . . Your niece seems to me worthy of envy 
 rather than compassion, not only because she has 
 entered upon the delights of the life blessed, but be- 
 cause her memory will be rendered famous through 
 all ages by your noble eulogy. Thrice happy the 
 woman who in exchange for a temporal life, brief, 
 uncertain, and sorrowful, has obtained a double 
 eternity, one from the Celestial King, the other from 
 an earthly king, one from God, the other from 
 Robert. Her name will live as long as this epitaph 
 lives, which I believe will be forever." 1 
 
 Fortunately, the proof of Petrarch's genu- 
 ine esteem for King Robert does not rest 
 upon the extravagant phrases of this letter. 
 In many other places in his writings he has 
 given him the warmest praise as the " King 
 of Philosophers." 
 
 Dante has spoken disparagingly of this 
 monarch ; but naturally as the leader of the 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., iv. 3. 
 
THE CORONATION. 103 
 
 Guelf party he could not be otherwise than 
 obnoxious to the great Ghibelline poet. His 
 relation to Petrarch shows that he must have 
 had some nobility of soul and appreciation 
 of genius. 
 
 Robert would gladly have bestowed the 
 poetic crown at Naples, but knowing the 
 poet's preference for Rome, he used his in- 
 fluence to obtain it for him there. The re- 
 sult of these efforts was the two invitations 
 which reached Petrarch on the same day 
 " from the two most conspicuous cities, the 
 one queen of the world, the other the most 
 learned city of the day." u Elated with 
 pride," he says, " at these proposals, as was 
 natural with a young man, and judging my- 
 self worthy of the honor, inasmuch as men 
 of such eminence had thought so, yet weigh- 
 ing not my own merit, but the testimony of 
 others, I hesitated for a while as to which of 
 these invitations to accept." * 
 
 1 Letter to Posterity. 
 
104 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 In this dilemma the poet sent the letters 
 to Cardinal John Colonna, at Avignon, and re- 
 ceived the next day a reply in harmony with 
 his own inclinations, advising him to prefer 
 Rome. 
 
 The invitations were received in September, 
 but the coronation was not to take place 
 until the following April. In February, Pe- 
 trarch embarked at Marseilles for Naples, 
 wishing first to pay his respects to his royal 
 patron, and to receive from him assurance of 
 his fitness for the poetic crown. " For al- 
 though, as is the way with young men, I 
 was a very partial judge of my own produc- 
 tions, still I scrupled to follow the testimony 
 given by myself or of those by whom I was 
 invited, though doubtless they would not 
 have invited me had they not judged me 
 worthy of the honor thus offered. " 1 
 
 The aged king received him graciously, 
 feeling flattered by his confidence, and con- 
 1 Letter to Posterity. 
 
THE CORONATION. 105 
 
 sented to the formality of a three days' public 
 examination in all branches of learning, by 
 which the poet should prove his right to 
 the laurel. " For three whole days, I shook 
 off my ignorance," says Petrarch, " and on 
 the third day he adjudged me worthy of 
 the laurel crown. At that time the judg- 
 ment of the king agreed with my own, 
 although now I differ from the estimate 
 formed of me by him, as well as by myself 
 and others. He was swayed more by love 
 for me than by regard for the truth." 1 
 
 The king not only sent letters to the 
 Roman Senate expressing his judgment in 
 the most flattering terms, but as an addi- 
 tional mark of honor he placed upon the 
 poet's shoulders his own royal mantle, that 
 he might have a suitable garment for the 
 ceremony. He appointed Petrarch court 
 chaplain, and having heard a portion of the 
 Latin poem of " Africa," begged that it might 
 1 Letter to Posterity. 
 
106 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 be dedicated to him. He would gladly have 
 accompanied the poet to Rome, but, pre- 
 vented by the infirmities of age, sent one 
 of his noblemen to take part in the cere- 
 mony as his representative. 
 
 Petrarch arrived in Rome on the 6th of 
 April, 1 341. The nobleman who had been 
 appointed to represent King Robert had 
 separated from him on the way, promising 
 to meet him in Rome, but falling into the 
 hands of robbers was unable to reach the 
 city in time for the ceremony. 
 
 The duty of crowning the poet devolved 
 upon Count Orso of Anguillara, one of the 
 Senators of Rome. Count Orso was that 
 " elegant admirer and praiser of excellent 
 geniuses " who had been Petrarch's host at 
 Capranica. It was for him a pleasant duty to 
 place the crown upon the head of his friend, 
 the known protigd of the Colonna family. 
 
 The coronation took place on Easter Sun- 
 day. Twelve youths of noble families, clad 
 
THE CORONATION. 107 
 
 in scarlet, preceded the poet, reciting verses 
 composed by him in praise of Rome. He 
 was followed by six nobles dressed in green, 
 wearing garlands on their heads. Then came 
 the Senators with the laurel crown. " The 
 Romans streamed quickly together," says 
 Petrarch, " and the Capitol resounded with 
 the confusion of glad voices ; even the walls 
 and the gray old roof seemed to rejoice. 
 The trumpet sounded, the people crowded 
 in eagerly, and, if I am not mistaken, I saw 
 tears of joyful excitement on the cheeks of 
 my friends. I ascended the steps ; the trum- 
 pets became silent, and the murmur of voices 
 ceased at once." 
 
 The poet stood up in his royal robe, and 
 cried, " Long live Rome ! long live her Sena- 
 tors, and may God preserve her freedom ! " 
 Then he knelt before the Senator, who took 
 the crown from his own head and placed it 
 upon the poet's with the words, "I crown 
 virtue before all." 
 
108 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 Petrarch delivered an oration in Latin, and 
 Count Orso responded amid the shouts of 
 the people. The aged Stephen Colonna then 
 pronounced a eulogy upon the poet. " My 
 heart beat fast," says Petrarch, " and blushes 
 covered my face, for such high honors bur- 
 dened my unworthy breast." The theme of 
 Petrarch's oration was a line from Virgil, 
 1 Love draws me through the steep deserts 
 of Parnassus," * and he aimed to show that 
 the true poet must be inspired by love for his 
 art. There are three grounds, he says, which 
 might have deterred him from the pursuit of 
 the poetic art: First, the fact that poetry is 
 much more difficult than any of the other 
 arts, since for them industry and study are 
 sufficient while for that a special divine gift is 
 necessary. Secondly, although once, in the 
 Augustan age, poets were honored, the office 
 is now not esteemed. Thirdly, the exercise 
 of the poetic art had been especially difficult 
 
 1 Georgics, iii. 291. 
 
THE CORONATION. 109 
 
 for him because he had been disturbed by 
 material needs. The poet should be free 
 from the petty cares of life. Over against 
 these three hindrances to poetry were placed 
 the three motives which had outweighed 
 them, and held him fast to that art. These 
 were: First, his interest in the honor of his 
 country. Second, his steadfast desire for his 
 own fame. Third, the wish to spur others 
 to activity. He wished to honor his country 
 because it was worthy of all honor, and he 
 was glad to revive in himself the custom 
 which had been extinct for thirteen centu- 
 ries, and especially glad that it should take 
 place in Rome. He believed that he had 
 honored his country in preferring Rome to 
 Paris. The desire for fame was so common 
 that he was not ashamed to confess that 
 he possessed it, and he hoped, by his 
 efforts for ; t, to urge others in the same 
 direction. 
 
 Petrarch then passed to the poet's task, 
 
HO LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 which was, to cover historical, physical, or 
 moral truths with a veil of fiction, so that 
 between the poet and the historian the same 
 difference would exist as between the clear 
 sky and the cloud. The sunlight would be 
 the same, but it would appear differently to 
 the eye of the spectator. The harder it is to 
 find the concealed truth, the sweeter the 
 poem. Poets deserve great credit for pre- 
 serving the names of brave men from neglect. 
 Many great men have honored poets in order 
 to obtain undying fame ; and those who have 
 despised singers, or have been deprived of 
 them, have fallen into the dark night of 
 oblivion. 
 
 Petrarch concluded his speech by enumer- 
 ating the qualities which make the laurel the 
 appropriate emblem for a poet. The fra- 
 grance of the laurel is a symbol of fame. Its 
 leaves preserve books and other objects from 
 destruction, as do the songs of poets. If one 
 sleeps under a laurel-tree, his dreams will 
 
THE CORONATION. Ill 
 
 become realities. It is evergreen, and is a 
 symbol of the immortality of fame. It is 
 sacred to Apollo, the god of poetry. The 
 laurel-tree cannot be struck by lightning. 
 This also is a symbol of immortality. 
 
 Petrarch received from the Senate a di- 
 ploma, bestowing upon him the citizenship 
 of Rome, with the perpetual privilege of 
 wearing a crown of laurel and a poetic garb, 
 and with the authority, " in this most holy 
 city or elsewhere, to read, discuss, teach, and 
 interpret the writings of the ancients, and to 
 compose new books of his own, to last, 
 please God, through all ages." 
 
 The diploma also explained the motives of 
 the coronation, praised the lofty mission of 
 the poetic art, and lamented its decline. 
 " The very meaning of the word poet is 
 almost unknown," it said, " many believing 
 the office of the poet is only to invent false- 
 hoods and lies." 
 
 In the evening a banquet in honor of the 
 
112 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 poet laureate was held in the palace of 
 Stephen Colonna, and thus ended the proud- 
 est day of Petrarch's life. 
 
 In later years he confessed that these 
 honors were received prematurely, and that 
 they brought him no real advantage. " That 
 laurel was obtained when I was young and 
 inexperienced," he said in one of his last 
 letters to Boccaccio. "Its leaves have been 
 bitter to me; and with more knowledge of 
 the world, I should not have desired it. I 
 gathered from that wreath no fruit of wisdom 
 or eloquence, but the keenest envy, which 
 robbed me of repose, and made me pay 
 dearly for my fame and youthful ambition." 1 
 
 That Petrarch at the age of thirty-seven, 
 when but few of his writings were published, 
 should have obtained the recognition which 
 Dante died without receiving, illustrates the 
 injustice of the world. But Petrarch's crown 
 was given rather to the scholar than the 
 
 1 Let. Sen., xvii. 2. 
 
THE CORONATION. 113 
 
 poet; and as the apostle of the new gospel 
 of culture, he deserved all the gratitude 
 which his countrymen bestowed upon him. 
 
 Much as we may smile at the factitious 
 value placed by him upon the laurel, much 
 as we may regret the means used to obtain 
 it, we must nevertheless regard the corona- 
 tion as an important event, one in which the 
 classic, the mediaeval, and the modern world 
 met together. Those who love to fix precise 
 dates for every step in the world's history, 
 mark the opening of the Renaissance with 
 the coronation of Petrarch on the Capitol 
 at Rome. 
 
 8 
 
114 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PETRARCH'S POPULARITY. 
 
 A FTER his coronation Petrarch occupied 
 "* a position unique in the history of the 
 
 world. No other author, however great his 
 genius, ever attained during his lifetime so 
 exalted a position, or received from his con- 
 temporaries such universal homage and es- 
 teem. The reign of Voltaire at Ferney at 
 once rises to the mind, and every biographer 
 of Petrarch during the last century has made 
 the same comparison, thus illustrating that 
 depravity of our predecessors so deplored by 
 De Quincey, which led them to steal our best 
 thoughts before we came upon the stage. 
 But Voltaire's kingship began only in his 
 old age, after a life of struggle and contention, 
 while Petrarch, before he had reached the age 
 of forty, was the acknowledged king of letters, 
 
PETRARCH'S POPULARITY. 115 
 
 with popes and kings, princes and prelates, vy- 
 ing to do him honor. His solitude was con- 
 stantly broken in upon by visitors from all 
 parts of the world. It became quite the fash- 
 ion for strangers in Avignon to make a pilgrim- 
 age to Vaucluse to visit its celebrated poet, 
 and magnificent presents were often sent in 
 advance to bespeak a welcome. Princes soli- 
 cited a visit from him as an honor, and in tak- 
 ing up his abode with any of them he could 
 dictate his own terms. Nor were his admir- 
 ers from the higher ranks alone. A blind 
 old scholar from Pontremoli became so infat- 
 uated with Petrarch's writings that he longed 
 for the sound of his voice. Hearing of his 
 presence in Naples, he made the journey 
 there on foot, leaning on the arm of his son, 
 only to find on his arrival that Petrarch had set 
 out for Rome. King Robert, informed of the 
 old man's disappointment, summoned him to 
 his presence. " If you wish to see Petrarch 
 in Italy," he said, " you must hasten to Rome, 
 
Il6 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 else you may have to follow him to France." 
 " I shall find him," replied the blind man, " if 
 I have to follow him to India." 
 
 Pleased at this enthusiasm for his protigi 
 Robert gave him money to travel to Rome 
 in a more expeditious manner. Again he ar- 
 rived too late ; the object of his search had 
 already departed from the Holy City. Un- 
 able to find any trace of him, the disappointed 
 pilgrim returned to Pontremoli ; but in the 
 following winter, hearing that Petrarch was 
 dwelling in Parma, he set out again to cross 
 the Apennines. This time he was successful, 
 and overcome with joy, he showered kisses 
 upon the brow and hand which had produced 
 and penned so many inspiring thoughts. 1 
 
 A goldsmith of Bergamo filled every corner 
 of his house with portraits and statues of Pe- 
 trarch, copied ever scrap of his writings that he 
 could obtain, and begged the poet to make him 
 happy for a day, and famous through all the 
 
 1 Let. Sen., xvi. 7. 
 
PETRARCH'S POPULARITY. WJ 
 
 ages, by passing at least one night under his 
 roof. Petrarch consented, and was received at 
 the gate of the city by the podesta, the captain 
 of the people, and by the magistrates, who in- 
 vited him to lodge in the public palace or at 
 some one of their homes. He remained true 
 however to his goldsmith, and was honored 
 with a banquet which befitted a crowned king 
 rather than a poet or a philosopher. He was 
 shown to a room decorated with gold, with a 
 bed hung with royal purple, in which no one 
 had ever slept, and in which the host vowed 
 no other should ever lie. 
 
 Fame had also its inconveniences as well as 
 its honors. Not only were his labors dis- 
 turbed by visitors, but he was overwhelmed 
 with letters, chiefly from poets desiring his 
 opinion of their efforts. " There is not a 
 country in the world," he says, " from which 
 letters, songs, and poems do not rain down 
 upon me every day. They come from 
 France, from Greece, from Sicily, from Eng- 
 
Il8 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 land, from all points of the universe, a perfect 
 torrent of letters which threatens to submerge 
 me. I have no time to breathe. If I tried 
 to reply to all these I should be the busiest 
 of mortals. If I criticise a little, they call me 
 an envious censor ; if I praise, they accuse me 
 of flattery ; and if I do not reply at all, of 
 pride and insolence." * 
 
 A certain cardinal sent him a poem of three 
 hundred and seventy lines, composed in an 
 hour. " Have mercy ! " exclaims Petrarch. 
 " Three hundred and seventy lines in an 
 hour ! What would you do in a day, in a 
 month, in a year? Stop, for charity, or I 
 die ! I cannot measure myself with you, be- 
 side whom Virgil and Homer would appear 
 pygmies." 2 
 
 The worst feature of this inundation of 
 letters and poetry was the claim made by the 
 writers of having received their inspiration 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., xiii. 7. 
 
 2 Ep. Met, ii. 4. 
 
PETRARCH'S POPULARITY. 1 19 
 
 from Petrarch. He began to fear, he says, 
 that he should be summoned by the magis- 
 trates as a criminal and a corrupter of the 
 age. In fact, one wrathful father accused 
 him of having ruined his son. " I do not 
 know your son," said Petrarch, indignantly. 
 " No matter," replied the father, " he knows 
 you ; and after I have spent immense sums in 
 preparing him for the law, he swears he will 
 have nothing to do with it, but will follow in 
 your footsteps. The result is, he will neither 
 make a lawyer nor a poet." 
 
 " The satirist has called the mania for 
 writing an incurable disease," says Petrarch, 
 " let me add that it is contagious." A per 
 feet epidemic of writing broke out in Avig- 
 non. Lawyers and physicians thrust aside 
 Justinian and Esculapius, neglected the affairs 
 of clients, turned a deaf ear to the groans of 
 the sick, and thought of nothing but Virgil 
 and Homer, the fount of Aonia, and the 
 shady recesses of Cirra. Carpenters, painters, 
 
120 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 and farmers abandoned the tools of their 
 trades and talked of nothing but Apollo and 
 the muses. Petrarch declared that he scarcely 
 dared show himself in public for the swarm 
 of poets who surrounded him, demanding his 
 judgment of their works. 
 
 The unexampled popularity of Petrarch 
 was not a mere transitory fashion, the result 
 of his coronation. It continued unabated 
 until the day of his death, nearly forty years 
 later. During all these years his proud po- 
 sition as autocrat of letters was unquestioned. 
 Men of the highest rank thought themselves 
 honored by his friendship. He was in corre- 
 spondence with the King of France and the 
 Emperor of Germany. The empress thought 
 it worth her while to announce to him, with 
 her own hand, the birth of a daughter. Popes 
 showered favors upon him in spite of his 
 open condemnation of the corruption of the 
 Papal court ; and he was five times offered the 
 important post of apostolic secretary, which 
 
PETRARCH'S POPULARITY. 121 
 
 he persistently refused for fear of fettering 
 his independence. In whatever city he vis 
 ited, he was received with the honors paid to 
 a foreign prince. If he walked the streets of 
 Milan, the citizens uncovered their heads. In 
 Venice he was given the seat of honor at the 
 right hand of the doge, and the Senate of that 
 city decreed that there was " no philosopher 
 and no Christian poet, either in the present 
 or the past, to be compared with him." His 
 letters were so highly valued that the couriers 
 who bore them were often stopped on the 
 way until his admirers could make copies of 
 the precious documents. He was frequently 
 employed on important embassies, and was a 
 welcome guest at every court. To him the 
 "bread of others" was not "salt," nor their 
 " stairways hard to climb," because he was 
 received by princes and kings as an equal. 
 " The most illustrious sovereigns of my own 
 times," he says, " loved and honored me, 
 why, I can hardly say ; it is for them, not me, 
 
122 m LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 to explain. But as I lived with some of them 
 on the same terms on which they lived with 
 me, I suffered not at all from the eminence of 
 their rank, but rather derived from it great 
 benefit." l 
 
 The events of Petrarch's life during the first 
 few years following the coronation may be 
 briefly summarized. At some point on the 
 return from Rome he met with his friend, 
 Azzo di Correggio, who was about to carry 
 out a long-cherished plan of making himself 
 master of Parma. At the urgent request of 
 Azzo, Petrarch accompanied him in his tri- 
 umphal entry into the city, and remained there 
 some months. The residence in Parma proved 
 so agreeable to him that for several years he 
 divided his time between that city and Vau- 
 cluse, calling one his transalpine, the other 
 his cisalpine, Parnassus. 
 
 On the election of Clement VI., in 1342, an 
 embassy was sent from Rome to urge the new 
 
 1 Letter to Posterity. 
 
PETRARCH'S POPULARITY. 123 
 
 pope to restore the Papal chair to its rightful 
 home. It is believed that Petrarch was a 
 member of that embassy, but the fact cannot 
 be proven. It is not improbable that the 
 Romans should have employed in this manner 
 the talents of one whom they had so highly 
 honored, and to whom they had given the 
 rights of citizenship. At all events, Petrarch 
 returned to Avignon at this time, and exerted 
 himself for the object so near his heart. He 
 addressed to Clement a poetical epistle, simi- 
 lar to those he had written to Benedict XII., 
 reminding him of the ancient greatness of 
 Rome, and contrasting it with her present 
 sorrowful condition, deprived of her rightful 
 protectors. 
 
 Neither the eloquence of Petrarch nor the 
 entreaties of the ambassadors one of whom, 
 the young Cola di Rienzo, knew well how to 
 plead for Rome had any effect. The Pope 
 remained at Avignon, only granting to Rome 
 the privilege of celebrating a jubilee in the 
 
124 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 middle of the century as well as at the end. 
 He regarded Petrarch favorably, and bestowed 
 upon him the prebendary of Pisa and the 
 canonicate of Parma. He also proffered him 
 the post of Papal secretary, which the poet 
 declined as before. 
 
 In 1342, Petrarch's brother, Gerardo, to 
 whom he was greatly attached, turned his 
 back upon the world and entered a Carthu- 
 sian monastery. The brothers met but twice 
 in after life. In the same year occurred the 
 death of his first patron and faithful friend, 
 James Colonna, Bishop of Lombes, whose 
 loss Petrarch never ceased to mourn. A year 
 later death deprived him of another distin- 
 guished patron, the aged King of Naples. 
 
 Petrarch was selected by Clement VI. to 
 present the claims of the Church to the new 
 court at Naples. He was also intrusted by 
 the Colonna family with the private commis- 
 sion of obtaining the release of certain pris- 
 oners related to them. He was unsuccessful 
 
PETRARCH'S POPULARITY. 12$ 
 
 in both missions ; but he has left in his letters 
 a graphic and vivid picture of the immorality 
 and corruption of Naples under Robert's 
 unworthy successor, Joanna. He has de- 
 scribed also the memorable tempest which 
 visited Naples while he was there, threaten- 
 ing to destroy the city, and which gave Pe- 
 trarch such a night of horror as he had 
 never passed. 
 
 From Naples the poet returned to Parma, 
 where he remained until 1345, when the reign 
 of the Correggi came to an untimely end. 
 Their rule had at first been mild and gentle ; 
 but Azzo, having quarrelled with his brothers 
 and taken the power into his own hands, had 
 grown so tyrannical that the people of Parma 
 revolted. At the same time the city was be- 
 sieged by the Scaligers from whom Azzo had 
 stolen it, by the Visconti to whom he had 
 promised it, and also by the Marquis of Este 
 to whom he had sold it. 
 
 This chaotic state of affairs made Parma 
 
126 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 unbearable to Petrarch. With some friends 
 he made his escape by night, passing safely 
 by the enemies' lines only to fall into the 
 hands of robbers at last. Fleeing from the 
 robbers they lost their way. Petrarch's horse 
 fell, injuring his rider; and in the darkness, 
 hearing on every side the watch-cries of the 
 hostile camps, they knew not which way to 
 turn. They were obliged to pass the night 
 where they were, on the bare ground, without 
 even a tree to shelter them from a heavy rain 
 which was beating down upon them. 
 
 The next day Petrarch continued his jour- 
 ney toward his transalpine Helicon, visiting 
 Verona by the way. Here he was fortunate 
 enough to discover, what was in his eyes of 
 far greater importance than the revolutions of 
 Parma or the intrigues of Naples, the man- 
 uscript of Cicero's " Familiar Letters." 
 
