t^BTj-CBt^CO tOZTBT'Chc'. rden H-r^if^v ^ r: •. • •• • l^rnncis prtrarcii ^.. IP^ranc^sco |J etr^ircltat ScJioIaTt Statesmaitt and 3Poct* a. ujorihu clerk As preucO bi] his mordcs and hfs mcrb. 3llc is notu beb anb nailcb in fits citcsfc, 3! pratj to of poctrie. Head before the Chit-^^h^** Clufa, San aFrancisco, aFcbruarij 10, 1682. BY A Jttentber of Ihe CClub. C. A. MURDOCH li CO •'.•.•"*•":• * •'• *'*• '!•;*'. *• •'••.••: : Z.^Rt CHRONOLOGY Of the Life and Times of Petrarch and his Contemporaries. 1265. Dante born. 1266. Roger Bacon sends a copy ol his " Opus Majus" to Clement IV. 1276. Giotto, the painter, born. 1280. Albertus Magnus dies. 1288. Thomas, the Rhymer, flourishes. 1290. Michael Scot dies. 1291. Can Grande della Scala born. 1292. Roger Bacon dies. 1294. Dante writes his "Vita Nuova." (iuittone d' Arezzo, the supposed in- ventor of the Italian sonnet, dies. 1295. Brunetto Latini dies. Marco Polo returns from his voyage. 1298. Jacopo da Varagine, author of the "Golden Legend," dies. 1300. Dante, prior of Florence, (the year of his Vision.) Bianca and Nera parties take their rise in Pistoja. Guido Cavalcanli dies. 1302. Petracco (Petraccolo), Petrarch's father, banished from Florence with Dante. 1303. Boniface VIII dies. 1304. July 20, Dante and Petracco attempt to return to Florence. 1304, July 20. Petrarch born at Arezzo. Birth of 1305. Petrarch's mother returns with him to Ancise, near Florence. ^'"'"'^ The Papal seat removed to Avignon. 1308. Robert becomes King of bicily. Duns Scotus dies. 1310. Jean de Meun, the continuer of the Roman de La Rose, dies. 1312. Dino Compagni writes his history in elegant Italian. Petrarch's parents remov;; to Pisa, thence to Avignon. 1313. Dante at Ravenna. Boccaccio born. Henry of Luxemburg dies ; Lewis of Bavaria succeeds to the Empire. 1315. Petrarch goes to school at Carpentras. 1316. Selvaggia, " bel numer' una," the lady belovxl by Cino da Pistoja, dies. John XXII elected Pope. 1319. Petrarch enters University of Montpellier. 1320. John Gower born. 1 32 1. 8"pJ Dante dies at Ravenna. 1323. Petrarch goes to University of Bologna— studies under Cino d'l Pistoja. 1325. Laura de Noves marries Hugo de Sade. 1326. Petrarch's father dies. Petrarch returns to Avignon. 1327. April 6, Lady-day, Petrarch sees Laura for the first time. '^lee^L^urf ' 1328. One of the given dates for Chaucer's birth. for the Til r^ ^ > ,-^f h'^' ume 1330. Petrarch accompanies Giacomo Colonna to Lombes; becomes a Canon 01 Lombes. 1 33 1. Petrarch makes a tour through France, Flanders, Brabant, and ultimately visits Rome, with Giacomo Colonna. Petrarch's retreat to Vaucluse. 1337. Petrarch's son Giovanni born. 1339. Simon Memmi, a pupil of Giotto, executes a marble medallion of Laura. Petrarch projects his epic, Africa. 302037 I340. Petrarch is offered a laurel crown both by the University of Paris and the koman Senate. iU«. Petrarch visits Rolx;rt of Naples. .\rRii. ijin, Petrarch crowned AT Rome. Death of GiacomoCoionna. Henedict -MI dies. Embassy of Petrarch and Kienzi to Pope Clement VI. IU2. Pctrarrh commences Greek under Bernard Barlaam. Petrarch writes "Secretum Francisci Pctrarchae," also entitled " De Secreto ConHictu Curanim Suarum." King Robert dies. Mission of Petrarch to Giovanna. 1343. Petrarch's daughter, Francesca, born. 1344. Simon Mcmmi executes a medallion of Petrarch. 1345. A supposed date for birth of Chaucer. 