RIENZL 127 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 RIENZI. 
 
 / T V HE events of 1347 stirred the heart of 
 * Petrarch, and roused to the highest 
 pitch that fervid patriotism which was so 
 essential a part of his nature. In Cola di 
 Rienzo, the ardent young enthusiast who 
 was just entering upon his brilliant meteoric 
 career, he believed he could see the reali- 
 zation of his own impassioned dreams for 
 the restoration of Italy. 
 
 Petrarch lived in the past rather than the 
 present. He was more familiar with ancient 
 Rome than with the Rome of his day. He 
 could therefore see nothing incongruous in 
 the attempt to turn back the wheels of his- 
 tory fifteen hundred years, ignoring the 
 whole of the Middle Ages and their in- 
 fluence, He saw nothing impracticable in 
 
128 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 the effort to restore the Roman Republic 
 and the ancient office of tribune. 
 
 Cola di Rienzo, the son of an innkeeper 
 and a washerwoman, brought up as he him- 
 self said, " a peasant among peasants," was 
 more nearly in sympathy with Petrarch in 
 his enthusiasm for classic writers, his ten- 
 derness for the ruins of Rome, and his rever- 
 ence for her ancient laws and customs, than 
 any other man in Italy. In fact, a distin- 
 guished living archaeologist unhesitatingly 
 gives Rienzi the credit of being the real 
 founder of modern archaeological studies. 1 
 His youth was spent with relatives in Anagni, 
 and until the age of twenty he had no op- 
 portunity whatever to cultivate the intellect- 
 ual side of his nature. Returning to Rome 
 at that age he threw himself with headlong 
 zeal into study. He pored with equal eager- 
 ness over the Latin poets, the Church Fathers, 
 
 1 Lanciani. " Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent 
 Discoveries." 
 
RIENZI. 129 
 
 and the Roman law. Livy, Seneca, and 
 Cicero were his constant companions. His 
 favorite recreation was wandering amid the 
 ruins of Rome, deciphering the inscriptions 
 on the ancient monuments. " Every day he 
 studied the inscriptions on the marbles with 
 which Rome abounded," says his biographer, 
 "and there was no one who could read the 
 ancient epitaphs so well as he. ' Where are 
 now these great men ? ' he was often heard 
 to exclaim. * Would that I could have lived 
 when such men did ! ' " The mystic letters 
 S. P. Q. R. which he constantly met in his 
 explorations awakened visions of the power 
 once enjoyed by the Senate and the Roman 
 people; and the descriptions of the valor 
 and glory of the Romans fired his fancy 
 until he believed himself divinely appointed 
 to restore the ancient grandeur of Rome. 
 Like Petrarch, he failed to measure the dis- 
 tance between the populace of his day "the 
 scum and sediment of countless races, bar- 
 9 
 
130 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 barized by the lingering miseries of the 
 Middle Ages" and the populus Romania 
 of the ancient Republic. The death of a 
 younger brother, heartlessly and causelessly 
 murdered by a noble, increased his hatred 
 of the nobility, and strengthened his deter- 
 mination to free Rome from her " horde 
 of petty tyrants." He displayed in public 
 places allegorical pictures representing the 
 sufferings and degradation of Rome, and in 
 glowing words explained them to the crowds 
 who gathered around, moving them to in- 
 dignation for their wrongs, to shame for their 
 long passivity, and arousing at last some 
 spark of national feeling. 
 
 The dreams of Rienzi were known to 
 Petrarch, and his career was watched by 
 him with eagerness. It is not known when 
 the friendship between them began. Rienzi 
 was in Rome at the time of Petrarch's 
 coronation, and we may easily imagine him 
 to have been one of the shouting multitude 
 
RIENZI. 131 
 
 at the Capitol on that occasion, since noth- 
 ing would have been more to his taste than 
 the revival of that ancient custom. At all 
 events, the two enthusiasts met in Avignon 
 when Cola was sent with the embassy to 
 the Pope to beg his return to Rome. 
 
 It was in the sheltered door way of a 
 church at Avignon that Rienzi first poured 
 into Petrarch's ear his dreams and plans 
 for the future of Rome, kindling with the 
 subject until the poet seemed to be listen- 
 ing to " the voice of a god rather than a 
 man." At Rienzi's burning picture of the 
 miseries and oppressions of Rome the poet 
 was moved to tears, " not weak tears," he 
 says, " but manly tears, tears of indigna- 
 tion." From the time of this conversation 
 Petrarch thought of little else. " Oh, that it 
 might be ! " he often sighed. " Oh, that it 
 might happen in my day! Would Heaven 
 but permit me to be a sharer in this glori- 
 ous undertaking ! " 
 
132 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 We may conceive, then, the joy with which 
 he received the account of the revolution of 
 1347, by which, without the shedding of a 
 drop of blood, Rienzi was made master of 
 Rome, with the long obsolete title of tribune. 
 Petrarch at once addressed a long letter of 
 congratulation and exhortation to the new 
 tribune and to the Roman people, " now 
 having for the first time the right to be 
 called citizens." He hailed Rienzi as a 
 new Romulus, a second Brutus, another 
 Camillus, having accomplished more than all 
 three. He begged of him two things: that 
 he would continue to open each day with 
 prayer, and that he would not neglect the 
 study of history, but would employ every 
 interval of rest in reading or having read 
 to him the history of Rome. He urged 
 the Romans to look upon Rienzi as their 
 liberator, to uphold him with any sacrifice 
 in their power, to be ready to die as free 
 men rather than suffer themselves to be 
 
RIENZI. 133 
 
 again enslaved after having once tasted lib- 
 erty. He promised an ode worthy of the 
 occasion, but it is not certain that the prom- 
 ise was ever fulfilled. The question as to 
 whether Rienzi was the hero of the canzone 
 so long supposed to be addressed to him, 
 has given rise to as many volumes of dis- 
 cussion as that of the identity of Dante's 
 Veltro. It is now pretty definitely settled 
 that he is not the dedicatee. 
 
 The first steps of Rienzi justified Pe- 
 trarch's enthusiasm. The constitution, which 
 he caused the people to adopt by acclama- 
 tion, contained many wise provisions for 
 the welfare of Rome. Every murder was 
 to be punished with death, and trials must 
 be completed within fifteen days at most. 
 False accusers received heavy penalties. A 
 guard of one hundred foot soldiers and 
 twenty-five horse was to be placed in every 
 part of the city. The families of all who 
 died fighting for their country were to 
 
134 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 receive a pension. The roads around Rome 
 were to be guarded, and the coasts made 
 safe for merchants. Widows and orphans 
 were to be protected by the State, as were 
 also cloisters and sacred places. The bar- 
 ons were forbidden to fortify their cas- 
 tles, or to give asylum to bandits and 
 malefactors. The gates and bridges of the 
 city were to be taken from the barons 
 and placed in the hands of an officer 
 elected by the people. When the Ro- 
 mans eagerly proffered him the supreme 
 power as reformer of the Republic, Rienzi 
 prudently proposed to take a colleague, and 
 chose for that office the Papal vicar, thus 
 securing the sanction of the Church. 1 The 
 nobles, so long occupied with their own 
 quarrels, were overcome with surprise at 
 this uprising of the people, and through 
 lack of unity were unable to make any re- 
 sistance. The head of the Colonna family 
 1 Gregorovius, " Rom im Mittelalter," vol. vi. c. 5. 
 
RIENZL 135 
 
 might rage and threaten to throw the trib- 
 une from the window of the Capitol, but 
 the Colonnas themselves, with the other pow- 
 erful nobles, were compelled to take the 
 oath of allegiance to the Republic. The 
 strictest justice was observed without re- 
 spect to rank. An ex-senator was beheaded 
 for crime like any ordinary criminal. Brig- 
 andage was destroyed, and a tranquillity un- 
 known before reigned in Rome and the 
 Campagna. The couriers of the tribune 
 reported that wherever they carried the 
 white staff, the emblem of their office, 
 thousands knelt to kiss it in gratitude 
 for the new feeling of peace and secu- 
 rity. Cola also persuaded his fellow-citizens 
 to become reconciled with one another, to 
 lay aside all private enmities and work for 
 the public good. Some idea of the dis- 
 tracted condition of Rome may be gath- 
 ered from the fact that eighteen hundred 
 feuds were buried at his entreaty. 
 
136 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 But the plans of Rienzi were not limited 
 to Rome. Letters were sent to all the cities 
 of Italy, announcing the freedom of Rome, 
 and prophesying the freedom of Italy. He 
 urged other cities to throw off the yoke of 
 their tyrants, and he invited all the cities 
 and communes of Italy to send representa- 
 tives to a general parliament to be held in 
 Rome, to consider the freedom and pacifi- 
 cation of the whole nation. The dream of 
 Rienzi and of Petrarch was the same as the 
 dream of Mazzini five hundred years later, 
 a dream of a united Italy, a confederation 
 of Italian States, with Rome as the head, 
 resuming her former importance in the 
 world. 
 
 Petrarch's open espousal of the cause of 
 Rienzi cost him the friendship of his ear- 
 liest and most influential patrons, the Co- 
 lonnas, and he has often been accused of 
 ingratitude for his treatment of this family; 
 but he was certainly right in refusing to 
 
RIENZI. 137 
 
 prefer the claims of private friendship to 
 what he believed to be the interest of his 
 country. "There is no princely family in 
 the world," he says in his defence, " so dear 
 to me as the Colonna, yet dearer still is the 
 Republic, dearer is Rome, dearer Italy." 
 He has seen the evils which the nobles 
 have brought upon Rome, and he denounces 
 them as traitors, enemies to the public good. 
 He inveighs against them as barbarians, not 
 natives, who despise the beautiful title of 
 Roman citizen and wish to be called princes. 
 He fears lest the Romans, accustomed to 
 submission, should fall again under the yoke 
 of their tyrants. Hence he advises the exter- 
 mination of the nobility. " Severity toward 
 them is a duty, all mercy is inhuman." 
 
 Petrarch preserved the same opinion even 
 after the fall of Rienzi. When, in 135 1, 
 the four cardinals appointed by the Pope to 
 reform the constitution, consulted with him 
 as to whether they should allow the people 
 
138 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 a share in the government, he was indignant 
 at the question. " Not a part, but the 
 whole," he said, " should be given to the 
 people; and the nobility should be ex- 
 cluded from the Senate. Those who are 
 the enemies of liberty should be forever re- 
 moved from public office in a free city." 
 
 " What an incredible question ! " he adds. 
 " Whether the Roman people, once the 
 rulers of all nations, should be restored to 
 liberty to this extent, that upon the Capitol 
 where they have seen so many triumphs, 
 they should be allowed to sit, and to share 
 in some manner with their oppressors in 
 the government of the Republic. Are we 
 then fallen so low? Have we come to such 
 an extreme of misery as to doubt whether 
 among so many foreigners and Tarquins a 
 Roman citizen may enter into the Senate? 
 Why should the nobles rule? Because of 
 their nobility? There is much discussion 
 as to what constitutes nobility; and if we 
 
RIENZI. 139 
 
 measure theirs by virtue, they would have 
 little to boast of. Should they rule be- 
 cause of their wealth, which they have stolen 
 from the people, and used to the injury of 
 the city? There should be in Rome no 
 title higher than that of Roman citizen, and 
 this they disdain. They are offended if we 
 call them citizens, or men, or anything but 
 lords and princes. By the laws of Rome 
 the Senate should be composed of Roman 
 citizens alone." 1 
 
 Petrarch continued to send letters of en- 
 couragement, counsel, and admonition to 
 Rienzi. At one time, indeed, he finds it ne- 
 cessary to apologize for the frequency and 
 assiduity of his letters. "I am not like an 
 outsider," he says, "who awaits the issue at 
 a distance, but I am one who has gone into 
 the midst of the field, to come forth either 
 conqueror or conquered. I cannot express 
 my agitation and suspense. The only com- 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., xi. 16. 
 
140 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 fort I have is my pen ; and with this in my 
 hand I seem to be with you, and care only 
 to pour into your ear the thoughts and emo- 
 tions that weigh on my heart. I am always 
 anxious about you. Day and night I think of 
 you, and, that I may not forget my thoughts, 
 I write them down. Those of the day I write 
 in my room in the evening, and those of the 
 night, when I first rise in the morning. If 
 I yielded to my desires, not a day would pass 
 without my writing you a letter." x 
 
 "It often happens to me" he says in an- 
 other part of the same letter, " to be pres- 
 ent when others speak of you with arrogant 
 contempt, and I never fail to defend you 
 manfully. I warmly maintain the justice of 
 your tribunate and the sincerity of your 
 actions, against all calumniators, regardless 
 of their rank. In this way I have lost the 
 friendship of many with whom I had long 
 been intimate." 
 
 1 Ep. Var., 40. 
 
RIENZI. 141 
 
 It is easy to see that if Petrarch persisted 
 in his hot-headed defence of Rienzi, his res- 
 idence near the Papal court would soon 
 become unpleasant to him ; for the Pope had 
 in a very short time withdrawn his favor 
 from the tribune and had lent his influence 
 to the barons. The envoy of the Republic 
 was insulted at Avignon; and Petrarch, to 
 his unspeakable indignation, heard discus- 
 sions between the nobles as to whether the 
 concord and tranquillity of Italy were really 
 advantageous to the public good, that is, 
 to their own interests. He therefore resolved 
 to leave Avignon and Vaucluse and to return 
 to Italy, that he might aid the tribune with 
 his counsels, and that he might see with 
 his own eyes the resurrected Rome. 
 
 Scarcely had Petrarch set out on his jour- 
 ney when he received the most unfavorable 
 reports from Rome. The sudden elevation 
 to power seemed for a time to turn the head 
 of Rienzi, and to bring out the weak points 
 
142 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 of his character. His appearance in public 
 was marked by extravagant splendor. Pride 
 and vanity led him, on assuming the spurs 
 of knighthood, to bathe in the porphyry vase 
 in which Constantine had received baptism, 
 to place upon his head the seven spiritual 
 crowns, to remain seated while the nobles 
 stood bareheaded in his presence, and to 
 coin money in his own name. His exalted 
 opinion of his own mission, and his faith in 
 Rome's divine right to the dominion of the 
 world, led him to summon to his presence 
 the two claimants to the imperial throne that 
 he might decide between them ; to summon 
 the Papal court to return to Rome; and to 
 proclaim that the right of electing either 
 pope or emperor belonged to the Roman 
 people. Naturally these indiscretions made 
 him many enemies. 
 
 Petrarch was startled and alarmed by the 
 reports of the tribune's lack of moderation 
 and judgment. Interrupting his journey, he 
 
RIENZI. 143 
 
 turned aside to Genoa, from whence he sent 
 to Rienzi a stormy letter of reproach and 
 appeal. He begged him not to destroy his 
 own work, not to tarnish his own fame, not to 
 make of himself a spectacle at which his 
 friends must weep and his enemies laugh, 
 and not to force his friend to conclude in 
 satire the lyric begun in his praise. He 
 reminds the tribune how much easier it 
 is to descend than to climb. " I was 
 hastening toward you," he says, "with all 
 my heart, but I have changed my plan. I 
 will not see you other than you were. Fare- 
 well to Rome, farewell to you if what I have 
 heard be true. I would go to the Indies 
 rather than come to you. How poorly does 
 the end correspond to the beginning!" 
 
 But one ray of hope is left, and he seizes 
 eagerly upon it. These reports may not be 
 true. He has received them indeed from a 
 friend worthy of confidence, but that friend 
 may have been moved by envy. " God grant 
 
144 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 that such be the case. I would far rather one 
 friend should deceive me than that the other 
 should be found guilty of such wicked deeds. 
 Falsehood may be pardoned, the crime of 
 treason never. It is a far less evil for me to 
 be saddened a few days by deceit than for all 
 my future life to be made miserable by your 
 abandonment of your country." Though Pe- 
 trarch refuses to believe the report, yet he 
 returns again to admonition, warning the trib- 
 une to consider well every step. " Do not 
 forget who you are, who you were, whence 
 and where you have come,, and how far you 
 may exalt yourself without detriment to lib- 
 erty. Do not forget with what types you 
 have clothed yourself, what names you have 
 assumed, what hopes you have aroused, 
 what public professions you have made ; 
 and remember," he concludes, " that you 
 are not the master, but the servant of the 
 Republic." 1 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., vii. 7. 
 
RIENZI. 1 45 
 
 Counsels and warnings were of no avail to 
 
 stay the downfall of Rienzi. The tribune 
 
 was disheartened. After gaining a decisive 
 
 victory over the barons, leaving the flower of 
 
 the Roman nobility slain and the power of 
 
 the aristocracy forever weakened, he wasted 
 
 his time in triumphal processions, and failed 
 
 to follow up his advantage. A month later 
 
 he became panic-stricken on account of an 
 
 unimportant tumult in the city, and at once 
 
 concluded that all was lost. He laid aside 
 
 the insignia of his office, bade farewell to his 
 
 friends, and descended the steps of the Capitol, 
 
 weeping. Many of the citizens wept also, but 
 
 no man held him back. The populace, whom 
 
 he called Roman citizens, the heirs of untold 
 
 greatness, were not the stuff of which heroes 
 
 are made. They were willing to be freed 
 
 from the rapacity and tyranny of the nobles, 
 
 willing that their streets and homes should be 
 
 made safe for their wives and daughters, but 
 
 they were unwilling to risk much in their 
 10 
 
146 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 own defence. They were ready to be feasted 
 and flattered, but not at their own expense. 
 Rienzi took refuge in the castle of St. An- 
 gelo and from thence escaped to Naples, 
 leaving the city again a prey to the oppres- 
 sions of the barons, who at once returned, 
 more insolent than before. Their cruelty 
 was heightened by the thirst for revenge 
 on the plebeians who dared to humiliate 
 them. 
 
 So absorbed was Petrarch in watching the 
 course of Rienzi and the gradual dissolution 
 of his splendid dream of the unity of Italy, 
 that he scarcely realized the misfortunes 
 which had overtaken the Colonna family. 
 On the day of his departure from France 
 the nobles had made their decided stand 
 against Rienzi, had been defeated with great 
 loss, and among the slain were four of the 
 most brilliant members of that family. Two 
 of them had been personal friends of Pe- 
 trarch's. The letter of condolence which he 
 
RIENZL 147 
 
 sent to the cardinal, after many months' delay 
 and at the instance of friends who blamed his 
 neglect, reads like a rhetorical exercise upon 
 death rather than an outburst of grief. He 
 could not mourn sincerely for men who died 
 fighting against the Republic, and who had 
 aided so much in destroying his dearest 
 hopes. He had so identified himself with 
 Italy that all other passions were for a time 
 buried. " Rome undone, what hope is left 
 for Italy?" he said. "And Italy debased, 
 what will my life be?" His grief for the 
 downfall of the tribune was genuine. He 
 did not withdraw his friendship from Rienzi 
 after the latter's loss of power. Five years 
 later, when his friend was a prisoner in Avig- 
 non, sent by the Emperor to the Pope, Pe- 
 trarch pleaded his cause eloquently in a letter 
 to the Roman people, urging them for the 
 sake of their own honor to demand the liber- 
 ation of the prisoner and a fair trial. 1 
 1 Ep. sine Tit., iv. 
 
148 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 Better than any other could Petrarch 
 understand the weakness as well as the 
 greatness of Rienzi ; for if there was in the 
 world a more contradictory nature than 
 Petrarch's, it was that of the tribune of 
 Rome. There was in both the same mix- 
 ture of mediaeval and modern, of the Cath- 
 olic of the Middle Ages and the pagan of 
 the Renaissance. 
 
 Petrarch blames Rienzi for only two mis- 
 takes : first that he did not, when he had 
 the chiefs of the Roman nobility in his 
 power, destroy them at one stroke instead of 
 allowing them to go forth free to renew their 
 conspiracies. Second, that he fled from the 
 Capitol, " when nowhere in the world could 
 he have died more gloriously." "I am not 
 ashamed," he said, " of the things that I 
 have written concerning him, for he was 
 worthy the praise and admiration of the 
 whole world. I had placed in this man my 
 last hope for the freedom of Italy; and hav- 
 
RIENZI. 149 
 
 ing long known and loved him, when he put 
 his hand to this great work he seemed to 
 me worthy of veneration and worship. And 
 whatever the end of the undertaking, I still 
 maintain that the beginning of it was 
 magnificent." * 
 
 The poet regarded the imprisonment of 
 Rienzi as an insult to Rome. " And of what 
 is he accused ? Not of that for which all good 
 men lament It is not the end that they 
 reproach him with, but the beginning. They 
 do not blame him for the favor shown to 
 the wicked, for liberty betrayed, for his 
 flight from the Capitol. The crime which 
 they ascribe to him is one which should 
 bring him not infamy, but eternal glory, 
 the crime of having dared to think of mak- 
 ing Rome free and great, and of believing 
 that the Roman empire belonged to Rome. 
 Truly a crime worthy of death and disgrace, 
 that a Roman citizen could not quietly suffer 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., xiii. 6. 
 
150 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 his country, once the mistress of the world, 
 to be enslaved by vile men ! " l 
 
 Of Rienzi's second brief and disastrous 
 reign as Roman Senator under Papal sanc- 
 tion, Petrarch makes no mention, nor of his 
 miserable death at the hands of the Roman 
 people, on the steps of that Capitol which 
 the poet thought so glorious a place to 
 die. 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., xiii. 6. 
 
SORROWS AND LOSSES. 151 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 SORROWS AND LOSSES. 
 
 TI 7HEN Petrarch departed from Avignon, 
 in 1347, he believed himself to be 
 bidding a final farewell to France. His eyes 
 were turned toward Rome, whose glorious 
 future he hoped to share. The sudden 
 downfall of Rienzi changed his plans, and 
 he returned to Parma. The troubled con- 
 dition of affairs which had driven him from 
 that city a few years before, no longer ex- 
 isted. The city had passed into the hands 
 of Luchino Visconti, of Milan, who gov- 
 erned it quietly and peaceably. 
 
 With the thought of making his cisalpine 
 Parnassus a permanent home, Petrarch built 
 himself a house in Parma. His letters show 
 that he loved to busy himself with the small- 
 
152 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 est details of building and of laying out his 
 little garden. But permanence was foreign 
 to his nature. He confesses that only in 
 continual change of place can he find re- 
 lief from the ennui which is inseparable from 
 a sedentary life. Accordingly, we find him 
 at Verona, Padua, Mantua, Ferrara, Milan, 
 and elsewhere, in each place the honored 
 guest of princes, who vied with one another 
 in their efforts to retain him at their courts. 
 But the honors paid him were more than 
 balanced by the sorrows which befell him 
 in these years. 
 
 In 1348, the terrible pestilence which swept 
 over Europe carried away among its count- 
 less victims the Laura who had so long been 
 the object of Petrarch's worship and the 
 inspiration of his song. In the manuscript 
 copy of Virgil previously referred to, is the 
 poet's brief record of her death : 
 
 " Laura, illustrious for her own virtues and long 
 celebrated by my verses, first appeared to my eyes 
 
SORROWS AND LOSSES. 1 53 
 
 in my early youth, on the sixth day of April in 1327, 
 in the early morning, in the church of Santa Clara 
 at Avignon. And in the same city in the same 
 month of April, on the same sixth day of the month, 
 and at the same hour, in the year 1348, the light 
 of my life was taken from me, while I, alas, was 
 in Verona, ignorant of my fate. The sad news 
 reached me on the ninth of May, in a letter from 
 my Louis. Her chaste and beautiful body was de- 
 posited on the evening of the same day in the 
 church of the Cordeliers. Her spirit, as Seneca 
 said of Scipio, has returned, I believe, to the Heaven 
 whence it came. To preserve the memory of my 
 loss, it is with bitter pleasure that I record it here, 
 in a place which comes often under my eyes, that 
 nothing in this life may hereafter give me pleasure, 
 and that, the chief tie being broken, I may by frequent 
 reading of these words and thinking of this transi- 
 tory life, be ready to leave this earthly Babylon, 
 which by the help of God will be easy, with the 
 constant and manly recollection of the fruitless de- 
 sires and vain hopes and sad vicissitudes which 
 have so long agitated me." 
 
 Not only Laura, but many other old and 
 dear friends were carried away by the 
 
154 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 plague, among them Cardinal Colonna, 
 from whom Petrarch had recently been es- 
 tranged, but whose death could but cause 
 him keen sorrow, notwithstanding their dif- 
 ferences. The vow that nothing in this life 
 should hereafter give him pleasure was no 
 doubt often broken, but it is true that from 
 this time Petrarch was a changed man. His 
 letters and his writings show a graver and 
 sadder character. It could scarcely be other- 
 wise. The terrible ravages of the pestilence, 
 the suffering and desolation witnessed on 
 every hand, the loss of friend after friend, 
 the constant danger in which each one stood 
 of losing his own life, must have sobered 
 and saddened any man. 
 
 In his loneliness Petrarch conceived the 
 thought of gathering the few friends that 
 were left him into a sort of humanistic 
 brotherhood. He wrote to several of them, 
 inviting them to share his home at Parma, or 
 to choose some other spot where all might 
 
SORROWS AND LOSSES. 155 
 
 live together. Two of his friends, on their 
 way to visit him to confer upon some such 
 plan, fell into the hands of robbers, and one 
 of them was slain. The plan was aban- 
 doned, and the poet's life became more wan- 
 dering and restless than ever. 
 
 The ruler of Padua, James Carrara 
 "whose equal did not exist among the no- 
 bles of his day," says Petrarch had for 
 years begged him for a visit. His messen- 
 gers and letters finally prevailed, and upon 
 his arrival at Padua the poet was received 
 not only with courtesy, he says, " but as 
 happy spirits are received in Heaven." To 
 attach him to the court, he was appointed 
 Canon of Padua. Nothing, however, could 
 long chain him in one place. 
 
 The year 1350 was the year of the Jubilee, 
 when the Pope graciously permitted his sub- 
 jects in all lands to obtain forgiveness of 
 their sins by visiting the sacred places of 
 Rome. The visitation of the plague had 
 
156 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 prepared men's minds for serious thoughts 
 and more than a million souls embraced 
 this opportunity. For a year the streets 
 of the Holy City were crowded, and many 
 were even crushed to death in the throng. 
 Petrarch joined this army of devout pil- 
 grims, not as a spectator but as a sincere 
 Catholic. "Fourteen years ago," he said, 
 " I came to Rome for the first time, solely 
 out of curiosity to see its wonders. A few 
 years later the sweet, though not mature, 
 desire for the poetic laurel brought me here 
 the second time. My third and fourth jour- 
 neys had no object save to render services 
 to my friends. Now I am on my way to 
 Rome for the fifth time; and whether this 
 be the last visit or not, it will certainly be 
 the most happy, since the care of the soul 
 is more noble than worldly cares, and eter- 
 nal glory more worthy to kindle our hearts 
 than mortal fame." * 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., xi. 1. 
 
SORROWS AND LOSSES. I $7 
 
 Petrarch's way to Rome lay through Flor- 
 ence ; and he saw for the first time the city 
 which would have been his birthplace and 
 his home but for the blind party rage 
 which half a century before had driven his 
 father into exile, with a stain upon his name. 
 Unjust and bitter as it might seem at the 
 time, it was fortunate for Petrarch's fame that 
 he was born in exile ; for it was to this fact 
 he owed his cosmopolitan character. Pe- 
 trarch the Florentine would have been a far 
 narrower man than Petrarch the Italian. 
 
 On this first visit to Florence the poet 
 was received with great honor, although still 
 nominally an exile. A year later the of- 
 ficers of the Commune sent a remarkable 
 letter to their "very dear fellow-citizen, 
 Francis Petrarch, whose equal does not exist 
 in the world," offering him the rectorship 
 of their university, and the restoration of the 
 estates which had been confiscated at the 
 time of his father's banishment. The sen- 
 
158 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 tence which still stood against his father 
 was also formally revoked. 
 
 Petrarch was flattered at this public ac- 
 knowledgement. " It is, O glorious citizens, 
 a lasting credit to you and no small com- 
 fort to me," he said, " that you have thought 
 fit to restore the sweet and chosen seat in 
 which my father and my grandfather, and 
 his father too, in which these my fore- 
 fathers, more conspicuous by their honesty 
 than their escutcheons, for generations grew 
 old." But he took care not to bind him- 
 self to a permanent residence in Florence 
 by accepting the rectorship of her univer- 
 sity. He had all his life avoided obligations 
 which would chain him to one place. The 
 Florentines, on their part, recalled the gift 
 of his paternal estates as soon as they 
 found they were to receive no equivalent 
 for it. 
 
 On his return from Rome the poet also 
 passed through Arezzo, the city which ac- 
 
SORROWS AND LOSSES. 1 59 
 
 cidentally had the honor of being his birth- 
 place, an honor which she prized so highly 
 that the poet, on this first return, was re- 
 ceived " as if he had been a king," says 
 Leonardo Aretino. 
 
 The death of his new patron, James Car- 
 rara, who was murdered by one of his kins- 
 men, made Padua for a time distasteful to 
 the poet. He began to think longingly of 
 his restful solitude at Vaucluse, and in 135 1 
 he returned once more to France, where he 
 remained for two years. 
 
 It was at this period that Petrarch engaged 
 in his famous feud with the medical frater- 
 nity of Avignon. He had a genuine aver- 
 sion for physicians, and no faith whatever in 
 their skill. It was in all sincerity, therefore, 
 that he wrote to the Pope on the occasion 
 of the latter* s illness, warning him to beware 
 of the doctors, for many a man had lost his 
 life through their ignorance. " Only to phy- 
 sicians," he said, u is it permitted to kill with 
 
160 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 impunity." The letter fell into the hands 
 of the Pope's medical advisers, who thought 
 it necessary to reply to it ; and Petrarch soon 
 found himself engaged in a quarrel with the 
 whole fraternity. The final result was his four 
 books of invective against physicians, in 
 which he railed bitterly against the igno- 
 rance and presumption of the medical school 
 of his day. 
 
 Pope Clement died either in spite of, or 
 by the aid of, his physicians; and his suc- 
 cessor, Innocent VI., looked with an un- 
 friendly eye upon literature and learning. 
 In fact, he regarded Petrarch as a magician 
 or a necromancer, because of his intimate 
 acquaintance with Virgil. This fact, together 
 with the loss of all that had before rendered 
 Avignon endurable, made Petrarch impatient 
 to quit this " sink of iniquity." Nor did his 
 solitude of Vaucluse charm him as of old, 
 since the death of Laura had cast a shadow 
 over the spot in which he had been wont 
 
SORROWS AND LOSSES. l6l 
 
 to sing her praises. In 1353, therefore, he 
 departed from France, never again to be- 
 hold the lovely valley where he had passed 
 the happiest and most fruitful years of his 
 life. 
 
 11 
 
1 62 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MILAN. 
 
 "XTO part of Petrarch's life was more 
 * ^ puzzling to his admirers, or required 
 more defence and explanation on his part, 
 than the residence at Milan. He received 
 from his friends many letters of remonstrance, 
 and Boccaccio in particular rebuked him se- 
 verely. Much as he admired and revered 
 Petrarch, the younger poet could not under- 
 stand how he, the apostle of liberty, whose 
 tongue and pen were always eloquent in sup- 
 port of the freedom of Italy, who had openly 
 championed the cause of Rienzi, could con- 
 sent to take up his residence at the court of 
 a tyrant who was helping to enslave Italy. 
 
 Moreover, Petrarch loved solitude. He 
 hated the noise, the confusion, the immo- 
 
MILAN. 163 
 
 rality of great cities ; and Milan was one of 
 the largest, noisiest, and most immoral cities 
 of Italy. He hated the corruptions of a 
 court, and he loved his own personal liberty. 
 He had fled from the court of Avignon, he 
 had declined the office of Papal secretary, 
 he had refused the offers of the King of 
 France and of the Emperor of Germany; 
 what then had induced him to accept 
 the invitation of the Archbishop of Milan, 
 and to adorn for eight years the court of 
 the Visconti, blind to their cruelty and 
 oppression? 
 
 The wily Archbishop John Visconti, well 
 knew what bait to use for Petrarch. He 
 did not tempt him with offers of wealth, 
 titles, and distinction. He promised him 
 freedom and leisure. He furnished him a 
 pleasant home in a quiet suburb of the city, 
 where he could devote himself in peace to 
 his studies and his garden. He was not 
 required to appear at court at any stated 
 
1 64 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 time. All that was expected of him was 
 to be willing, should occasion arise, to lend 
 the use of his tongue and pen to the ser- 
 vice of his patron. " Knowing my unfitness 
 to serve him," says Petrarch, " I asked him 
 what he required of me. And he answered 
 1 that he desired nothing but my presence ; 
 that alone was sufficient honor for himself 
 and his State.' " The Visconti understood 
 the advantage to be gained from attaching 
 Petrarch to their court. The mere presence 
 of the avowed champion of liberty, the ac- 
 knowledged king of Letters, conferred dis- 
 tinction upon their reign. 
 
 Such delicate flattery was not without its 
 influence upon Petrarch. To the reproaches 
 of his friends he replied in general terms, 
 asserting the right of each individual to 
 guide his own conduct, and the impossibil- 
 ity of pleasing every one. 
 
 The surprise and indignation of Petrarch's 
 friends at this step are explained by the 
 
MILAN. 165 
 
 character of the Visconti family, who had 
 taken him under their protection. No worse 
 perhaps, and certainly no better than their 
 contemporaries, they were typical tyrants, 
 and the chief representatives of a class that 
 was ruining Italy, uniting cultivation and re- 
 finement with cruelty and unscrupulousness. 
 They were not only lords of Milan, l^ut had 
 obtained control of twenty-two of the Lom- 
 bard towns ; and their name was a terror to 
 every city in northern Italy. John Visconti, 
 the archbishop, united the spiritual and tem- 
 poral power, and was fond of appearing in 
 public as he is represented in his portraits, 
 with a crosier in one hand and a drawn 
 sword in the other. " The one," he said, 
 " is the spiritual sceptre, and the other 
 the temporal, which I will know how to 
 wield in defence of my empire." When the 
 Pope, offended at his independence, sum- 
 moned him to Avignon, John replied that 
 he would come with twelve thousand cavalry 
 
1 66 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 and six thousand foot soldiers, and sent to 
 engage quarters for himself and his army 
 in the little city. The Pope, in dismay, 
 begged him to remain at home and pursue 
 his own course. The archbishop was suc- 
 ceeded by his three nephews, one of whom 
 was noted for his sensuality, another for his 
 lavish display of magnificence, and the third 
 for refinements of cruelty unparalleled in his- 
 tory. All three were equally generous and 
 friendly to Petrarch, and retained his friend- 
 ship through life. 
 
 It has been well said that Petrarch, like 
 other leaders of the Renaissance, judged men 
 from an intellectual and aesthetic rather than 
 an ethical standpoint. He admired talent and 
 success. A genuine love of letters did much 
 to atone for a man's vices. The bond be- 
 tween himself and Rienzi had been greatly 
 strengthened by the fact that the tribune's 
 enthusiasm for antiquity was equal to his 
 own. Ambition may also have had some- 
 
MILAN. 167 
 
 thing to do with Petrarch's willingness to 
 remain in Milan. He was flattered at the 
 thought of playing a political r61e, of being 
 a power in the world of affairs as well as 
 in the world of letters. He was frequently- 
 sent upon diplomatic missions, was often 
 intrusted with the composition of important 
 official letters, and was called upon to de- 
 liver orations on State occasions. No pub- 
 lic ceremonial was complete without his 
 presence, and no princely visitor was ac- 
 corded higher honors. 
 
 Petrarch's first diplomatic task was the at- 
 tempt to negotiate a peace between Venice 
 and Genoa, an object so near his heart that 
 he undertook it gladly. The two republics 
 had long been at war, and the Italian heart 
 of Petrarch was grieved at the sight of Ital- 
 ians shedding each others' blood. He had 
 written many eloquent letters to the Doge 
 of Venice and to the Doge of Genoa, urg- 
 ing them to put an end to the fratricidal 
 
1 68 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 contest. " It behooves a man to be touched 
 by the woes of humanity," he said, " an Ital- 
 ian to be moved by the woes of Italy. If 
 you must have war, turn your arms against 
 the Byzantines, against the infidels of the 
 Holy Land, but spare your countrymen, spare 
 Italy ! If one of you should succeed in con- 
 quering the other, what would be the result? 
 Simply that one of the eyes of Italy would 
 be extinguished, the other weakened." He 
 is especially indignant at the thought of 
 Italians invoking the aid of barbarians to 
 ruin Italians, Genoa having allied herself 
 with Aragon, Venice with the Byzantine 
 emperor. He paints in burning words the 
 disgrace, the insane folly, of hiring foreigners 
 to destroy the mother country. 1 His remon- 
 strances had produced no effect, although the 
 Doge of Venice, who had long been his 
 friend, answered his letter respectfully, ac- 
 knowledging the truth of some of his argu- 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., xi. 8, xiv. 5 and 6, xv. 4. 
 
MILAN. 169 
 
 ments, but maintaining the right of Venice 
 to punish Genoa for her insolence. 
 
 In 1353, soon after Petrarch's arrival in 
 Milan, the Genoese were reduced to such 
 straits that they voluntarily placed their city 
 under the protection of the Archbishop of 
 Milan. The latter accepted the charge ; and 
 since it was to his interest as well as that 
 of Genoa to establish peace, an embassy 
 was sent to Venice with Petrarch at its head. 
 The long Latin oration which he delivered 
 before the doge and council had as little 
 effect as his impassioned letters. The Ve- 
 netians, flushed with success, refused to lis- 
 ten to proposals of peace. 
 
 Petrarch had been only a year in Milan 
 when his new patron, the archbishop, died, 
 and was succeeded by his three nephews, 
 Matteo, Bernabo, and Galeazzo. The change 
 made no difference in Petrarch's position. 
 He continued to occupy the same anoma- 
 lous post of court poet, orator, counsellor, 
 
170 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 and friend. When the new rulers took pub- 
 lic possession of their office, Petrarch was 
 chosen to address the people of Milan, an- 
 nouncing the change of government, eulo- 
 gizing the dead prince, and promising a 
 brilliant future for his successors. In the 
 midst of his oration he was interrupted by 
 the court astrologer, who informed him that 
 the favorable time for the ceremony had 
 arrived, and that it could not be delayed. 
 Petrarch obligingly ceased, although he could 
 scarcely conceal his contempt for the charla- 
 tan, since he did not share the credulity of 
 his age in regard to astrology. In a few 
 moments the astrologer learned that the 
 conjunction of the planets was not exactly 
 right, and begged the speaker to resume the 
 thread of his discourse. " I have finished, 
 I have finished," the poet replied laughing; 
 and the crowd was obliged to await in silence 
 the auspicious moment. 1 
 
 1 Let. Sen., iii. I. 
 
MILAN. 171 
 
 Soon after the accession of the young 
 princes an event occurred which illustrates 
 the ideal character of Petrarch's political 
 views and his habit of misapprehending the 
 force of a mere name. This was the long- 
 expected descent of the German emperor, 
 Charles IV., into Italy, an event to which, 
 it would seem, Petrarch had long looked 
 forward for the salvation of his country. 
 
 The poet has been accused of inconsis- 
 tency in his political views, but to one cen- 
 tral idea he was always true, namely, the 
 supremacy of Rome. No matter how fan- 
 tastic the means employed, or how impos- 
 sible the task; no matter through whom it 
 was brought about, whether through tribune, 
 Pope, or emperor, whoever would under- 
 take to make Rome mistress of the world, 
 was sure of the warm support of Petrarch. 
 
 After the cruel disappointment of the 
 hopes built upon Rienzi's undertaking, he 
 had turned his thoughts to Charles IV., and 
 
172 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 to the restoration of the dignity of the Holy 
 Roman Empire. He failed to realize that 
 institutions grow and decay, and that it was 
 no more possible to revive the dead empire 
 than to restore the Roman republic. 
 
 Charles IV. had been educated in Italy; 
 and this fact, together with his love for let- 
 ters, atoned to some extent for his German 
 blood, and freed him from the reproach of 
 being a barbarian. 
 
 Petrarch had written the emperor several 
 earnest letters, urging the necessity of his 
 presence, and the ease with which he might 
 obtain glory for himself and unity for Italy, 
 by coming to Rome to receive the imperial 
 crown and to revive the empire. But Charles 
 was a prudent prince, not easily aroused by 
 poetical enthusiasm. In reply to Petrarch's 
 letters he pointed out the difficulty of the 
 enterprise and the unworthiness of the 
 Italians. 
 
 Petrarch was not discouraged. With a still 
 
MILAN. 173 
 
 more urgent and eloquent pen he answered 
 all of Charles's objections, held before him 
 the example of his ancestors, and, to show 
 how easily he might conquer his own terri- 
 tory, cited the example of Rienzi. " But re- 
 cently," he said, " a humble plebeian, not 
 King of Rome, not consul, not patrician, but 
 a simple and almost unknown Roman citi- 
 zen, without splendid titles or famous ances- 
 tors, or any of the things which give a man 
 distinction, arose and proclaimed himself 
 liberator of Rome. Splendid announcement 
 for an obscure man ! And you know how 
 spontaneously Tuscany extended her hand to 
 him and acknowledged his reign. All Italy 
 followed her example, and Europe listened 
 to his voice. We did not read of those 
 things, we saw them with our own eyes. 
 Already justice and peace returned among 
 us, with their companions, faith and tranquil 
 security, and the golden age seemed re- 
 newed. Among all the titles of the Roman 
 
174 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 magistracy he took the lowest, that of tri- 
 bune. If then the name of tribune had so 
 much power, what could not the name of 
 Emperor do?" To Charles's dark picture of 
 the state of Italy he replied, "To whom 
 are the evils of the kingdom a disgrace but 
 tp the king? If, as you say, the liberty of 
 the empire is destroyed, you, who are father 
 of the empire, should restore it. If the 
 Latins are bowed under a yoke of servitude, 
 you should remove it. If justice is prosti- 
 tuted, you should redeem it. For this were 
 you- born, this is your office. Not until 
 you have finished this task can you really 
 call yourself emperor." 1 
 
 Whether moved by the appeals of Petrarch 
 or by those of the Lombard League, who 
 had asked his aid in checking the ever-grow- 
 ing power of the Visconti, Charles finally, 
 in 1354, undertook the long-deferred Italian 
 journey. Petrarch was filled with joy at the 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., xviii. 1. 
 
MILAN. 175 
 
 tidings of his coming, and despatched an 
 enthusiastic letter of welcome. 
 
 Although it was rumored that Charles was 
 coming with hostile intentions toward them, 
 the Visconti did not resent the attitude of 
 Petrarch. They were confident of their abil- 
 ity to change the emperor's views ; and in 
 fact, the embassy sent to Mantua had no 
 trouble in arranging a friendly compact 
 by which Charles was to receive the iron 
 crown of Milan and the Visconti were to 
 be appointed imperial vicars. 
 
 The emperor gave evidence of his regard 
 for Petrarch by sending a special messenger 
 to Milan, inviting him to Mantua. " He 
 who is accustomed to command kings, re- 
 quested me to come to him," says the poet, 
 with pardonable pride. The invitation was 
 accepted, although it necessitated a four 
 days' journey in inclement weather. The 
 prince of Letters was received by the em- 
 peror as an honored guest, and several days 
 
176 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 were passed in confidential intercourse, the 
 two often talking alone from dawn till dark. 
 
 One is surprised at the frankness of Pe- 
 trarch, and no less so at the equanimity of 
 the emperor, who did not resent it. Charles 
 having requested Petrarch to dedicate to him 
 his work on illustrious men, the latter replied 
 that he would gladly do so if the emperor 
 should prove himself worthy of that honor. 
 "I will hold you worthy," he explained, 
 " when you are distinguished, not by the vain 
 splendor of a crown and a title, but by glo- 
 rious deeds." " And he bowed his august 
 head in approval," adds Petrarch, in relating 
 it. 
 
 The hopes which Petrarch had built upon 
 the emperor's coming were soon to be 
 cruelly shattered. After receiving the iron 
 crown in Milan, Charles hastened on to 
 Rome for the crown of gold. In the mean 
 time he had made a disgraceful bargain with 
 the Pope, by which he bound himself not to 
 
MILAN. 177 
 
 sleep in the Eternal City. He therefore left 
 Rome immediately after the coronation, re- 
 turning to Germany with such unseemly 
 haste that his departure resembled a flight 
 rather than the march of a newly crowned 
 emperor. Charles had gained in Italy the 
 empty honor of the coronation and a pocket- 
 ful of Italian money, and had given the final 
 blow to the dignity of the empire by his re- 
 peated bargains and sales with the Italian 
 cities. 
 
 Filled with chagrin at this fiasco, Petrarch 
 made use of his customary weapon, a let- 
 ter, in which he overwhelmed the emperor 
 with reproaches. " That for which your an- 
 cestors shed so much blood and endured so 
 many hardships, you have abandoned with- 
 out a struggle. No prince has ever volun- 
 tarily sacrificed so great, so fair, so ripe a 
 hope. Emperor of the Romans, you sigh 
 only for Bohemia. Your father and your 
 grandfather would not have done so, but 
 
178 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 virtue is not transmitted by heredity. What 
 would they have said if they had met you 
 in the passes of the Alps? They might have 
 said, ' You have gained much, illustrious Cae- 
 sar, by your long-expected journey into Italy 
 and your hasty return. You have brought 
 back a crown of iron, a crown of gold, and an 
 empty title. You may be called Emperor 
 of the Romans, but you are in truth only 
 King of Bohemia. Caesar, farewell ; think of 
 what you have left, and whither you are 
 going.' " \ 
 
 This outburst did not interrupt the friendly 
 relations existing between the two ; for when, 
 a year later, the Visconti chose Petrarch as 
 ambassador to the imperial court at Prague, 
 he was received with the same cordiality as 
 before. The emperor continued to hold Pe- 
 trarch in high esteem, conferring upon him 
 the rank of Count Palatine, sending him 
 costly presents, and inviting him urgently and 
 
 1 Ep Fam., xix. 12. 
 
MILAN. 179 
 
 repeatedly to reside at his court, Petrarch, 
 on the other hand, never wholly abandoned 
 his efforts to arouse in Charles IV. some en- 
 thusiasm for forsaken Rome and neglected 
 Italy. 
 
 In 1360, Petrarch was sent upon another 
 long and difficult journey over the Alps, 
 this time to Paris. The Visconti, by means 
 of the misfortunes of France, had been able 
 to ally themselves with the royal house. 
 King John of France had long been a pris- 
 oner of Edward of England, and to obtain 
 the money for his ransom had married his 
 daughter to the son of Galeazzo Visconti. 
 It was necessary for the Visconti to send an 
 embassy to France to congratulate the king 
 upon the recovery of his liberty. Petrarch 
 was naturally chosen for the head of the 
 embassy, and he made upon the King of 
 France the same favorable impression that 
 he had made upon other rulers. He was 
 warmly entreated, both by the king and the 
 
180 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 dauphin, to remain permanently with them ; 
 but he declared himself unable to live out- 
 side of Italy. 
 
 On his return to Milan, in 1361, Petrarch 
 found the city almost deserted. The terri- 
 ble pestilence which had desolated Italy in 
 1348, had again returned, sweeping away 
 nearly two thirds of the population of Milan. 
 Of the survivors, all who were able fled from 
 the city, and Petrarch followed their exam- 
 ple. He did not again make his home in 
 Milan, although he had become greatly at- 
 tached to the place, not only to the people, 
 but to the streets, the atmosphere, the build- 
 ings, and especially to his little country 
 home at Garignano, three miles distant. 
 
 Petrarch's relations with the Visconti were 
 not severed, however, by his change of resi- 
 dence. He continued to receive marks of 
 favor from them, to be employed by them 
 on embassies, and he was a frequent guest 
 at the summer home of Galeazzo in Pavia. 
 
PETRARCH'S CHILDREN. l8l 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 PETRARCH'S CHILDREN. 
 
 'HHHERE is one subject which the bio- 
 grapher of Petrarch always approaches 
 with reluctance, not only on moral grounds 
 but for aesthetic reasons. The mind re- 
 coils from the fact that the inspired singer 
 of the " Canzoniere," who has been held up 
 for five centuries as the ideal lover, able 
 to worship one woman for twenty years 
 without a word of encouragement from her, 
 was at the same time the father of two ille- 
 gitimate children by another and unknown 
 woman. 
 
 The fact that Petrarch was an ecclesiastic 
 did not add to his fault in the eyes of his 
 contemporaries, for the celibacy of the priest- 
 hood was known to be a mere empty phrase. 
 
1 82 LIFE OF PETRARCH 
 
 From popes and cardinals down, there were 
 very few in the ranks of the priesthood who 
 would dare to cast a stone for that offence. 
 
 The general immorality of the day and 
 particularly of the Church, may be argued 
 from the fact that when Petrarch's enemies 
 sought for slanders with which to blacken his 
 name, not one of them thought of mentioning 
 his illegitimate children as a disgrace to him 
 or to his profession, although their existence 
 was well known and acknowledged. 
 
 Petrarch seems to have taken charge of his 
 children from the first, making himself re- 
 sponsible for their education, and having 
 both legitimatized by a Papal bull. Of 
 the mother, nothing whatever is known, 
 as he makes no mention of her in any of his 
 letters. It is probable that the two children 
 were born of one mother, but even that much 
 cannot be affirmed with certainty. 
 
 John, the elder, was born in 1337, about 
 the time of Petrarch's retirement to Vaucluse. 
 
PETRARCH'S CHILDREN. 1 83 
 
 The daughter, Francesca, was born about 
 six years later. 
 
 The son during the whole of his short life 
 brought nothing but discredit and annoy- 
 ance to his father. The portrait which 
 Petrarch has drawn of him in various letters 
 is by no means a flattering one. It must be 
 admitted that the poet's system of education 
 had many defects, and was not calculated 
 to produce the best results in character. 
 His wandering and restless life made it in- 
 convenient to keep the boy always with 
 him, and Petrarch was constantly changing 
 him from one school to another, writing let- 
 ters of instruction to his teachers, in which 
 he recommends them not to spare the 
 rod, to punish light faults with the tongue 
 and serious ones with blows; but he urges 
 them to implant the right principles in the 
 boy's breast. "The knowledge of letters 
 is a noble thing," he says, " but virtue 
 is far nobler. It is not granted to all 
 
1 84 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 to become learned, but all may become 
 virtuous." 
 
 From his own confession we learn that 
 Petrarch never succeeded in obtaining the 
 confidence of his son. In commending him 
 at the age of fifteen to a new preceptor, he 
 says, " I do not believe he is wholly devoid of 
 talent, but I cannot say certainly ; for when 
 in my presence, whether through fear of me 
 or through shame at his own ignorance, he 
 preserves an obstinate silence. I cannot get 
 one word from his lips." * 
 
 That the lad is not a student, the father 
 well knows. 
 
 " I cannot deceive myself. I do not think 
 there is a person in the world who dislikes 
 study so much as he does. There is nothing 
 he so hates and abhors as a book. He looks 
 upon books as his worst enemies. An ugly 
 beginning you will say ; and I reply that it is 
 ugly, but true. I have not undertaken to 
 1 Ep. Fam., xiii. 2. 
 
PETRARCH'S CHILDREN. 185 
 
 compose a heroic poem in his praise, or 
 to describe to you an ideal youth, but this 
 boy as he is." l 
 
 To provide for his material needs, Petrarch 
 applied for a benefice for his son; and the 
 latter was given a canonicate at Verona, 
 before he had completed his' fifteenth year. 
 When the youthful incumbent was sent to 
 take possession of his canonicate, his educa- 
 tion was intrusted to two of Petrarch's oldest 
 and most valued friends in Verona. Their 
 account must have been very unfavorable ; for 
 a year later Petrarch writes to his son that 
 the reports he receives show that his conduct 
 grows every day more disgraceful, and that 
 he has decided to punish him, by refusing 
 to write to him or to send him money. 
 
 In 1354, the young man lost his canonicate 
 at Verona, not through any misdeeds of his 
 own, but because of his father's friendship 
 with Azzo of Correggio. 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., xiii. 2. 
 
1 86 LIFE OF PETRARCH, 
 
 The Scaligers, lords of Verona, had found 
 Azzo guilty of treason; and they visited their 
 wrath upon every one remotely connected 
 with him. Petrarch was therefore obliged to 
 receive his son under his own roof at Milan. 
 
 Four years later he finds that as regards 
 study the case is as hopeless as ever, although 
 in conduct the youth has improved; and the 
 father seeks to console himself with the 
 thought that right conduct is of more im- 
 portance than learning. 
 
 " He is not without talent, but of what 
 avail is it without study? And he shuns a 
 book as if it were a snake. But if he will 
 be good, I am satisfied. He who dies good 
 is not born in vain. I am pleased, in truth, 
 with his talent, but vexed at the way he mis- 
 uses it. Prayers, caresses, threats, and blows, 
 I have tried all without avail. His nature 
 is more powerful than all my force. And so 
 let it be. The name of a scholar is a fine 
 thing, but difficult to acquire. It is easier to 
 
PETRARCH'S CHILDREN. 1 87 
 
 pardon a lack of knowledge than a lack of 
 virtue. Virtue is within the reach of all, 
 knowledge only of the few. Yet indeed the 
 boy might be one of the few if he would; 
 but if he obstinately refuses, what am I to do? 
 I have done my duty, I can only await results, 
 resigned to whatever may happen. All can 
 not be Ciceros, Platos, Virgils, but all can be 
 good if they wish. Finally, if I have to do 
 without one or the other, I would rather have 
 a man without learning than learning without 
 a man." 1 
 
 He was soon undeceived as to the apparent 
 reformation in his son. The conduct of the 
 latter became so unbearable that Petrarch 
 was obliged to banish him from his house. 
 Driven to extremes, the poet shows himself 
 capable of great severity. " I would show 
 patience," he said, " if you had not so long 
 abused my patience. I would be indulgent, 
 if you had not ungratefully trampled my 
 1 Ep. Fam., xix. 17. 
 
1 88 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 indulgence under foot. I have borne these 
 things as long as I could, in the hope that 
 you might sometime change ; but that hope 
 is wholly dispelled. Wearied and harassed 
 by the insupportable burden, I have driven 
 you from me, I have banished you from my 
 house. And now you ask, when will your 
 exile have an end ? It will end, I reply, when 
 you have wholly changed the tenpr of your 
 life. Love is conquered in me, hope de- 
 stroyed, patience exhausted. You may not 
 cross my threshold so long as you are what 
 you were when you left me. If you wish to 
 return to me, everything must be changed, 
 your habits, tastes, step, gestures, carriage, 
 the sound of your voice, the movements of 
 your eyebrows. Take care not to bring back 
 with you any of those things which render 
 you hateful to those to whom nature has made 
 you dear, and especially your foolish pride, 
 your shameful contempt." 1 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., xxii. 7. 
 
PETRARCH'S CHILDREN. 1 89 
 
 Yet in the very midst of his wrath, Petrarch 
 is anxious to pardon, unwilling to abandon all 
 hope of a reformation. De Sade, and other 
 biographers on his authority, accuse Petrarch's 
 son of being implicated in a robbery which 
 the poet suffered at the hands of his servants ; 
 and they cite this as the cause of his banish- 
 ment from his father's house. But the proof 
 is vague, and we are loath, without further 
 evidence, to believe him guilty of this un- 
 natural crime. 
 
 That there were sufficient reasons for his 
 son's punishment, without adding this crime 
 to the list, is seen from Petrarch's letter to 
 Guido Settimo, in which he gives utterance 
 to his bitter disappointment : " After I have 
 educated him with so much care and trouble 
 for twenty-three years, in the hope that he 
 would be to me in my old age a help and 
 an honor, he returns me only trouble, dis- 
 grace, and sorrow. Although capable, if he 
 wished, of knowledge and virtue, he is the 
 
190 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 enemy of both, outrageous in manners, 
 cowardly, envious, arrogant, disobedient, the 
 slave of his passions, a servant of luxury and 
 wantonness." 1 
 
 Petrarch was again beginning to hope for 
 better things, and to believe in his son's ref- 
 ormation, when the latter died suddenly of the 
 plague, in 1361. In the twenty-four years 
 of his life he had given little pleasure either 
 to himself or to his father. The poet 
 mourned his death, but was obliged to confess 
 that he was relieved of a long anxiety, nor 
 could he deceive himself with the thought 
 that there would have been any great change 
 if his son had lived. 
 
 In his daughter, Petrarch found more 
 happiness. Of her education and training 
 we know nothing; but from the time of her 
 marriage, in 1363, she made a home for 
 her father until his death. 
 
 Boccaccio has left a charming description 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., xxiii. 12. 
 
PETRARCH'S CHILDREN. 191 
 
 of a visit to that home in Petrarch's absence. 
 It was an exceptionally happy home in all re- 
 spects. Francesca's husband bore the same 
 name as her father, Francesco ; and Petrarch 
 writes in his old age that Francesco and 
 Francesca are dearer to him than his own 
 soul. He delighted in his grandchildren, 
 especially in his grandson, who was said 
 to bear a remarkable resemblance to him. 
 When the little one died at the age of two 
 years, Petrarch was overwhelmed with grief. 
 He questioned, he said, whether he had ever 
 in his life loved any one else as he loved 
 that child. 
 
192 LIFE OF PETRARCH, 
 
 V 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 BOCCACCIO. 
 
 NO man was ever so rich in friends as 
 Petrarch, and it is in his relations with 
 his friends that we see the most delightful 
 side of his character. Few men are capa- 
 ble of so many genuine and lasting friend- 
 ships, and fewer still have the power of in- 
 spiring such enthusiastic love in those with 
 whom they come in contact. Through all 
 his life we see him surrounded by friends, 
 not humble admirers (like the goldsmith of 
 Bergamo) who must worship him from a 
 distance, not princely patrons who delighted 
 to do him honor, but friends whom he loved 
 and trusted, and who repaid him in kind. 
 His ideal of friendship was very high. " It 
 cannot be founded on self-interest," he said. 
 
BOCCACCIO. 193 
 
 " In friendship you must seek only friend- 
 ship. The true friend thinks only of his 
 friend." His own disinterestedness is shown 
 by the substantial favors which he was always 
 conferring upon his friends, and by his gen- 
 erous offers to share his home and his in- 
 come with such of them as needed it. 
 
 The list of Petrarch's chosen friends is too 
 long for mention, and of many of them we 
 know little, save that they enjoyed his friend- 
 ship. Many names that were of great im- 
 portance in their day have been preserved 
 from oblivion only because they are so often 
 mentioned in the letters of Petrarch. Even 
 his Laelius and his Socrates, two of the old- 
 est and most trusted friends, with whom he 
 sustained confidential relations for more than 
 thirty years, are but shadowy figures. We 
 know so little of their history and personal- 
 ity that we are apt to think of them merely 
 as the recipients of Petrarch's letters. We 
 know nothing of what they gave back in 
 3 
 
194 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 return for his confidence, his encouragement, 
 and his many marks of affection. 
 
 With Boccaccio it is different. The strik- 
 ing individuality of both men made this 
 friendship of the fourteenth century unique 
 in the history of letters. Petrarch and Boc- 
 caccio were the greatest living writers, not 
 only of Italy but of the world; and it was 
 certainly of great advantage to the world that 
 instead of any rivalry between them there 
 existed only the closest friendship. Instead 
 of each forming a school, they worked to- 
 gether in perfect harmony, the one perfect- 
 ing Italian verse, the other creating Italian 
 prose, both laboring to arouse the world 
 to a knowledge and appreciation of the long 
 neglected classics, thus preparing the way 
 for the wonderful awakening of the follow- 
 ing century, called the Renaissance. 
 
 Their friendship began in 1350. From an 
 expression in a letter of Boccaccio's to Pe- 
 trarch's son-in-law, some have thought it of 
 
BOCCACCIO. 195 
 
 older date ; but since Petrarch in describing 
 their meeting in 1350, states explicitly that 
 Boccaccio had never seen him, the expres- 
 sion, " I have been his for more than forty 
 years," must be taken to mean, " I have ad- 
 mired him for more than forty years." There 
 had probably been some correspondence be- 
 tween them, for Petrarch mentions a Latin 
 poem sent him by Boccaccio in praise of 
 his " Africa." 
 
 The first meeting occurred in 1350, when 
 Petrarch visited Florence on his way to the 
 Jubilee at Rome. On this his first visit to 
 his native city, Boccaccio came to meet 
 him, and entertained him in his own house, 
 treating him with a reverence and courtesy 
 which the poet gratefully declared were 
 far beyond his deserts. Each was instantly 
 attracted to the other ; and a friendship was 
 contracted which was never interrupted by 
 a shadow of ill will, and which continued 
 until the death of Petrarch, twenty-four years 
 
196 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 later. The intimate and personal character 
 of their correspondence shows that the friend- 
 ship was not merely a literary one. 
 
 Little more than a year after their first 
 meeting, Boccaccio was chosen by the gov- 
 ernment of Florence to convey to Petrarch, at 
 Padua, the invitation to return to his native 
 city and to fill a chair in her university. It 
 is pleasant to read Boccaccio's description 
 of his stay under Petrarch's roof, how the 
 latter gave the daylight hours to his usual 
 work of studying and writing, while the guest 
 passed the time in reading and copying the 
 writings of his host, which he had long 
 wished to possess. At evening they would 
 repair to the garden, and give themselves 
 up to the discussion of the two subjects 
 dearest to their hearts, literature and Italy. 
 The fact that Petrarch evaded the invitation 
 of Florence, and that the Signory recalled 
 the gift of his estates, made no difference in 
 the relation of the two friends. Their corre- 
 
BOCCACCIO. 197 
 
 spondence continued as frank and intimate 
 as before. 
 
 Notwithstanding Boccaccio's reverence for 
 his master, as he loved to call him, there was 
 no subservience of opinion. The younger 
 man did not hesitate to express his disap- 
 proval of Petrarch's residence at Milan. " I 
 ought not to speak," he says, " but I cannot 
 keep silence. My respect and veneration 
 for you command silence, but indignation 
 at that which I have heard forces me to 
 speak." Not only did Petrarch not resent 
 his interference, but took pains to answer 
 his reproaches and justify his own course. 
 
 At another time Boccaccio mildly reproved 
 his friend for not having in his own library a 
 copy of the Divine Comedy. Being himself 
 an enthusiastic worshipper of the great poet, 
 whose life he had written and whose Comedy 
 he expounded in the last year of his life, he 
 resented Petrarch's neglect of Dante. He 
 therefore presented him with a copy of the 
 
198 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 Divine Comedy, accompanying the gift with 
 the suggestion that Petrarch ought not to 
 give color to the accusation that he envied 
 his great predecessor. 
 
 Petrarch defends himself at length from 
 the charge of envy. " No sin is farther 
 from me, none more unknown to me," he 
 says, " than envy. As to Dante in particu- 
 lar, I have no reason to hate him who lived 
 on terms of intimacy with my father and 
 my grandfather, and was banished with them 
 by their political adversaries. I admire his 
 steadfastness of purpose, not to be bent by 
 poverty or persecution." He adds that he 
 has intentionally neglected Dante for fear of 
 unconsciously imitating him. Now that his 
 own style is formed, that danger no longer 
 exists. He concedes to Dante the first rank 
 among the writers of the vulgar tongue. But 
 Petrarch is sincere in believing that his own 
 works will outrank Dante's, not because of 
 their matter, but because they are written in 
 
BOCCACCIO. 199 
 
 the noble Latin tongue while Dante's are 
 in the vernacular. Petrarch can never be- 
 lieve that Italian, the tongue of the people, 
 can ever become the language of literature. 
 " How can I envy him who has devoted his 
 whole life to that to which I gave only the 
 flower and first fruits of my youth ? " x 
 
 Petrarch himself could also reprove and 
 admonish when occasion required. Boccac- 
 cio acknowledges his indebtedness to his 
 " master " for turning him away from a life 
 of vanity and pleasure. 
 
 But the exchange of favors was not limited 
 to good advice. Knowing Petrarch's passion 
 for the classics, and the difficulty of obtain- 
 ing correct copies, Boccaccio copied with 
 his own hand a number of the works of 
 Cicero and of Varro as a gift to his friend. 
 " Before I am through thanking you for one 
 favor you do me another," writes Petrarch. 
 Boccaccio also sent him a copy of Saint 
 1 Ep k Pam., xxi. 15. 
 
200 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 Augustine, which Petrarch declared would 
 cause him to pass " many days without eat- 
 ing, and nights without sleeping." This copy 
 is now in the National Library at Paris, 
 and is made invaluable by containing the 
 autographs of Petrarch and Boccaccio. 
 Boccaccio made himself the defender of Pe- 
 trarch's fame, answering with vehement wrath 
 the critics who attacked it. 
 
 On the other hand, Petrarch was never 
 weary of bestowing substantial favors on 
 Boccaccio. When the latter was in need, as 
 often happened, his friend forced money 
 upon him. He urged him again and again 
 to share his home and his fortune. " I can- 
 not make you rich," he said, " but I have 
 plenty for two who have only one heart and 
 live under one roof." " Why do you talk 
 to me of debt ? " he writes again. " You 
 owe me nothing but love, and that you have 
 already paid in advance." 
 
 Boccaccio visited Petrarch at Milan, at 
 
BOCCACCIO. 201 
 
 Padua, and at Venice, sometimes remaining 
 his guest for months at a time. It was 
 owing to Petrarch's influence that he began 
 the study of Greek, and labored for its revi- 
 val in Italy. Petrarch had himself attempted 
 to learn the language some years earlier, but 
 had been deprived of his teacher before he 
 had made more than a beginning. This did 
 not abate his zeal, and he never ceased to 
 regret that " Homer was mute to him, while 
 he was deaf to Homer." He now urged Boc- 
 caccio to seize the opportunity that had 
 escaped him ; and he aided him in securing 
 the services of Leontius Pilatus, a Greek 
 scholar, who happened to be in Venice dur- 
 ing one of Boccaccio's visits to Petrarch. 
 
 Boccaccio persuaded the Greek to accom- 
 pany him to Florence, and there obtained 
 for him a professorship in the university, 
 thus securing for himself the advantage of 
 instruction, and for his native city, the dis- 
 tinction of being the first in Western Europe 
 
202 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 to found a chair of Greek, after centuries of 
 neglect. The novelist's zeal for the study may 
 be judged from the fact that he kept this 
 eccentric professor in his home for nearly 
 three years, although a more forbidding 
 guest can scarcely be imagined. " Dirty, 
 unkempt, and overbearing, in fact this Leone 
 is in all respects a perfect brute," says Pe- 
 trarch. They however obtained through him 
 what they had so long desired, a Latin 
 translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey. 
 This was the first complete Latin version of 
 the poems of Homer, and Petrarch's copy of 
 it is still in existence. It is one of the manu- 
 scripts recently discovered in the Paris Na- 
 tional Library by M. de Nolhac, bearing 
 marginal notes in Petrarch's handwriting, 
 and, as was customary with him, an account 
 of its acquisition. " Written at home, begun 
 at Padua, finished at Pavia, illuminated and 
 bound at Milan in 1369." 
 
 Disagreeable as he was, they would gladly 
 
BOCCACCIO. 203 
 
 have retained their Greek professor; but he 
 soon became tired of Florence. Having ac- 
 companied Boccaccio to Venice on a visit 
 to Petrarch, he asked leave to remain there 
 for a time, promising soon to return to Flor- 
 ence. Instead, came a letter from Petrarch, 
 announcing that the bird had flown. He 
 had made every effort to detain him, but 
 found him deaf and immovable, and finally, 
 " for fear his temper might prove conta- 
 gious," was obliged to let him depart. " He 
 left me with many sallies of bitter invec- 
 tive against Italy and everything Latin ; but 
 scarcely has he reached his destination than 
 I get from him a letter longer and pricklier 
 than his beard, in which he praises Italy 
 and curses Constantinople, which he used 
 to laud to the skies. He also asks me for 
 an invitation to come back to Italy with 
 more fervor than that with which the drown- 
 ing Peter prayed for his rescue from the 
 waves ; But he will never have a letter from 
 
204 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 me to call him back again. Let him stay where 
 he wanted to go, and live in misery where 
 he went with insolence." x The unfortunate 
 Greek attempted, however, to return to Italy, 
 but perished in a storm on the journey. 
 
 Petrarch was enabled by his sound judg- 
 ment to render Boccaccio another signal 
 service, one which proved to be also a 
 service to posterity. In 1363, while Boccac- 
 cio was still busily engaged in the study of 
 Greek under Leontino, he received a visit 
 from a Carthusian monk, who professed to 
 bring him a supernatural message. A holy 
 brother named Petronius, who had died re- 
 cently in Siena, had been granted on his 
 deathbed a vision of Christ and the gift of 
 prophecy. He had commissioned his brother 
 monk to carry a message, first to Boccaccio, 
 then to other scholars of Naples, France, and 
 England, and finally to Petrarch. Boccaccio 
 was warned that he must at once reform his 
 1 Let. Sen., Hi. 6 
 
BOCCACCIO. 205 
 
 morals, cease to pervert his talents by writ- 
 ing of love, and above all, abandon the 
 study of poetry and profane letters, and de- 
 vote the remnant of his life to prayer and 
 repentance. Should he disregard this warn- 
 ing, he would have but few years here and 
 eternal punishment hereafter. The monk 
 strengthened his authority, after the manner 
 of modern seers, by repeating to Boccaccio 
 a secret which the latter believed to be 
 known to none but himself. 
 
 Boccaccio had a strong vein of superstition 
 in his nature, and was greatly awed and terri- 
 fied by the monk's communication. It is be- 
 lieved that it was at this time he adopted the 
 habit of a monk. At any rate he resolved 
 to change the tenor of his life, to renounce 
 the muses and the classics, and to sell his 
 books in order to remove temptation. He 
 wrote to Petrarch announcing his resolution, 
 and offering him the refusal of his library at 
 his own price. 
 
206 LIFE OF PETRARCH, 
 
 Petrarch, who despised astrology, quack- 
 ery, and deception of every kind, was not 
 likely to be taken in by a piece of monkish 
 jugglery. His sound sense at once rejected 
 the whole affair as an imposture. " It is a 
 wonderful thing," he said, " for human eyes 
 to have seen Christ, that is, if it be true ; 
 but it is no new thing for folly and false- 
 hood to be covered with the veil of religion, 
 and under the cloak of divinity to conceal 
 human fraud. When I have seen this mes- 
 senger of the dead, I can judge how much 
 credit should be given to his words. We 
 are moved and disturbed by something un- 
 usual and strange, and despise what is well 
 known. What ! Did you not know without 
 this monk that life is short? Any child 
 could tell you that; saints and philoso- 
 phers teach you the same. Of the advice, 
 take what is good, throw away worldly 
 cares and reform your life and mind; but 
 do not abandon your studies. Believe me, 
 
BOCCACCIO. 207 
 
 many things are born of idleness and igno- 
 rance that are attributed to prudence and 
 wisdom. Neither the love of virtue nor the 
 thought of death need turn you from the 
 study of letters, the natural food of a healthy 
 mind, although distasteful and nauseous to 
 the weak. Many, it is true, have reached a 
 high degree of sanctity without learning, but 
 learning never hindered any one from be- 
 coming holy. There are many roads that 
 lead to heaven, but ignorance is the only 
 one for the idle. Show me the greatest 
 saint you can find ignorant of letters, and I 
 will show you a scholar still more holy." x 
 He adds, however, that if Boccaccio is firmly 
 resolved to abandon his studies and to sell 
 his books, he is willing to buy them, " being 
 always greedy of books, and unwilling that 
 the library of such a man should pass into 
 profane hands." He hopes their united li- 
 braries may be placed where they will pre- 
 
 1 Let. Sen., i. 4. 
 
208 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 serve their memory after death. He closes 
 by repeating his urgent invitation to Boc- 
 caccio to share his home and have the use 
 of his books. " You do me wrong if you 
 deny me, and a still greater wrong if you 
 do not believe me." 
 
 Boccaccio was convinced by the reasoning 
 of his friend, and returned to his studies. 
 
 In view of the intimacy existing between 
 them, it is difficult to understand how Pe- 
 trarch could so long have remained ignorant 
 of the work upon which Boccaccio's fame 
 chiefly rests; but it is true that the De- 
 cameron only came into his hands in the 
 last year of his life. The fact is a startling 
 reminder of the limited circulation of books 
 before the invention of printing. Either the 
 modesty of Boccaccio, or his fear of Pe- 
 trarch's disapproval, prevented his making 
 the work known to the one whose opinion 
 he respected more than any one's else in 
 the world. 
 
BOCCACCIO. 209 
 
 Petrarch found much in the Decameron 
 to admire, particularly the description of 
 the plague in Florence, with which the work 
 opens. " I am astonished," he said, " at the 
 mastery with which you have painted this 
 terrible scourge of our land." He was will- 
 ing to overlook the freedom and licentious- 
 ness of some of the tales " on account of 
 the youth of the author, the language in 
 which they were written, and the audience 
 for whom they were composed." The beau- 
 tiful story of Griselda so charmed him that 
 he learned it by heart, and repeated it to his 
 friends ; and, unwilling to leave it to so lim- 
 ited an audience, and so short a life as it 
 would obtain in the vulgar tongue, he him- 
 self translated it into Latin. The last letter 
 ever written by Petrarch was a letter to 
 Boccaccio on this subject of Griselda. 
 
 In Petrarch's gardening notes, recently 
 brought to light by M. de Nolhac, is found 
 an allusion to one of Boccaccio's visits, 
 14 
 
2IO LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 which gives a pleasant picture of the infor- 
 mal intercourse of the two prophets of the 
 Renaissance. Petrarch, who was especially 
 fond of cultivating the laurel, had received 
 from a friend five specimens, two of a deli- 
 cate character, and three of a hardier variety, 
 and on Saturday, the 16th of March, 1359, 
 was planting them. After carefully noting 
 down, as was his wont, in his gardening 
 book, the state of the weather and the con- 
 dition of the soil, he adds : " It ought to be 
 of great advantage to the growth of these 
 sacred trees that that illustrious man, John 
 Boccaccio of Certaldo, a friend to the laurel 
 and to me, having arrived accidentally just 
 at this time, was present at the planting." 
 
 As Petrarch lost one by one the friends 
 to whom he was attached, he became still 
 more dependent upon the friendship and 
 sympathy of Boccaccio. The latter begged 
 his master to outlive him, but Petrarch re- 
 plied : " On the contrary, I desire to die 
 
BOCCACCIO. 211 
 
 before you do, that I may leave some one 
 behind me in whose memory and whose 
 words I may live, and by whom I may be 
 loved and regretted." 1 He remembered 
 Boccaccio in his will, leaving him fifty gold 
 florins to buy a winter cloak for his nightly 
 studies, although he was ashamed, he said, 
 "to leave so small a sum to so great a man." 
 Boccaccio was overwhelmed with grief at 
 the death of Petrarch, and survived him but 
 a few months. He gave much time and care 
 to preserving from destruction the manuscript 
 of " Africa," the great epic upon which he 
 firmly believed the fame of Petrarch would 
 rest. One of the last things penned by 
 Boccaccio was the sonnet beginning, 
 
 " Now hast thou left me, Master dear." 
 
 1 Let. Sen., xvi. 2. 
 
212 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 THRIVEN from Milan in 1361 by war and 
 "^^^ pestilence, Petrarch could not at once 
 decide upon another home. His first refuge 
 was Padua, where he was sure of a hearty 
 welcome from the lord of the city, Fran- 
 cesco Carrara, son of that James Carrara 
 whom Petrarch had so dearly loved, and who 
 had bestowed a canonicate upon him. The 
 poet had received urgent and repeated invita- 
 tions from the Seneschal of Naples, the King 
 of France, and the Emperor of Germany. 
 These invitations were accompanied with 
 splendid gifts and brilliant promises. " I can- 
 not understand," he says, " why these warlike 
 princes take so much pains for a poor clergy- 
 man, already middle-aged." The Pope also 
 desired his presence at Avignon. Innocent 
 
VENICE. 213 
 
 VI., who but a short time before had regarded 
 him as a magician on account of his familiarity 
 with Virgil, had so far forgotten his prejudice 
 that he had twice proffered him the office of 
 Papal secretary, and after his refusal had con- 
 ferred upon him two benefices^ 
 
 Notwithstanding the many flattering offers 
 he received, Petrarch felt no inclination to 
 become the guest of a foreign court. He 
 was weary however of the intestine wars of 
 Italy, and decided to return to his solitude 
 of Vaucluse. Hardly had he begun the 
 journey when he was obliged to abandon it. 
 The war between the lord of Milan and his 
 neighbors had filled that part of the country 
 with bands of foreign mercenaries, who made 
 all roads to France unsafe for travellers. 
 
 Petrarch then decided to obey the oft- 
 repeated summons of the Emperor of Ger- 
 many, but found the roads to the north 
 equally impassable from the presence of 
 condottiere. Not only was he unable to 
 
214 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 continue his journey, but the return was cut 
 off; and he could only take refuge in Venice. 
 
 It was fortunate for Italy that Petrarch was 
 thus prevented from crossing her boundaries, 
 to end his days in a foreign land. It was 
 also fortunate for Humanism ; for no other 
 soil was so well prepared as that of Italy to 
 receive the seed which he was constantly 
 sowing during the last ten years of his life, 
 the years of his most zealous activity in 
 humanistic studies. 
 
 A few months later we find Petrarch again 
 at Padua ; but the plague having reached that 
 city, his friends urged him to flee. Although 
 Petrarch replied philosophically that it was 
 not the part of a wise man to fear death, and 
 that it was folly to flee from it, he yielded to 
 their entreaties and returned to Venice. 
 
 The city of the lagoons now seemed to the 
 poet the most delightful harbor he could find ; 
 and he planned to remain there as the guest 
 of the Republic, and to bequeath to St. Mark's 
 
VENICE. 215 
 
 his valuable collection of manuscripts as a 
 nucleus for a public library. At the sugges- 
 tion of his friend the chancellor, Benintendi, 
 he submitted to the Senate a proposition to 
 donate to the city such books as he had, and 
 those which he might possess in the future, 
 on condition that they should not be sold or 
 dispersed in any manner, but should be kept 
 in a safe place, in his name, for the use of 
 the scholars and nobles of the city. He 
 adds the hope that the city may enlarge the 
 collection, and that other citizens may follow 
 his example, so that a great and famous 
 library may grow up like those of the an- 
 cients. He desires in the mean time, for 
 himself and for the said books, a house " not 
 large, but decent." The Senate accepted the 
 offer in barbarous Latin, which must have 
 grated on the ear of Petrarch : 
 
 " Having considered how much to the praise of 
 God and of Saint Mark, and to the honor and fame 
 of our city, is the offer of Signor Francis Petrarch, 
 
2l6 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 whose fame to-day is such in the whole world, 
 that within the memory of man there has never been 
 among Christians a moral philosopher or poet who 
 could be compared to him, we therefore accept 
 the offer, written with his own hand. We will pro- 
 vide during his lifetime a suitable home, and the 
 proctors of St. Mark's will arrange for the preserva- 
 tion of his books." 
 
 Having accepted his offer, the Senate as- 
 signed to Petrarch the " palace of the two 
 towers " on the Riva degli Schiavoni, looking 
 out over the sea ; and here in 1362 he came 
 to reside, bringing with him his daughter and 
 his son-in-law. His residence however was not 
 uninterrupted, for it was his habit to pass the 
 Lenten season and Easter in Padua, fulfilling 
 the duties of his canonry; the summer in 
 Pavia as the guest of Galeazzo Visconti ; and 
 the remainder of the year in Venice. 
 
 Pleased with the " vast palace which this 
 free and liberal city had conceded to him for 
 a dwelling," fascinated by the unaccustomed 
 view of the sea, and by the "elect friends" 
 
VENICE. 217 
 
 whose acquaintance he had made, Petrarch 
 could not say enough in praise of Venice. 
 " This city is, in our day, the only home of 
 justice, peace, and liberty," he writes to 
 Pietro da Bologna, " the only refuge for the 
 good, and the only harbor for those who seek 
 to lead a quiet life after being beaten about 
 by war and tyranny. A city rich in gold, 
 but richer in fame; powerful in arms, but 
 more powerful in virtue ; built on solid foun- 
 dations of marble, but also upon the still 
 more solid base of civil concord ; girdled by 
 the waters of the sea, and better still by the 
 counsels of the wise." 1 
 
 In his letters Petrarch has given many de- 
 lightful glimpses of Venetian life in the four- 
 teenth century. To Boccaccio he writes, 
 urging him to repeat his visit to Venice, 
 " You will find such company that I do not 
 believe you could desire better. The chan- 
 cellor of this noble city, after giving the 
 
 1 Let. Sen., iv. 3. 
 
218 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 whole day to public affairs, comes at even- 
 ing with joyful and friendly mien, in his 
 gondola, to refresh himself with familiar con- 
 versation. And you know by experience 
 how charming and delightful are those noc- 
 turnal rambles upon the water, and how 
 sincere and agreeable those conversations." 
 What more pleasing picture can we find than 
 that of the gray-haired poet and the portly, 
 good-humored story-teller, both in the even- 
 ing of life, gliding in their gondolas by 
 moonlight over the quiet waters of the la- 
 goons, talking not of Laura or of Fiammetta, 
 but discussing with the learned chancellor 
 and other friends, questions of philosophy, 
 politics, and literature? 
 
 At another time Petrarch shows us Venice 
 in gala dress, celebrating a victory gained 
 over Crete. From his window looking out 
 over the sea, he beheld the approach of the 
 victorious galley, covered with banners and 
 green branches, and the people streaming 
 
VENICE. 219 
 
 to the mole from all parts of the city to hear 
 the glorious tidings. The public rejoicings 
 lasted many days, consisting of solemn 
 thanksgivings in the church of St. Mark's, 
 a magnificent procession in which the people 
 and the clergy took part, and finally feastings, 
 races, and a tournament in the grand piazza, 
 " before the golden facade of the temple." 
 
 Petrarch's description of the equestrian 
 feats proves that horses were much better 
 known in Venice at that day than at present. 
 "Four and twenty noble Venetian youths, 
 beautiful in person, and richly clothed, took 
 part, managing their coursers so that they 
 looked like angels flying rather than men 
 riding. It was a fine sight to see so many 
 young men decked in purple and gold, rul- 
 ing their horses with the rein and urging 
 them with the spur, the steeds also in glit- 
 tering harness, and with iron-shod feet, which 
 seemed scarcely to touch the ground." 1 
 !Let. Sen., iv. 3. 
 
220 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 From the marble gallery of St. Mark's, 
 shaded by rich and gayly colored awnings, 
 in front of the four bronze horses, which 
 almost seemed to stamp and neigh, the doge, 
 surrounded by a crowd of magnates and 
 nobles, witnessed the proceedings; and at 
 his right hand, as the guest whom he de- 
 lighted to honor, sat Petrarch. The piazza 
 below was so crowded with spectators that 
 a grain of barley could not have fallen to the 
 ground. The church, the towers, the roofs, 
 the arcades, the windows, were running over, 
 walled and paved with people, piled upon 
 each other. A little to the right was a 
 wooden platform upon which were seated 
 four hundred of the most elect ladies, the 
 flower of the nobility, distinguished for their 
 beauty and their rich attire, forming an 
 image of a celestial banquet. There were 
 also present a number of English noblemen, 
 relatives of the king. 
 
 From his post of honor at the doge's 
 
VENICE. 221 
 
 right hand, the gray-haired poet watched 
 the gorgeous spectacle for two days; but 
 upon the third day he excused himself, al- 
 leging his many occupations, " known to 
 every one." 
 
 It was in Venice that Petrarch received 
 into his family as a pupil the young scholar 
 from Ravenna to whom he became so warmly 
 attached. The young man had some genius, 
 was an enthusiastic student, and a reverent 
 admirer of Petrarch. The poet employed 
 him as copyist and secretary, and gave him 
 in return instruction in humanistic studies 
 as well as encouragement and inspiration. 
 Petrarch soon learned to love him as a son, 
 " yes, better than a son," he said ; " for the 
 sons of the present day try to govern their 
 fathers, while this young man only strives 
 to obey me. He devotes himself, not to 
 his own pleasure, but to my work ; and this 
 not through ambition or from any hope of 
 reward, but because he loves me, and be- 
 
222 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 lieves he will be better for the association 
 with me." 1 
 
 Great was Petrarch's surprise and grief 
 when the youth decided four years later to 
 leave Venice, in order to travel through 
 Italy and to find an opportunity of study- 
 ing Greek. The poet sought to detain 
 him, but finally yielded, giving him money 
 for his travelling expenses. When, after 
 many unpleasant adventures, he returned 
 a few months later to again beg shelter un- 
 der his patron's roof, Petrarch received him 
 with open arms. He soon became dis- 
 contented a second time, and departed for 
 Rome, and from that time disappeared en- 
 tirely out of Petrarch's life. Nothing further 
 is known of his fate. Efforts have been made 
 to identify him with Giovanni Malpaghini, 
 who was so prominent in humanistic studies 
 in the beginning of the next century, but the 
 proof is insufficient. 
 
 1 Ep. Fam., xxiii. 19. 
 
VENICE. 223 
 
 Petrarch's honored and peaceful life in 
 Venice had one drawback, the prevalence 
 of infidelity. Much as he might inveigh 
 against the corruptions of the Papal court, 
 never hesitating to rebuke popes and car- 
 dinals, describing one pontiff as a drunkard, 
 another as a profligate, and a third as a fool, 
 he did not once allow his indignation and 
 scorn against the representatives of the 
 Church to extend to the Church itself. Lib- 
 eral and modern as he was in many of his 
 opinions, he nevertheless maintained a firm 
 belief in the tenets of the Church, and re- 
 mained a devout Catholic, rising at mid- 
 night to engage in prayer, and observing 
 the various fast-days so rigidly as to injure 
 his health. As he grew older he became 
 still more orthodox, and more intolerant of 
 free-thinkers. It was a great grief to him 
 therefore to find Venice filled with Averro- 
 ism, which was just then the fashionable 
 form of infidelity. His long feud with the 
 
224 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 physicians indeed, was largely a fight against 
 the teachings of Averroes. 
 
 There were in Venice many wise young 
 men who made Aristotle their divinity (al- 
 though they knew nothing of him except 
 through the corrupt version of Averroes), 
 and who took pride in scoffing at the doc- 
 trines of the Church. A number of these 
 young philosophers were among Petrarch's 
 friends and acquaintances, and his patience 
 was often sorely tried by them. Upon one 
 occasion he lost his patience entirely, when 
 a young man who visited him made a con- 
 temptuous comparison between Saint Paul 
 and the Arabian philosopher. " I could 
 hardly keep my hands off him/' he says. 
 " ' It is an old story to me/ I said to 
 him, 'this discussion with heretics like you. 
 Now go to the Evil One with your heresy, 
 and come here no more, ' and taking him 
 by the cloak with less courtesy than is 
 customary with me, but not less than his 
 
VENICE. 22 5 
 
 manners deserved, I put him out of my 
 house." 1 
 
 Naturally, with such positive opinions and 
 such a forcible manner of expressing them, 
 Petrarch came to be as much an object of 
 dislike to the Averroists as they to him; 
 and he was frequently involved in unpleas- 
 ant discussions with them. Four young 
 Venetians, notwithstanding the fact that they 
 were friends of the poet, in the habit of 
 visiting him, and always kindly received by 
 him, did not hesitate, in the insolence of 
 youth, to cast ridicule upon him. They 
 held a mock trial to decide whether this 
 man, whom all the world had agreed to 
 honor, was worthy of the fame which he 
 had acquired ; and after pretending to weigh 
 the evidence on both sides, they rendered 
 a formal verdict to the effect that Petrarch 
 was " a good man, but ignorant." 
 
 At this distance we are surprised that 
 1 Let. Sen., v. 2. 
 *5 
 
226 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 Petrarch, secure in his proud position, should 
 have been seriously disturbed by such a 
 trifle, or that he should have thought the 
 impertinence worthy of a reply. That both 
 he and his friends did regard it seriously, 
 however, is shown by the fact that Boccac- 
 cio wrote a scathing reproof to the young 
 men, and that Petrarch's admirers insisted 
 upon his defending himself. The result 
 was his treatise " Upon his own Ignorance 
 and that of many Others," in which he 
 pours upon the four young Venetians all 
 the satire and invective at his command, 
 though without once mentioning them by 
 name, because he "wishes to render them 
 neither famous nor infamous." 
 
 This affair made Venice so distasteful to 
 Petrarch that in 1367, after passing the 
 summer in Pavia, instead of returning as 
 usual to Venice, he passed the winter in 
 Padua, and from that time dwelt no more 
 in the " palace of the two towers." 
 
VENICE. 227 
 
 If the generally received account be a 
 true one, the library which Petrarch had 
 collected with so much labor and expense, 
 and which he had bequeathed to the patron 
 saint of the Republic in the hope that it 
 would form the nucleus of a great public 
 library, met with a curious fate. The tra- 
 dition is that at his death the books were 
 consigned to the proctors of the church of 
 St. Mark, and placed in a little room over 
 the famous bronze horses. Here they were 
 so utterly forgotten that when in 1422 the 
 Senate decided to build a library, and when 
 in 1468 the Republic came into possession 
 of another valuable collection of manu- 
 scripts, no one thought of removing the 
 library of Petrarch from its hiding-place. 
 Although in 1529 a fine building was erected 
 for the library of St. Mark's, and a decree 
 passed that a copy of every book published 
 in the dominion should be presented to 
 this library, which had become one of the 
 
228 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 finest in Europe, no one remembered the 
 gift with which Petrarch, with instincts far 
 in advance of his age, had sought to lay 
 the foundation for this very result. 
 
 In 1634, two hundred years after the 
 death of Petrarch, the memory of this be- 
 quest was revived by two gentlemen, one 
 of whom was a Venetian, the other a Pad- 
 uan; and through their efforts a learned 
 monk was deputed to examine the manu- 
 scripts in the room where they had so long 
 been buried. They were found " almost 
 ruined by the dampness, some of them 
 nearly petrified, others corroded and rotten." 
 Nevertheless, there were some which were 
 not entirely destroyed. But even then no 
 steps were taken to preserve this once val- 
 uable collection. They were left where they 
 were, to continue to decay; and not until 
 1739 were they removed and added to the 
 library of St. Mark's. 
 
 Certain recent biographers of Petrarch 
 
VENICE. 229 
 
 discredit this story, and refuse to charge 
 the Venetian Republic with such criminal 
 carelessness. The bequest, they claim, was 
 never carried out, and only a small part of 
 the poet's library was left in Venice. In 
 the paper which he presented to the Senate, 
 Petrarch proposed to give them not only 
 the books which he owned, but also those 
 which he might possess in future. It is cer- 
 tain that this part of the design was never 
 fulfilled, and that the books which he had 
 with him when he died were not sent to 
 Venice, but fell into different hands, and 
 are still preserved in the libraries of Flor- 
 ence, Paris, Rome, and Milan. 
 
 Many of these books are of great value 
 on account of the copious marginal notes 
 which Petrarch was in the habit of adding 
 to every work he read. It is fortunate for 
 the world, therefore, that the entire library 
 was not buried in the little room assigned 
 to its use by the proctors of St. Mark's. 
 
230 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 PADUA AND ARQUA. 
 
 A FALSE report of Petrarch's death in 
 1365 had deprived him of one of the 
 livings in his possession as well as of the 
 canonry of Carpentras, which the Pope had 
 promised him. The canonry of Padua was 
 therefore the most important benefice he now 
 possessed. After leaving Venice, Padua be- 
 came his natural home, both on account of 
 his canonry and of his warm affection for the 
 lord of Padua, Francesco di Carrara, whose 
 father had first persuaded Petrarch to remove 
 to Italy twenty years before. 
 
 There are many passages in the letters of 
 Petrarch showing the beautiful relation exist- 
 ing between the aged poet and the young 
 prince. The attitude of the latter toward 
 
PADUA AND ARQUA. 23 1 
 
 Petrarch was that of an affectionate son 
 toward a father; and he treated the poet to 
 the end of his life with the most tender 
 respect, visiting him often in his own home, 
 meeting him at the city gates on his return 
 from his journeys, and showing in many ways 
 the honor and esteem in which he held him. 
 He complained frequently that Petrarch had 
 written something for every friend except 
 himself, and begged for some writing which 
 should be his alone. 
 
 In answer to this request Petrarch wrote in 
 the form of a letter to his patron a treatise 
 on government, entitled, " What he should be 
 who governs his Country." The first duty 
 of a prince, he says, is to make himself 
 loved instead of feared. He praises the 
 modesty of Francesco in signing his name 
 simply, without any title, and in mingling 
 freely with his people. He makes some 
 practical suggestions for the immediate im- 
 provement of Padua which one would 
 
232 LIFE OF PETRARCH, 
 
 scarcely expect to find in a treatise of this 
 kind, and which give curious glimpses of 
 customs then prevailing. He urges, for 
 instance, the abolition of the custom of allow- 
 ing everybody's pigs to roam at will through 
 the streets of the city, frightening the horses 
 and disgusting the passers-by. He advises 
 the draining of the swamps around Padua, and 
 is willing to contribute for this purpose from 
 his own purse. He begs the prince to do 
 away with the ridiculous custom then com- 
 mon in Padua of allowing a train of women 
 to follow a funeral procession through the 
 streets, " howling, groaning, and wailing in 
 such a manner that a stranger would take 
 them for maniacs, or would think the city 
 was in the hands of the enemy." " Do not 
 think these are little things," he adds, " and 
 beneath your dignity. It is the duty of a 
 prince to look after the welfare of his people 
 in small things as well as in great." 
 
 About the time of Petrarch's departure 
 
PADUA AND ARQUA. 233 
 
 from Venice he was made happy by the ful- 
 filment of one of his fondest dreams, the 
 return of the Papal court to Rome. He re- 
 garded Rome not only as the legitimate seat 
 of the empire, but also as the rightful home 
 of the Church. " So long as Rome remains 
 deprived of both her chiefs," he said, " human 
 affairs can never go right, nor can the Chris- 
 tian republic enjoy peace. If either of them 
 return, all will go well ; if both, perfectly and 
 in the fulness of glory and prosperity." 1 
 
 The absence of the Papal court from Italy, 
 and its disgraceful subjection to France, had 
 been a life-long grief to Petrarch and the 
 cause of his intense hatred of Avignon. He 
 had addressed to each successive pontiff 
 earnest letters of entreaty upon the subject ; 
 and on the election of Urban V. he com- 
 posed another burning appeal, longer, more 
 eloquent, more urgent than any of the others. 
 When we remember how much his material 
 
 1 Let. Sen., vii. 1. 
 
234 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 interests depended upon the good-will of 
 the Pontiff we are surprised at the boldness of 
 his language : " The life of man is short, that 
 of popes especially so. Think then, what you 
 will say when you appear before the judg- 
 ment seat of Christ, where you stand not as a 
 master and we as servants, but he alone as 
 master and you a servant like ourselves. 
 What answer will you give to these words? 
 ' Poor and humble, I raised you from the 
 ground, not only as the equal of princes but 
 above them, making them bow reverently 
 at thy feet. Where, then, is the church I 
 committed to thy care? What return hast 
 thou made me for the gifts lavished upon 
 thee? Thou hast kept on the rock of Avig- 
 non the seat placed by my hand upon the 
 capitol. And why? Didst thou think that 
 I perhaps had made a mistake in choosing 
 Rome as the head of the world ? ! " l 
 
 In 1367, the Pope took the decisive step of 
 1 Let. Sen., vii. 1. 
 
PADUA AND ARQUA. 235 
 
 restoring the court to Rome, to the wrath 
 and indignation of his cardinals, but to the 
 unspeakable joy of Petrarch, who hastened 
 to send him a letter of congratulation, re- 
 peating his praises of Italy and his dis- 
 paragement of France. The Pope greatly 
 desired the presence of Petrarch in Rome ; 
 and the latter was also eager to witness what 
 he considered the triumph of the Holy City, 
 but was obliged to defer the pleasure on 
 account of his health. 
 
 At last, in 1370, after receiving another 
 invitation, written by the Pontiff's own hand, 
 the poet decided to undertake the journey, 
 having first made his will. In this document 
 he again shows his affection for the family 
 of Carrara by the request that if he should 
 die in Padua he might be buried in the 
 chapel where the body of Giacomo di Carrara 
 rested. He also bequeathed to Francesco di 
 Carrara a picture of the Virgin, "the work 
 of that distinguished painter Giotto, the 
 
236 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 beauties of which are not recognized by 
 the ignorant but excite the wonder of 
 masters of the art/' 
 
 The journey, however, proved too much for 
 Petrarch's strength. Arrived at Ferrara he 
 fell into a fainting-fit and remained for 
 several hours so apparently lifeless that the 
 report of his death was spread to Padua, 
 Milan, and elsewhere. The lords of Ferrara 
 took him to their own house, and through 
 their care and attention he was restored to 
 life. Utterly unable to continue his jour- 
 ney, he was placed in a boat and carried 
 back to Padua, where he was received by 
 prince and people with joy and wonder as one 
 risen from the dead. Warned by a previous 
 experience, he sent to the Pontiff a full ac- 
 count of the affair, lest the false report of his 
 death should deprive him of the benefices 
 which were left to him. 
 
 The interruption of his journey was a 
 serious disappointment; but had Petrarch 
 
PADUA AND ARQUA. 237 
 
 succeeded in reaching Rome, he would have 
 been still more seriously disappointed. 
 Pope Urban V. was already becoming dis- 
 satisfied with his new home, and in Septem- 
 ber of the same year, yielding to the 
 entreaties of his cardinals he returned to 
 Avignon. Petrarch's grief and indignation 
 were immeasurable, and were expressed, ac- 
 cording to his custom, in a letter, in which 
 he overwhelmed the sick and aged pontiff with 
 reproaches for his cowardice. The letter 
 was never read by the man for whom it was 
 intended, for the unhappy Urban V. died 
 in Avignon three months after his return. 
 
 After the failure of his journey to Rome, 
 Petrarch withdrew to the village of Arqua, 
 " to pass in peace the little that remained of 
 life," in the hope of recovering his health, 
 and of leading a more quiet existence than 
 was possible in noisy Padua. Nothing now 
 remained to him, he said, " but to desire and 
 to consider how to make a good end. Hav- 
 
238 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 ing weighed the matter carefully, I have de- 
 cided to turn my back upon every project, 
 every desire for great things, and to be sat- 
 isfied to live in mediocrity and in solitude. 
 . . . Here among the Euganean hills," he 
 continues, " not too far from my church, 
 not more than ten miles from Padua, I 
 have built me a house, small, but pleasant, 
 surrounded by olives and vines, sufficient 
 for a family not large or imprudent; and 
 here I live, infirm in body but tranquil in 
 mind, away from excitements, distractions, 
 and cares, reading and writing always, and 
 rendering praise and thanks to God for the 
 evil that he sends as well as the good, 
 which evil I believe to be not so much for 
 a punishment as for a trial of my resigna- 
 tion. And above all I pray Christ to grant 
 me a good end, to be generous in pardon 
 and mercy, and to forget the sins of my 
 youth. Wherefore no words are so sweet 
 to me as those of the psalmist, ' Remember 
 
PADUA AND ARQUA. 239 
 
 not, O Lord, the faults and errors of my 
 youth.' ... I have here a goodly number 
 of friends, and more than elsewhere, because 
 those which I had in a thousand other places 
 have been torn from me by death, a mis- 
 fortune inevitable to one who is growing old. 
 Add that the lord of this country a very 
 wise man bears himself toward me not as a 
 prince, but as a loving and reverent son, both 
 from his own natural courtesy and through 
 respect to the memory of his father, who 
 loved me as a brother. I neither abound in 
 wealth nor suffer from poverty, a fate 
 which seems to me the best of all, and which 
 makes me regard as the greatest of treasures 
 the art of being content with what I have 
 and desiring nothing more. If I look around 
 me, I find scarcely a man anywhere with 
 whom I would wish to change places." * 
 
 Of his financial condition and mode of life, 
 the poet says : " If I should say that I had 
 
 1 Let. Sen , xv. 5. 
 
240 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 not enough for a canon to live on comfort- 
 ably, I should speak falsely. But this I can 
 say truthfully, that I have more company 
 than all the rest of the chapter together. 
 Nor do I know how to make it less. There- 
 fore I often find myself in domestic straits 
 which are perhaps honorable but burden- 
 some. I possess here a prebend which 
 yields me bread and wine, not only for my 
 own use, but to sell. I could have much 
 more if I should reside at my benefice ; but 
 I shun cities as I would prisons, and I would 
 rather suffer hunger in the solitude of the 
 fields than to live in abundance and luxury 
 in the city. Yet there is no retreat so soli- 
 tary that it will protect me from the impor- 
 tunity of visitors. I have many servants, 
 would to God I could live without any, but 
 this I cannot do because I am old and fee- 
 ble. I never have less than two horses. Of 
 copyists I have usually four or five. If I 
 have only three now, it is because it is very 
 
PADUA AND ARQUA. 241 
 
 difficult to find good ones, although illumi- 
 nators are less rare. My companion is an 
 old priest, who always goes with me to the 
 church ; but it is a rare thing for him to be 
 alone with me at table. Often just at the 
 dinner hour we see a crowd of guests arriv- 
 ing, hungry for food and conversation. Nor 
 can I bar my door against them without 
 seeming more penurious or more proud than 
 I really am." x 
 
 Many of these visitors were drawn thither 
 by their admiration of Petrarch's writings, 
 others merely by curiosity to see a man 
 with a world-wide reputation. " There is no 
 corner retired enough," he says elsewhere, 
 " no shadows are heavy enough, to protect 
 me from the honorable but painful burden 
 of visits." 
 
 Petrarch's health had been greatly shattered 
 by repeated attacks of his " familiar enemy," 
 the tertian fever. He was also subject to 
 1 Ep. Var., 15. 
 
 16 
 
242 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 prolonged fainting-fits, which had all the 
 appearance of death. In his letters from 
 Arqua he complains frequently of illness 
 and declining strength, but he refused all 
 medical aid, and laughed at the advice of 
 physicians. Soon after his removal to Arqua 
 he was visited by a severe attack of illness 
 which the physicians, called in by his friends, 
 agreed in pronouncing fatal. He would die 
 before midnight, they said, although if he 
 could be kept from falling asleep by bind- 
 ing his limbs, he might possibly live until 
 daylight. Petrarch, in his contempt for their 
 knowledge, refused to be kept awake. He 
 fell into a long and refreshing slumber, and 
 when the physicians returned in the morn- 
 ing they were amazed to see their patient 
 sitting at his table writing as if nothing had 
 happened. They pronounced his recovery 
 a miracle, and the poet's opinion of their wis- 
 dom was not heightened by the incident. 
 In spite of his growing feebleness, Petrarch 
 
PADUA AND ARQUA. 243 
 
 devoted himself to study as zealously as ever. 
 " To read, to write, to think," he says, " are 
 now, as they were in my youth, my dearest 
 pleasures. I am astonished that having stud- 
 ied so constantly for so many years, I have 
 learned so little." He begrudged even the 
 needful time for rest. " Time enough for 
 sleep when we are underground," he said. 
 It was his habit in his old age to have a pen 
 attached to his ear at night, so that in case 
 a thought occurred to him in bed he could 
 write it down in the dark. 
 
 To Boccaccio, who urged moderation in 
 these occupations, he writes : " Work and 
 study are the food of my mind. When I 
 begin to rest and to slow up, I shall soon 
 cease to live. I know my own strength; I 
 am not fit for other labors. Reading and 
 writing, which you command me to leave 
 off, are hardly labor to me ; they are rather 
 a sweet repose which makes me oblivious 
 of heavier cares. . . . There is no burden 
 
244 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 lighter or more agreeable than a pen. . . . 
 Of all earthly pleasures," he adds, " there is 
 none more genuine than letters ; none more 
 durable, none more pleasant or more faith- 
 ful, none which gives its possessor so little 
 trouble or weariness." 1 At Arqua he revised 
 his " Triumph of Death," completed the trea- 
 tise " On his own Ignorance, and that of 
 many Others," and wrote another prose work, 
 equally characteristic. 
 
 A certain Frenchman, indignant at Pe- 
 trarch's slurs against France in his letters 
 to Urban V., had written an abusive reply 
 in which he defended his own country and 
 disparaged Italy. The work did not fall 
 into Petrarch's hands until after his removal 
 to Arqua, when he wrote his " Answer to 
 the Slanders of an Anonymous Gaul," in 
 which he gives forcibly and amusingly his 
 opinion of the French, and describes their 
 characteristics. 
 
 1 Let. Sen., xvii. 2. 
 
PADUA AND ARQUA. 245 
 
 The poet's studies were interrupted by a 
 war which broke out between Padua and 
 Venice, and which obliged him to take ref- 
 uge in Padua. He considered himself fortu- 
 nate to have removed from Venice before the 
 beginning of the war, " for there I should 
 have been always suspected," he says, " and 
 here I am sure of affection." A zealous ad- 
 mirer urged him to write his name over the 
 portal of his home as a protection against 
 the hostile troops, but Petrarch did not con- 
 sider the advice practical. " Mars was never 
 a friend to scholars," he said. The war was 
 finally ended upon terms very humiliating 
 to Padua. Among other conditions the lord 
 of Carrara was obliged to go in person to 
 Venice, or send his son, to sue for pardon 
 from the council. The prince requested Pe- 
 trarch to accompany his son upon this hu- 
 miliating mission ; and although travelling 
 had now become a burden to him, he could 
 not well refuse. After his Venetian journey 
 
246 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 he returned to his vine-clad hill at Arqua, 
 and resumed for a few months his life of 
 study. 
 
 Of the death of Petrarch his contempora- 
 ries give conflicting accounts. Villani nar- 
 rates that he died in the arms of Lombardo 
 da Serico (the friend and companion of his 
 old age), and that as the breath left his 
 body a white cloud ascended to the ceiling 
 of the room, tarried a while, and disap- 
 peared, " thus proving," adds the writer, 
 " that the soul of Petrarch was dear to God, 
 because he received it with so visible a mira- 
 cle on its passage from its earthly prison to 
 the stars." According to another contem- 
 porary writer, when his family entered the 
 library in the morning they found the aged 
 poet seated at his desk as usual, with his 
 head bent over a book in so natural an atti- 
 tude that they could not at first realize that 
 life had departed. Whether he died in the 
 arms of his friend or breathed his last over 
 
PADUA AND ARQUA. 247 
 
 the pages of one of his beloved books, he 
 verified his own prophecy that when he 
 ceased to study he should cease to live, a 
 fitting close for a life devoted so entirely to 
 the cause of learning. He died on the 19th 
 of July, 1374, one day before the seventieth 
 anniversary of his birth. 
 
 Petrarch had requested in his will that 
 there should be no unseemly pomp at his 
 burial, and above all that there should be 
 no weeping or contortion of faces. " Such 
 things do no good to the dead," he said, 
 " and are very injurious to the living." 
 Nevertheless he was buried with great honor, 
 Francesco di Carrara and the bishops of 
 Padua, Verona, and Vicenza taking part in 
 the ceremonies, while his bier was borne by 
 sixteen doctors of law. 
 
 He had long desired to build a chapel in 
 honor of the Virgin, and to be buried in it, 
 but had not been able to carry out his in- 
 tention; and his body was therefore placed 
 
248 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 in the village church. Six years later it 
 was removed to the marble mausoleum 
 built for it in front of the church by his 
 son-in-law. Boccaccio said : 
 
 " I envy Arqua the privilege ^f guarding the 
 ashes of such a man. That villagefnitherto scarcely- 
 known to Padua, will henceforth be famous through- 
 out the world as the burial-place of Petrarch." 
 
PETRARCH'S LETTERS. 249 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 PETRARCH'S LETTERS. 
 
 TT is rare indeed to find in regard to any 
 man such a wealth of material of an au- 
 tobiographical nature as exists in the case of 
 Petrarch, rarer still that it should have been 
 preserved through the centuries. Of the 
 letters of Dante only eleven are in existence, 
 and even of this number some are of doubt- 
 ful authenticity; while from Petrarch, who 
 lived only a generation later, we have nearly 
 six hundred authentic letters, written to men 
 of every rank in life and of every degree of 
 intimacy. 
 
 It has been said of Petrarch's letters that 
 they are formal treatises on various subjects 
 rather than familiar correspondence with his 
 friends ; and it is true that some of them seem 
 
250 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 to be written for effect, and with a conscious- 
 ness of other readers than the ones to whom 
 they are addressed. But when he is not pos- 
 ing, nothing can exceed the charm of his 
 letters ; and so far as style is concerned, they 
 might have been written yesterday. In read- 
 ing the easy, familiar chatter concerning his 
 friends, his surroundings, and his occupa- 
 tions, one forgets that the writer lived five 
 hundred years ago, and that he wrote in what 
 was even then a dead language. 
 
 His habit of letter- writing was another of 
 the traits which separates Petrarch from the 
 mediaeval period and proves his relation to 
 the modern world, with its necessity for the 
 expression of individuality and its craving 
 for sympathy. So great were the difficulties 
 of correspondence at that day, that had he 
 not been a born letter-writer, he would 
 scarcely have overcome them. There were 
 no facilities for the exchange of letters. 
 They could be sent only by special couriers, 
 
PETRARCH'S LETTERS. 25 1 
 
 by travelling merchants, wandering monks, 
 or by friends who happened to be journeying 
 in the right direction. Several weeks some- 
 times elapsed between the writing of a letter 
 and the receipt of it. Nor was there any cer- 
 tainty of a safe delivery. Petrarch's couriers 
 were often stopped on the way, and detained 
 while the treasures they carried were copied, 
 the original document being sometimes lost 
 in the process. His contemporaries placed 
 so high a value upon his letters that they 
 were passed from hand to hand to be read 
 and copied. Strangers wrote to him begging 
 for a letter which they might keep as a treas- 
 ure. Others desired the honor of being 
 mentioned in a letter, that their names might 
 be transmitted to posterity in connection 
 with his. 
 
 That Petrarch himself had no mean opinion 
 of his letters is shown by his habit of keeping 
 a copy of each one written by him. Many 
 made collections of them during his lifetime, 
 
252 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 procuring copies in every conceivable way; 
 and in less than a month after his death Pope 
 Gregory XI. was making efforts to obtain 
 copies of as many as possible. During the 
 next ten years they were very popular, and 
 were widely copied and circulated. In the 
 fifteenth century they fell into neglect, the 
 elegant Latinity cultivated by the men of 
 the Renaissance making them dissatisfied 
 with Petrarch's style. 
 
 Up to the middle of the present century 
 the editions of the letters were so incomplete, 
 corrupt, and full of errors, as to render them 
 almost unreadable. Fracassetti, an Italian 
 scholar who had devoted years of study to 
 the subject, earned the gratitude of all admir- 
 ers of the poet, first, by a corrected Latin 
 edition of the " Familiar Letters" and the 
 "Miscellaneous;" and, later, by an Italian 
 translation of the same, with copious notes and 
 explanations. In 1868 followed his Italian 
 translation of the " Senile Letters," edited with 
 
PETRARCH'S LETTERS. 253 
 
 the same thoroughness. These editions con- 
 tain many letters never before published, and 
 cover a period of nearly fifty years, begin- 
 ning with 1326 and ending with the poet's 
 death in 1374. But the collections by no 
 means include all the letters written by him 
 during that period. 
 
 In 1359 Petrarch concluded to arrange his 
 writings and to review his past life by reading 
 over the letters and poems belonging to dif- 
 ferent periods. His manuscripts were in 
 great disorder, covered with dust, and the 
 prey of mice, moths, and spiders. Finding 
 the task of arranging greater than he antici- 
 pated, he disposed of many pieces by throw- 
 ing them into the fire, " sacrificing to Vulcan," 
 he says, " more than a thousand letters and 
 poems, though not, I confess, without a 
 sigh." Before the work of destruction was 
 completed he remembered a promise he had 
 made to collect his letters and dedicate them 
 to two of his friends. Seeing in one corner 
 
254 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 a little pile which had by chance escaped 
 the flames, he reserved these for that pur- 
 pose. The " Metrical Epistles " were gathered 
 into one volume, and dedicated to Barbato 
 of Sulmona. The prose letters he arranged 
 chronologically, dividing them into twenty- 
 four books, and dedicating the whole to his 
 friend Socrates, under the title De Familiari- 
 bus Rebus, or " Letters on Familiar Things." 
 " The title I have given them," he says, 
 " seems to describe them. They are natu- 
 ral, familiar narrations of daily events, writ- 
 ten in a simple style, and interspersed with 
 some moral reflections after the manner of 
 Cicero." He completed the first revision 
 in two years, concluding the volume with 
 another letter to Socrates. The twenty- 
 fourth book contains his letters to Cicero, 
 Virgil, Livy, Horace, Homer, and other an- 
 cient writers, in which he addresses them as 
 personal friends, expressing his admiration 
 and affection for them, and at the same time 
 
PETRARCH'S LETTERS. 255 
 
 freely criticising their faults. A number of 
 letters still remaining which were difficult to 
 classify, and for which he could find no room 
 in the " Familiar Letters," he gathered them 
 into a separate volume of " Miscellaneous 
 Letters," Avulsce extra ordinem. 
 
 Foreseeing that while life lasted he would 
 continue to write letters, Petrarch resolved 
 to arrange such as he should write thereafter 
 in a new collection, to be called " Senile Let- 
 ters," or the " Letters of Old Age," and to 
 be dedicated to his friend Simonides. The 
 " Senile Letters " contain much that is auto- 
 biographical, being filled with reminiscences 
 of his youth and with details of his manner 
 of life in his last years. 
 
 There is still another collection of letters 
 written by Petrarch called the " Anepigrafe," 
 or " Letters without a Title," a collection 
 of a very different character from the others. 
 It contains the most bitter invectives against 
 the Papal court, and the most startling pict- 
 
256 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 ures of its corruption. These letters were 
 called forth by his hatred of the Avignonese 
 usurpation, his zeal for Rome as the rightful 
 home of the Church, and his disgust at the 
 immorality of the clergy. They were writ- 
 ten to his most intimate friends, and in order 
 that the persons to whom they were sent 
 might not be compromised, they were left 
 without an address. He allowed no one to 
 make copies of them, and often requested 
 the recipients to return them as soon as 
 read. These letters were not made public 
 during his lifetime, and Fracassetti has not 
 included them in his collections, for the rea- 
 son that their lack of dignity renders them 
 unworthy of the writer. 
 
 The most interesting of all the letters of 
 Petrarch is the remarkable fragment of auto- 
 biography entitled a "Letter to Posterity." 
 In it he attempts to give an account of his 
 own life, " a thing," he says, " which no 
 one, I believe, has done before me." He 
 
PETRARCH'S LETTERS. 257 
 
 gives also an amusingly impartial estimate of 
 his own character, with a description of his 
 disposition and personal appearance. " Per- 
 haps," he says na'fvely to his future readers, 
 " you may have heard somewhat of me, 
 doubtful though it be whether a name so 
 humble and obscure as mine can travel far 
 either in time or space. Perhaps you may 
 even desire to know what manner of man I 
 am, and what was the fate of my works, es- 
 pecially those of which the name and fame 
 have reached you." 
 
 The " Letter to Posterity " was written in 
 the poet's last years, since it mentions the 
 death of Pope Urban V., which occurred in 
 1370. It ends abruptly, and was evidently 
 left unfinished, the account of his life being 
 brought down only to his return to Vaucluse, 
 in 135 1. It is probable that the writing was 
 interrupted by his death. 
 
 Useful as are the letters of Petrarch for 
 the understanding of his life, they are of 
 17 
 
258 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 almost equal importance for the study of 
 civilization, discussing as they do every ques- 
 tion, religious, political, and philosophical, 
 with which the minds of men were occu- 
 pied during the fourteenth century. 
 
LATIN WORKS. 259 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 LATIN WORKS. 
 
 TN the estimation of Petrarch and of his 
 contemporaries, his title to fame rested 
 chiefly on his Latin writings. Of these the 
 most important was the epic poem " Africa," 
 which won him renown in his lifetime, and 
 which he hoped would win him immortality. 
 When we remember that only a few brief 
 fragments of the poem were made public 
 while Petrarch lived, we are surprised at the 
 confidence and enthusiasm aroused by the 
 fact that he was engaged upon an epic poem 
 with a classical subject. Without knowing 
 a line of it, the literary world was ready, on 
 the strength of his reputation, to pronounce 
 it a masterpiece, worthy to be ranked with 
 the works of Homer and Virgil. Petrarch 
 himself, although he had at first high hopes 
 
260 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 of it, came to value it far less in later life, 
 and was even ashamed, it is said, to hear it 
 spoken of. He recognized its faults so 
 plainly that he refused to allow it to be pub- 
 lished ; but after his death his friends hastened 
 to obtain copies of it, and to give it to the 
 world. 
 
 The poem celebrates in nine books the 
 deeds of Petrarch's favorite hero, Scipio 
 Africanus. v It contains over six thousand 
 lines, in all of which, in the opinion of 
 Walter Savage Landor, " there is probably 
 no sentence or image worth remembering." 
 " I cannot well believe," he adds, " that any 
 man living has read beyond five hundred 
 lines of ' Africa; ' I myself, in sundry expe- 
 ditions, have penetrated about thus far into 
 its immeasurable sea of sand." Koerting, 
 on the other hand, finds passages of great 
 beauty, though he pronounces the epic, 
 considered as a whole, a failure. 
 
 Petrarch was essentially a lyric and not an 
 
LATIN WORKS. 26l 
 
 epic poet There are other reasons, however, 
 for the failure of " Africa." A dead language 
 is not the proper medium for an epic, nor 
 is a hero who has been dead fifteen hundred 
 years a fit subject to inspire the epic muse. 
 
 Petrarch's other poetical works in Latin 
 are the twelve " Eclogues " and sixty " Metri- 
 cal Epistles " addressed to his friends and 
 acquaintances. The " Eclogues " are so 
 buried in allegory as to render them in- 
 comprehensible, even to his contemporaries, 
 without a commentary. The " Metrical 
 Epistles," however, have much of the grace 
 and brightness of his " Familiar Letters," with 
 something of the poetic charm of the " Can- 
 zoniere." They have also a personal interest 
 from their many details concerning the 
 poet's life and habits. 
 
 Petrarch's numerous prose writings, phi- 
 losophical, religious, polemic, and historical, 
 are all in Latin. He left not a line in Italian 
 prose. Of these writings, the one which 
 
262 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 Petrarch himself valued most highly, placing 
 it next to his " Africa," was the " Book of 
 Famous Men." This work was never com- 
 pleted according to his original plan, al- 
 though it was a labor of love, and he worked 
 upon it for many years. It contains thirty- 
 one biographies of distinguished heroes and 
 statesmen, all, with the exception of three, 
 belonging to ancient Rome. 
 
 Another important result of Petrarch's 
 unremitting historical study was the " Book 
 of Memorable Events," a collection of 
 anecdotes or narratives of remarkable events 
 in history, including striking traits, words, and 
 deeds of famous men of history. This, like 
 the other, was never finished, although the 
 author kept it by him for years. It was de- 
 signed to have an encyclopedic character, 
 and to contain material from the history " of 
 all nations and of all ages." Only four 
 books were completed. These are divided 
 into chapters on " Prudence," " Skill," 
 
LATIN WORKS. 263 
 
 " Memory," " Learning," etc., and the chap- 
 ters again are arranged under the heads, 
 " Romans," " Foreigners," and " Moderns ; " 
 but the ** Romans " as usual predominate. 
 Several chapters are devoted to belief in 
 dreams, signs, and omens ; and he humorously 
 endeavors to show the folly of such credulity. 
 
 The striking feature of Petrarch's histori- 
 cal works is the zeal with which they were 
 written. It was at that day a novel thing 
 to examine and compare sources, and to at- 
 tempt to present historical facts in an inter- 
 esting and attractive manner. 
 
 Of Petrarch's philosophical writings the 
 most curious is, " On the Remedy for either 
 Extreme of Fortune." This was written 
 for his friend Azzo di Correggio, who had 
 experienced every vicissitude of fortune ; and 
 it was intended to console him with the 
 thought that happiness and unhappiness have 
 no existence, the one being merely a delu- 
 sion, the other a discipline. In a pessimistic 
 
264 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 introduction he complains that life is difficult 
 and wearisome because man cannot, like 
 other animals, remain ignorant of his fate. 
 Every being gifted with reason must struggle 
 always with a three-headed Cerberus, weari- 
 ness of the present, memory of the past, 
 and anxiety for the future. Philosophy is 
 the only safeguard against fortune or mis- 
 fortune, the former being more dangerous 
 and harder to bear than the latter. 
 
 The work is in two parts, the first contain- 
 ing one hundred and twenty-two, the second 
 one hundred and thirty-two dialogues, each 
 piece of good or ill fortune being treated 
 separately. In the first division, Hope and 
 Joy recount the conditions and circumstances 
 of life which are considered fortunate, while 
 Reason coldly points out the fallacy of 
 such views. In the second part, Pain and 
 Sorrow present the miseries of life, and 
 Reason again responds, showing that every 
 so-called misfortune has its compensations. 
 
LATIN WORKS. 265 
 
 Health, strength, beauty, and long life are 
 pronounced worthless. Even spiritual gifts 
 have no value in themselves. Freedom is 
 an uncertain possession, for there is no real 
 freedom except in the grave. Nobility of 
 birth is not a blessing, for true nobility can- 
 not be inherited, it comes only from one's 
 own deeds. The enjoyment of art and learn- 
 ing is a delusion. Marriage is not even a 
 doubtful good, it is an unmitigated evil. It 
 is curious to find this ideal lover, who has 
 passed all his life writing sonnets in praise 
 of a woman, railing against love and marriage 
 like the veriest woman-hater. Strife and con- 
 tention always come with a wife, he says, es- 
 pecially if she be rich and of good family. 
 If she be beautiful, so much the worse. 
 Children are not an unmixed blessing, they 
 occasion too much anxiety. You have al- 
 ways the fear that they may die or may 
 turn out badly. On the other hand, the ills 
 of life are not so dark as they have been 
 
266 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 painted. The various diseases of the body 
 are mentioned from tooth-ache to the plague, 
 and some compensation found for each. So 
 with the inconveniences of life ; nothing is 
 so bad but that it might be worse. Real 
 sorrows are treated in the same way. The 
 loss of a wife is easily borne, it restores 
 you to freedom. He has no words with 
 which to characterize the folly of the man 
 who contracts a second marriage after hav- 
 ing been released by Providence from the 
 first. The loss of children relieves you from 
 a burden of care. In short, there is no such 
 thing in the world as unalloyed happiness, 
 nor is there any misfortune that cannot be 
 borne with the aid of philosophy. 
 
 This singular work retained its popularity 
 for a long time. In the sixteenth century it was 
 translated into nearly every European tongue. 
 An English translation was published in 1579 
 under the title " Phisicke against Fortune, 
 as well prosperous as adverse." 
 
LATIN WORKS. 267 
 
 In the treatise " On a Solitary Life," 
 Petrarch portrays the pleasures and advan- 
 tages of the solitude that he loved. The con- 
 trast which he draws between the cares, 
 absorptions, and temptations of the busy city- 
 man and the quiet, happy, virtuous life of 
 the countryman is amusingly unfair. The 
 countryman is by far too perfect, and the 
 citizen of the town too much of a villain to 
 represent human nature. The solitude which 
 Petrarch advocates is not the ascetic solitude 
 of the cloister or the hermit's cell, but a 
 busy life of study under the influence of 
 beautiful surroundings, not the mortifica- 
 tion of self, but the development of self. 
 Like all of Petrarch's writings, the work 
 is full of examples and illustrations drawn 
 from the pagan authors and the Christian 
 Fathers. 
 
 The controversial writings of Petrarch have 
 already been mentioned in connection with 
 the events out of which they grew. The 
 
268 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 " Answer to the Slanders of an Anonymous 
 Gaul " is a eulogy of Italy, and an arraign- 
 ment of France and the French. The 
 " Books of Invective against a Physician " 
 were the result of the poet's quarrel with the 
 physicians of Avignon, and are the most 
 undignified and the least interesting of his 
 prose writings. The treatise " On his own 
 Ignorance and that of many Others " was a 
 reply to the four young Venetians who pro- 
 nounced Petrarch u a good man, but ig- 
 norant." It is not that he questions the 
 verdict, he says, but the fitness of the judges. 
 With an air of humility he concedes his own 
 ignorance, " for the longer one studies, the 
 more one realizes how little he knows." He 
 recounts the various cities in which he has 
 studied, and the honors he has received from 
 kings and princes. He mentions a number 
 of the great men of antiquity who have been, 
 pursued by envy, and shows that the present 
 attack was inspired by the same motive, 
 
LATIN WORKS, 269 
 
 envy of his fame. The real cause of the 
 verdict, he says, is the fact of his being a 
 Christian ; for these worshippers of Aristotle 
 go so far as to claim that faith and learning 
 are irreconcilable. He himself admires 
 Aristotle, but will not consent to be a blind 
 follower of any man ; and he has gained 
 their ill-will by daring to assert that their 
 idol is not infallible. He draws a compari- 
 son between Aristotle and his master, Plato, 
 greatly to the advantage of the latter. 
 
 By far the most interesting of Petrarch's 
 prose writings is the autobiographical work 
 which he called his " Secret Conflict of 
 Cares," known also as the " Dialogues on 
 Contempt of the World." It is in the form 
 of imaginary conversations with Saint Au- 
 gustine, in which the saint by his searching 
 questions forces the poet into a curious con- 
 fession of his faults and frailties, rebukes him 
 severely, and points out the remedy for each 
 defect. 
 
270 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 In the first dialogue Augustine shows that 
 virtue and vice are the real sources of happi- 
 ness and unhappiness, and that no man can 
 be either happy or miserable except through 
 his own deeds. Any man, he says, can up- 
 lift himself from a state of misery by a reso- 
 lute effort of the will. True happiness is 
 attained only by remembering the vanity of 
 all earthly things, and by keeping constantly 
 before the mind the thought of death and of 
 the life beyond. 
 
 In the second dialogue Saint Augustine 
 becomes more personal, and points out to 
 Petrarch his own sins and weaknesses. He 
 ascribes to him, among other things, greed, 
 ambition, and a certain discontented melan- 
 choly, which he calls acidia. Petrarch repels 
 the charge of greed. He has always given 
 much to his friends, and has desired for him- 
 self only a u golden mean," equally removed 
 from wealth and poverty. He wishes to be 
 dependent upon no one, and to make some 
 
LATIN WORKS. 27 1 
 
 provision for old age. Augustine shows him 
 that he has long since passed this golden 
 mean, and that if he wishes to be inde- 
 pendent of others he must needs be a god. 
 All human beings are dependent on one 
 another. As for old age, it is folly to neglect 
 your soul in order to make provision for a 
 time which may never come. Petrarch also 
 repels the charge of ambition. He has re- 
 fused many high positions, he says, because 
 of the care and responsibility they carry with 
 them. But to the charge of discontent, or 
 ennui, he pleads guilty, and the conversation 
 on that topic is a revelation of his character 
 and of his inmost thoughts, such as a man 
 rarely gives to the world. 
 
 In the third and last dialogue the subject 
 of Petrarch's faults is continued. Two chains, 
 says the saint, still hold him down ; and in- 
 stead of trying to be free, he clings to them 
 and loves them. The chains are love and 
 fame. Then ensues the famous conversation 
 
2-J2 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 on Petrarch's love for Laura, its nature and 
 its effect. The poet protests that it is all 
 that is pure and ennobling; that he has loved 
 her soul and not her body ; that his love is a 
 help and not a hindrance to the uplifting of 
 his soul. By his searching questions Au- 
 gustine forces the poet, step by step, to the 
 confession that his love has been an injury 
 and not a blessing ; that he is far less happy 
 than before he knew Laura; that his love 
 was not always pure, that he has loved the 
 body with the soul; and that the constant 
 thought of her has made him forgetful of 
 God and neglectful of his fellow-men. The 
 second chain which Augustine tries to break 
 is the poet's inordinate desire for fame. To 
 this charge also Petrarch pleads guilty. " In 
 theory you despise the opinion of the masses," 
 says the saint, " but in practice you use every 
 effort to obtain their applause. To make 
 your name immortal you neglect the im- 
 mortality of your soul." Augustine con- 
 
LATIN WORKS. 273 
 
 demns the writing of books as a foolish effort 
 to perpetuate one's name, and advises Pe- 
 trarch to abandon the " Africa" and the his- 
 tories, and to devote his time to more serious 
 things. 
 
 Each conversation is filled with details 
 which reveal the poet's manner of thinking 
 and the peculiar traits of his character. The 
 book is a curious psychological study, the 
 picture of a soul. Petrarch has dissected his 
 own personality and examined every portion 
 of it with the same zeal and conscientiousness 
 with which he pursued other studies. The 
 book was not made public until after his 
 death. It was written, he says, for his own 
 edification and admonition and not for the 
 world; and he has rightly named it his 
 " Secret." 
 
 18 
 
274 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 ITALIAN POEMS. 
 
 ESS than five years ago M. de Nolhac 
 discovered in the Vatican library at 
 Rome a complete autograph copy of the 
 " Canzoniere." " When we remember," says 
 a writer in the New York " Nation," " that of 
 all the compositions of Shakspeare, who was 
 born nearly two hundred years after Petrarch's 
 death, not a solitary autograph line is be- 
 lieved to exist, we can estimate the import 
 and surprisingness of this find." 
 
 The discovery of this manuscript proves 
 many things. It puts an end, in the first 
 place, to all discussion in regard to the 
 text. We have it in the author's own hand, 
 with his final corrections and emendations. 
 It proves that many of the sonnets and 
 
ITALIAN POEMS. 275 
 
 canzoni discovered in other manuscripts and 
 attributed to Petrarch are either not genuine, 
 or were not considered by the poet worthy of 
 a place in this collection. It proves also that 
 Petrarch entitled the work " Fragments in the 
 Vulgar Tongue," Rerum vulgarhim frag- 
 menta, showing that when he speaks else- 
 where of his Italian poems as trifles, it is not 
 mere affectation, but that he really regarded 
 them as relaxations from the graver and 
 more dignified labors of a scholar, relax- 
 ations not even worthy of mention in his 
 " Letter to Posterity." 
 
 But whatever may be said of Petrarch's 
 labors as the restorer of Letters and the 
 precursor of the Renaissance, the fact re- 
 mains that his fame will always rest chiefly 
 upon his Italian poems, and his name will 
 always suggest the thought of Laura and 
 the sonnet. He did not indeed invent the 
 sonnet, but he was enabled to carry it to 
 such a degree of perfection that he became 
 
2/6 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 the model for all future sonneteers in every 
 land. 
 
 The " Canzoniere " has probably passed 
 through more editions than any other modern 
 classic in existence. In the fifteenth and 
 sixteenth centuries there were in Italy 
 alone more than two hundred editions, to 
 forty-five of the Divine Comedy. The col- 
 lection is divided into three parts: the 
 "Rime," written in the lifetime of Laura, 
 those written after her death, and the 
 " Triumphs." The " Rime" consist of three 
 hundred and seventeen sonnets, twenty-nine 
 canzoni, nine sestine, seven ballate, and four 
 madrigals, nearly all on the same theme, 
 his love for Laura, yet with such a variety of 
 treatment as to prevent the subject becoming 
 wearisome. He has, it is true, been accused 
 of monotony ; " but how is it, then," asks 
 Leigh Hunt, " that the world has listened to 
 him so long? A reign of five hundred years 
 over the most musical and poetical of coun- 
 
ITALIAN POEMS. 277 
 
 tries, with all Europe for its echo, is surely 
 answer enough to a charge of monotony." 
 
 Perhaps one reason for the complaint of 
 uniformity or monotony is the fact that in- 
 stead of regarding the poems as separate 
 lyrics, or songs, each complete in itself, we 
 too often consider the collection as a whole. 
 " Laura herself might have been surfeited," 
 says Schlegel, " had she read, at one sitting, 
 all the stanzas in which Petrarch immortalized 
 her beauty and his own passion." There is 
 no thread of narrative running through the 
 poems to bind them together and give unity 
 to the collection. They deal rather with the 
 poet's own emotions, with the effect of his 
 love and of Laura's beauty, her smiles and 
 frowns, upon himself. In love, as in every- 
 thing else, Petrarch was a psychologist, " the 
 unwearied explorer of his own soul." 
 
 Many other faults are found in Petrarch's 
 poems. Critics have called them cold, arti- 
 ficial, " full of extravagant hyperbole and 
 
278 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 of far-fetched fanciful conceits," and to some 
 of the poems all these criticisms are appli- 
 cable. But after we have discarded all that 
 offend against good taste in this way, enough 
 of perfection still remains to justify the title 
 which has been given him of the Prince of 
 Lyric Poets. 
 
 The peculiar charm of Petrarch's verse is 
 its exquisite melody, a charm which vanishes 
 in the translation, since no northern tongue is 
 capable of the modulations of the Italian. 
 The grace, the harmony, the artistic per- 
 fection of his lyrics were the result of care- 
 ful labor, as is shown by the marginal Latin 
 corrections found on some manuscript sheets 
 of the " Canzoniere." It was his custom 
 with his Italian as well as his Latin writings, 
 to keep them by him for months, allowing a 
 sonnet " to lie polishing in his mind like a 
 pebble on the seashore" until his unerring 
 good taste was satisfied with the result. 
 
 The memoranda published by Foscolo 
 
ITALIAN POEMS. 279 
 
 show something of Petrarch's method of com- 
 position, and of the painstaking care which 
 he thought it worth while to bestow upon so 
 small a thing as a single sonnet. " I began 
 this," says Petrarch, " by the impulse of the 
 Lord {Domino jubente) 10th September, at 
 the dawn of day, after my morning 
 prayers. ... I must make these two verses 
 over again, singing them (cantando), and I 
 must transpose them; three o'clock A. M., 
 19th October. I like this (Jwc placet) ; 30th 
 October, ten o'clock in the morning. No, 
 this does not please me; 20th of Decem- 
 ber, in the evening." And in the midst of 
 his corrections, continues Foscolo, he writes 
 on laying down his pen, " I shall return to 
 this again; I am called to supper. . . . 
 February 18, toward noon. This is now 
 well ; however, look at it again {vide tamen 
 adhuc)" 
 
 Other notes and corrections show that the 
 same careful revision was applied to all the 
 
280 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 poems. " Consider this," he says in the midst 
 of one of them. " I had some thoughts of 
 transposing these lines, and of making the 
 first verse the last; but I have not done so 
 for the sake of harmony. The first would 
 then be more sonorous and the last less so, 
 which is against rule; for the end should 
 be more harmonious than the beginning." 
 Elsewhere he says: " The commencement is 
 good, but it is not pathetic enough." * Each 
 word was chosen with the utmost care, and 
 he frequently placed synonymes, or equiva- 
 lents, above a word, that he might examine 
 them again ; " and it requires a profound 
 knowledge of Italian," says Foscolo, " to 
 perceive that after such perplexing scruples 
 he always adopts those words which com- 
 bine at once most harmony, elegance, and 
 energy." 
 
 Petrarch's genuine love of Nature and his 
 constant communion with her have given to 
 
 1 Ugo Foscolo. " Essays on Petrarch." 
 
ITALIAN POEMS. 281 
 
 his lyrics a freshness and brightness that are 
 not lost in translation. He gives few descrip- 
 tions of scenery, but you feel the presence of 
 sunshine, of blue sky, birds and trees and 
 running waters. He has, too, in almost as 
 great a degree as Burns, the gift of finding 
 sympathy in Nature, of attributing to all ani- 
 mate and inanimate objects feelings of joy and 
 sorrow akin to his own, as when he imagines 
 the nightingale " mourning with him all the 
 night long," and in countless oth^r instances. 
 
 The second part of the " Canzoniere," writ- 
 ten after the death of Laura, has more of 
 depth and earnestness than the first part. 
 The dead Laura is more real to us than 
 the living. 
 
 The concluding poem, an " Ode to the 
 Virgin," is a noble and beautiful hymn. Even 
 Macaulay although he considers Petrarch 
 " an amatory egotist," and finds little to 
 praise in his poems pronounces this the 
 finest hymn in the world. 
 
282 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 In the "Triumphs," Petrarch attempts an 
 epic in terza rima, a fact which is at once 
 fatal to the work from the comparison which 
 it invites with Dante. In a series of allegori- 
 cal visions he describes the triumph of Love, 
 of Chastity over Love, and of Death over 
 Chastity. Fame triumphs over Death, Time 
 conquers Fame, and Time itself is finally lost 
 in Divinity, or Eternity. The " Triumphs " 
 are inferior to the lyrics, although there is in 
 the " Triumph of Death " a fine passage, in 
 which Laura appears to the poet in a vis- 
 ion and confesses what he has never sug- 
 gested in any other place that his love is 
 returned. The " Triumphs " belong to Pe- 
 trarch's last years, and were left unfinished 
 at his death. 
 
 A few of the lyrics of the " Canzoniere " 
 are on other themes than that of love. In 
 certain of the sonnets he describes the cor- 
 ruption of the court of Avignon, with Beel- 
 zebub laughing in the midst, in terms almost 
 
ITALIAN POEMS. 283 
 
 as strong as those of the " Letters without a 
 Title." 
 
 Dearest of all to the Italians are the pa- 
 triotic odes. The one beginning Spirto gen- 
 til (Spirit heroic) breathes in every strain 
 the most passionate love for Italy. " Italy 
 seems not to feel her sufferings," he ex- 
 claims ; " decrepit, sluggish, languid, will she 
 sleep forever, and will there be no one to 
 wake her? Oh, that I had my hands twisted 
 in her hair! " 
 
 For centuries it was generally believed by 
 writers on Petrarch that this canzone was 
 addressed to Rienzi. Since the time of De 
 Sade there has been much controversy on 
 the subject, the claims of Rienzi, and of the 
 elder and the younger Stephen Colonna, 
 being supported by different writers, with 
 many ingenious arguments in favor of each 
 claimant. In 1885 Professor Bartoli hap- 
 pily settled the question by the discovery 
 in the Laurentian library at Florence of a 
 
284 LIFE OF PETRARCH. 
 
 codex of the fifteenth century, containing the 
 " Canzoniere." In this codex, above the 
 canzone, is written "Sent to Messer Busone 
 of Gubbio, Senator of Rome." This Busone 
 was elected senator soon after Petrarch's first 
 visit to Rome, and the canzone was probably 
 written while the poet's mind was still filled 
 with the contrast between the pitiful condi- 
 tion of the Eternal City and the grandeur of 
 her ancient ruins. 
 
 The canzone addressed to the Italian 
 princes and nobles is a burning appeal for 
 the unity of Italy, an appeal which has 
 stirred the heart of every Italian patriot from 
 that day to this. " My Italy ! " he cries pas- 
 sionately, "though words be vain for the 
 many deadly wounds which I see upon thy 
 fair body, may my sighs be such as the Arno 
 and the Tiber long for." He urges the no- 
 bles to lay aside their feuds, their blind ambi- 
 tions, and to unite for the grand purpose of 
 freeing Italy from the degradation of foreign 
 
ITALIAN POEMS. 285 
 
 oppression. His cry is the same as the cry 
 of Mazzini, of Garibaldi, and of Victor Em- 
 anuel, Fuori lo straniero! " Away with the 
 foreigner ! " " This song," says Fiorentino, 
 " has lived in the hearts of our people 
 through centuries of slavery." It has been 
 called the Marseillaise of Italy. What won- 
 der then, that editions of Petrarch have mul- 
 tiplied, and that so many of the writers and 
 scholars of his native land busy themselves 
 with his life and works, now that his glorious 
 dream of the unification of Italy has at last 
 been realized? 
 
AUTHORITIES. 
 
 On the life and works of Petrarch hundreds of vol- 
 umes have been written. The celebrated collection 
 of Professor Marsand contained nine hundred volumes 
 on the subject; and this has been surpassed by that of 
 Mr. Willard Fiske, of Florence, which contains some 
 three thousand volumes. Notwithstanding this wealth 
 of material, the chief source for the study of Petrarch 
 must always be his own writings. In his Italian 
 poems, his Eclogues, his Latin prose works, and above 
 all in his six hundred letters, we trace the life and 
 character of the man. Fracassetti's Italian transla- 
 tions are accompanied with notes giving the fullest in- 
 formation concerning the events to which the letters 
 refer and the persons to whom they are addressed. 
 
 The biographies which embody the results of Fra- 
 cassetti's laborious research have naturally superseded 
 the work of the Abbe' de Sade, which for nearly a 
 century held its place as the final authority on the 
 subject. 
 
 Of the recent writers on Petrarch the most impor- 
 tant are: 
 
 Koerting : Petrarca's Leben und Werke. 
 Bartoli : Storia della Letteratura Italiana, 
 vol. vii. 
 
288 A UTHORITIES. 
 
 Geiger: Petrarka. 
 
 Mezieres : Petrarque, etude d'apres de nouveaux 
 
 documents. 
 De Sanctis : Saggio Critico sul Petrarca. 
 Carducci : Studi Letterari. 
 
 The celebration in 1874 of the four hundredth anni- 
 versary of Petrarch's death called forth a number of 
 interesting monographs on different periods of his life. 
 The best account of his closing years is that of Zardo : 
 II Petrarca e I Carraresi. 
 
 Domenico Rossetti published in 1828 a bibli- 
 ography of Petrarch, and Ferrazzi in his Manuele. 
 Dantesco has brought it down to 1876. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Aix la Chapelle, 6i. 
 Anguillara, Count Orso, 75, 106, 
 
 108. 
 Arezzo, 12, 21, 23-24, 158. 
 Aristotle, 16, 269. 
 Arqua, 237 et seq. 
 Augustine, Saint, 52, 53, 55, 63, 
 
 199, 269 et seq. 
 Averroes, 223-224. 
 
 Avignon, 11, 26, 34 et seq., 41,45, 
 47, 49, 5 6 > 66, 81, 115, 123, 
 "3>i x 53 i59 i 6o 163, 2 i 2 , 
 233, 2 34, 237, 268. 
 
 Azzo di Correggio, 67, 122, 125. 
 185. 
 
 Barbato of Sulmona, 254. 
 
 Bartoli, Prof. A., 283, 288. 
 
 Benedict XII., Pope, 65, 123. 
 
 Benintendi, 215. 
 
 Bergamo, 216. 
 
 Blacks and Whites, 12, 22. 
 
 Boccaccio, 112, 162, 190, 217, 
 226, 243, 248 ; beginning of 
 his friendship with Petrarch, 
 194; visits to Petrarch, 196, 
 
 200, 201 ; studies Greek, 201 : 
 persuaded to abandon litera- 
 ture, 205 ; the Decameron, 
 208 ; grief at Petrarch's death, 
 211. 
 
 Bologna, 31, 32. 
 
 Brunelleschi, 80. 
 Busone da Gubbio, 284. 
 
 Capranica, 75. 
 Carpentras, 27, 32, 230. 
 Carrara, Francesco di, 212, 230- 
 
 23 2 , 235, 239, 245, 247. 
 Carrara, Giacomo di, 155, 159, 
 
 212, 235. 
 Cavaillon, Bishop of, 91 . 
 Certaldo, 219. 
 
 Charles IV., Emperor of Ger- 
 many, 1 71-179. 
 Cicero, 12, 13, 14, 16, 28, 29, 62, 
 
 126, 129, 199, 254. 
 Clement VI., Pope, 122, 123, 
 
 160. 
 Cologne, 61. 
 Colonna family, 74, 75, 124, 135, 
 
 137, 146. 
 Colonna, Agnes, 75. 
 Colonna, James, 36, 38, 39, 46, 
 
 64, 73> 76, 124. 
 Colonna, John, 41, 77. 104, 
 
 J 54. 
 Colonna, Stephen, t,j, 41, 7S, 
 
 108, 112, 283. 
 Colonna, Stephen the younser. 
 
 76. 
 Constantinople, 203. 
 Convennole, 27, 28. 
 Crete, 218. 
 
 19 
 
290 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Dante, if, 22, 72, 84. C9* I02 > 
 
 197, 249, 282. 
 De Nolhac, 202, 209, 274. 
 De Sade, 47, 189. 
 Dionigi, 65, 101. 
 Donatello, 80. 
 
 Ferrara, 152, 236. 
 Fiametta, 45, 218. 
 Fiorentino, 285. 
 Florence, 12, 21, 22, 26,99, 195, 
 
 196, 201, 203, 209, 229. 
 Foscolo, Ugo, 278-280. 
 Fracassetti, 33, 252, 256, 287. 
 Francesca, daughter of Petrarch, 
 
 183, 190-191. 
 
 Garibaldi, 285. 
 Garignano, 180. 
 Genoa, 167, 168, 169. 
 Gerardo, Petrarch's brother, 32, 
 
 43, 81, 124. 
 Giotto, 235. 
 
 Giovanni Malpaghini, 222. 
 Gregory XI., Pope, 252. 
 Gregorovius, 134. 
 Griselda, 209. 
 
 Guelfs and Ghibellines, 12. 
 Guglielmo da Pastrengo, 67. 
 Guido Settimo, 28, 32, 189. 
 Guido of Bologna, 72. 
 
 Henry VII., Emperor of Ger- 
 many, 26. 
 
 Homer, 14, 254, 259; translated 
 into Latin, 202. 
 
 Horace, 14, 28, 254. 
 
 Hunt, Leigh, 276. 
 
 Incisa, 12, 24-26. 
 
 Innocent VI., Pope, 152, 213. 
 
 Joanna of Naples, 125. 
 
 John, King of France, 179. 
 
 John, Petrarch's son, 182 ; edu- 
 cation of, 183 ; given a canoni- 
 cate, 185 ; banished from his 
 father's house, 187 ; death, 190. 
 
 John XXII., Pope, 65. 
 
 koerting, 48, 260, 287. 
 
 Laelius, 39, 193. 
 
 Lanciani, 128. 
 
 Landor, Walter Savage, 260. 
 
 Lastra, 21, 24. 
 
 Laura, 7, 9, 14, 94, 218, 272, 
 275, 281 ; Petrarch first meets, 
 45 ; different theories concern- 
 ing, 47-50 ; nature of Pe- 
 trarch's love for, 5 1 ; death, 152. 
 
 Leontius Pilatus, 201, 203, 204. 
 
 Liege, 62. 
 
 Livy, 12, 14, 129, 254. 
 
 Lombardo da Serico, 246. 
 
 Lombes, 39, 41. 
 
 Letters of Petrarch, 249 ; Fa- 
 miliar, 252, 254,255; Miscel- 
 laneous, 252, 255 ; Senile, 252, 
 255 ; Metrical Epistles, 254, 
 261 ; Letters without a Title, 
 255 ; Letter to Posterity, 7, 
 18, 92, 256-258, 275. 
 
 Macaulay, 54, 281. 
 
 Mantua, 152, 175. 
 
 Mazzini, 136, 285. 
 
 Mezieres, 47, 288. 
 
 Michelet, 10. 
 
 Milan, 121, 152, 162 et seq., 186, 
 
 197, 200, 202, 212, 229; the 
 
 plague at, 180. 
 Montpellier, 29, 31. 
 Mont Ventoux, 58. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 291 
 
 Naples, ioi, 103, 104, 115, 124, 
 
 Orsini, 74-75, 76. 
 Orso, Count, of Anguillara, 75, 
 106, 108. 
 
 Padua, 152, 155, 201, 202, 212, 
 214, 216, 226, 230-236, 245. 
 
 Paris, 61-63, J 79> 20 ' 202 > 22 9 
 
 Parma, 122, 124, 125-126, 151, 
 154. 
 
 Pastrengo, Guglielmo da, 67. 
 
 Pavia, 180, 202, 216. 
 
 Petracco, Petrarch's father, 22 
 et seq. ; exiled from Florence, 
 22 ; removes to Avignon, 26 ; 
 burns his son's books, 30 ; 
 death, 32. 
 
 Petrarch, 79 ; relation to the Re- 
 naissance, 7-20 ; birth, 21 ; 
 early years, 24^ seq.; removal 
 to Carpentras, 26 ; education, 
 27; sent to Montpellier to study 
 law, 29 ; love for the classics, 
 30 ; sent to Bologna, 31 ; aban- 
 dons the law, 34; enters the 
 Church, 35 ; settles at Avig- 
 non, 36 ; friendship with the 
 Colonnas, 38 ; description of 
 himself in youth, 43 ; first 
 meeting with Laura, 45 ; na- 
 ture of love for Laura, 51 ; 
 " The Secret," 52 ; struggles 
 against his love, 55 ; ascent of 
 Mont Ventoux, 58 ; love of 
 travel, 59 ; visits France, Bel- 
 gium, Germany, and Switzer- 
 land, 60; letters to Cardinal 
 Colonna, 63; receives the 
 canonicate of Lombes, 66 ; 
 love for Rome, 67; visit to 
 
 Rome, 69-80 ; letters from 
 Rome, tj ; life at Vaucluse, 
 84 et seq.; receives offer 
 of public coronation from 
 Roman Senate, and the Uni- 
 versity of Paris, 97 ; desire for 
 the laurel, 98 ; embarks for 
 Naples, 104 ; examined by 
 King Robert, 105 ; crowned 
 at Rome, 107 ; great popular- 
 ity, 114; visit to Bergamo, 
 116 ; returns to Avignon, 123 ; 
 embassy to Naples, 124 ; home 
 at Parma, 125 ; finds the let- 
 ters of Cicero, 126 ; sympathy 
 with Rienzi, 130; loses the 
 friendship of the Colonna fam- 
 ily, 137 ; letters to Rienzi, 
 139, 143, 144 ; returns to Italy, 
 141 ; grief at the fall of 
 Rienzi, 147; loss of Laura 
 and other friends, 152-155; 
 made Canon of Padua, 155 ; 
 last visit to Rome, 156; first 
 visit to Florence, 157; feuds 
 with the physicians, 159; re- 
 moval to Milan, 162 ; rela- 
 tions with the Visconti, 166 ; 
 embassy to Venice, 169 ; let- 
 ters to Charles IV., 173, 178 ; 
 visits to the Emperor, 1 76, 1 78 ; 
 embassy to Paris, 179; leaves 
 Milan, 180 ; attitude toward 
 his children, 182 et seq.; friend- 
 ship of Boccaccio, 194; sec- 
 ond visit to Florence, 195 ; 
 letters to Boccaccio, 203, 206, 
 207-209, 217; translation of 
 Griselda, 209; last will, 211 ; 
 receives many offers of a 
 home from foreign princes, 
 212 ; offered the post of Papal 
 
292 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Secretary, 213; makes his 
 home at Venice, 214 ; be- 
 queaths his library to that 
 city, 215 ; honors received in 
 Venice, 220; pupil from Ra- 
 venna, 221 ; quarrel with the 
 four young Venetians, 225 ; 
 leaves Venice, 226 ; home at 
 Padua, 230 ; last days in 
 Arqua, 238 et seq. ; last jour- 
 ney to Venice, 245 ; death, 
 247. 
 Petrarch's mother, 25, n. 
 Petrarch's works : 
 
 On a Solitary Life, 91-92, 267. 
 Leisure of Monastic Life, 92. 
 Africa, 8, 92, 105, 195, 259- 
 
 261, 273. 
 Letter to Posterity, 7, 18, 92, 
 
 256-258, 275. 
 On his own Ignorance and 
 that of many Others, 226, 
 244, 268. 
 The Triumphs, 244, 276, 282. 
 Answer to the Slanders of an 
 Anonymous Gaul, 244, 268. 
 Eclogues, 261. 
 Book of Famous Men, 262. 
 Book of Memorable Events, 
 
 262. 
 Remedy for either Extreme of 
 
 Fortune, 263-266. 
 Books of Invective against a 
 
 Physician, 268. 
 Dialogues on Contempt of the 
 
 World, 269-273. 
 Canzoniere, 274. 
 Ode to the Virgin, 281. 
 Patriotic Odes, 283. 
 Philip di Vitry, 72. 
 Pietroda Bologna, 217. 
 Pisa, 26, 124. 
 
 Plato, 16, 269. 
 
 Pontremoli, blind scholar of, 
 
 115, 116. 
 Prague, 178. 
 
 Quinet, Edgar, 12. 
 
 Ravenna, 221. 
 
 Renaissance, 78-80, 113. 
 
 Rienzi, 123, 127 et seq., 162, 171, 
 J 73, 283; youth, 128; enthu- 
 siasm for Rome, 129 ; friend- 
 ship with Petrarch, 131 ; mas- 
 ter of Rome, 132 ; plans for a 
 united Italy, 136 ; weakness 
 of, 142 ; fall of, 145 ; flight 
 from Rome, 146 ; second reign 
 and death, 150. 
 
 Robert, King of Naples, 100 et 
 seq., 124. 
 
 Roberto de' Bardi, 100. 
 Rome, 64, 65, 66, 115, 127, 129, 
 J 3, IJI, iZietseq., 155,171, 
 t73, 179, 222, 229, 233, 235 ; 
 Petrarch's description of, 69, 
 80 ; coronation of Petrarch at, 
 99 et seq. 
 
 SCALIGERS, 66, 125, 185. 
 
 Schlegel, 227. 
 Scipio, 74, 260. 
 Seneca, 14, 74, 129, 153. 
 Siena, 204. 
 Socrates, 193, 254. 
 Symonds, J. A., 8. 
 
 Urban V.. Pope, 223-237, 257. 
 
 Varro, 16, 199. 
 
 Vaucluse, 81 et seq. ; Petrarch's 
 descriptions of, 84-88 ; works 
 written there, 115, 122, 159- 
 161, 182, 213. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 293 
 
 Venice, 121, 167, 201, 203, 212, 
 214 ; Petrarch makes his home 
 at, 214 ; the Senate accepts his 
 offer of a library, 216; public 
 festivals, 219 ; verdict of the 
 four young Venetians, 225. 
 
 Verona, 126, 152, 153, 185. 
 
 Victor Emmanuel, 285. 
 
 Villani, 246. 
 
 Virgil, 14, 108, 152, 254, 259; 
 Petrarch's manuscript copy 
 of, 50. 
 
 Visconti, 125, 151, 163, 165, 
 174, 179, 245; Petrarch's re- 
 lation to, 166-169. 
 
 Visconti, Galeazzo. 169, 180,. 
 216. 
 
 Visconti, John, 163, 165, 166, 
 169. 
 
 Voigt, 15. 
 
 Voltaire, 114. 
 
 Zefferino Re, 54. 
 
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 France, or Germany, as pictured in her new book (' Prisoners of Poverty Abroad '), 
 they are largely indebted to her for their advance to recognition with workmen 
 as contestants for readjustment of the relations of capital and labor. The new 
 book is quite as serious and appealing as the other, and shows about the same 
 privation in conditions and inequalities in wages." Boston Globe. 
 
 A RAMBLING STORY. 
 
 By Mary Cowden Clarke. A new edition. i6mo. Cloth. Price, 
 #1.00; paper covers, 50 cents. 
 
 *' In ' A Rambling Story ' Mary Cowden Clarke, whose more serious Shake- 
 spearian studies have made her name pleasantly and honorably known to students, 
 tells a romantic tale of art, love, adventure, and travel. . . . The story has for 
 its heroes and heroines, principal and subordinate, true, high-hearted, romantic 
 characters, and is simply, pleasantly, and at times delightfully told, and abounds 
 in word-picturing and phrasing and romantic incidents." Chicago Tribune. 
 
 A WOODLAND WOOING. 
 
 A Story. By Eleanor Putnam. i6mo. Cloth. Price, #1.00. 
 
 " The reader must be dull indeed who could not be won from his summer 
 drowsiness by enjoyment of the breeziness and cheeriness, the unforced brightness 
 and charming originality of this, the most amusing ' summer novel ' which has up 
 to date fi und its way to our table. Its pages breathe of youth and summer 
 weather, of clover-fields and mountain brooks. One is quickened with a sense of 
 something near and sweet and wholesome in its pleasant company. It is the 
 story of a summer's 'camping-out,' told in alternate chapters by a brother and 
 sister, of the frank, jolly, rather 'picklesome ' sort." Exchange. 
 
 COUNTER-CURRENTS. 
 
 A Story. By the author of "Justina." i6mo. Cloth. Price, 75 
 cants. 
 
 "' Counter-Currents,* by the anonymous author of ' Justina ' is well worth 
 being read, and attentively. It is a sweet, uplifting story, with vigorously drawn 
 characters and scenes, indeed it is occasionally truly dramatic, and with many 
 blendings of tender feeling and delicate analysis. Moreover, without seeming to 
 aim to do so unduly, it teaches several most important practical lessons in an 
 unmistakable manner." Congregationalist. 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S COMPLETE WORKS. 
 
 From the text of the Rev. Alexander Dyce's second edition. With 
 Portrait, Memoir, and Glossary. A cheap edition. 7 vols. i6mo. Cloth. 
 Price, 5.25. 
 
 The " Alexander Dyce" edition of Shakespeare's plays and poems is pre- 
 sumedly one of the most accurate among the many editions which have been 
 published. The interpretation of the text has the indorsement of our best 
 scholars, both in England and America. The edition is issued in small, handy 
 volumes, compact and durably bound, and contains a glossary 
 
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 NOV Q 1947 
 
 22Jan'63KB 
 
 LD 21-100m-12,'46(A2012sl6)4120 
 
U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES YB 42108 
 
 COi4bbD537b 
 
 225408