1346. Petrarch clecte- outposts. One might go to India, and, after a lifetime spent at its oracles, bring back to the western world of civilization something new and valuable; one might pitch his tent among the bituminous ruins of Babylon, and find profitable subject for study; but European history has been read and re-read, indexed, glossaried, padded with excursus, and viewed in so many lights that not a fleck or spot remains unnoted, even for the scholar who haunts the literary walks of London or Paris, Rome or Florence. But when, instead of being in the swim of European lit- erary currents, one is beached, as it were, on distant shores with noth- ing to put him in sympathy with those who are at the centres of mun- dane intellectual civilization, it is difficult to rise above the trite and commonplace in literary criticism. But still, if we do not occasionally examine our models, we would forget their peculiar beauties, and would find ourselves drifting away into heresies and homage to strange gods, leaving the temples and altars of our literary family idols desolate and bare. One of these shrines was set up five hundred years since at Vau- cluse, with Francesco Petrarca for its minister, and on its walls, the literary world has ever since been hanging up its ex votos and taking part in its liturg}'. 5 Fran'cis Petrarch was born at the 'I'uscan town of Arezzo, on the .'oth of July, 1 304. The circumstances of his Ijirth are of a romantic c haractcr; and it would seem as if the wandering spirit of unrest that presided over his long life had taken charge of him even in his mother's womb, and made him a pilgrim and exile from his birth. His father was one of the band of Florentines driven out dunng the strifes of the Bianca and Nera parties, which at the same time sent Dante (a friend of the elder Petrarch) forth as a fugitive, never to return. The ancestr)- of the poet was of gentle origin but lim. iied means, with a hereditary tendency to municipal aspirations and literar\- 1 ulture. The Petrarcha household (Petracco, Petraccclo and Pctrarco) in many points resembled that of Goethe, both in its social and j)olitical status. But unlike C.oethe, Petrarch's infancy was shadowed with family misfortune and ruin brought about by the party feuds of Florence: and at the very hour of the poet's birth, his father was engaged in a forcible but unsuccessful effort to reclaim his citi- zenship and his property. A few months after the birth of Petrarch, his mother Eletta (who was of the Canigiani family), betook herself with the boy, to Ancise, where the family had .some little property; and they there remamed until the child had reached its eighth year, when the head of the house removed with them to Avignon, the then residence of Clem- ent V, a Ciascon Poj>e, which place had become and remained the seat of the Papal ix)wer during the period styled " The Babylonish Cap- tivity" of the Papacy, commencing in 1305 and continuing until 1378, four years after Petrarch's death. The young exile, from his eleventh to his fifteenth year, went to school at Carpentras; then removed to Montpelier, where he remained four years. Like CJocthe's parent, Petrarch's father intended him for the law, but unlike the German, did not as well seek to encourage his son in general literar)- culture. Indeed, an anecdote is given depicting Pe- trarch senior flinging the classical works which his son was surrepti- tiously reading, into the fire. As, however, he seems to have soft- ened and rescued them from the burning, it is quite probable that Petrarch's fondness for the poets was, after all, a bit of hereditary weakness. It may also be fairly assumed that any jurist of those days would necessarily have a turn to ix)lite literature, as even Cino da Pistoja, the friend of Dante, and Petrarch's reputed preceptor at Bologna, whither the student had gone to complete his legal studies, was fond of elegant learning and no mean poet himself. Indeed, Cino was 6 the lover of Selvaggia (Ricciardetta dei Selvaggi), one of the four ladies of that period rendered famous by their respective idolaters, Selvaggia, being styled the " bel numer' una" of the poetic group, the remaining three being Dante's Beatrice, Petrarch's Laura, and Boccaccio's Fiammetta. In 1325, Petrarch's mother, a beautiful and good woman, died, and in 1326, his father. These misfortunes drew Petrarch back to Avignon, where he and his only brother, Gerard, found their inher- itance wasted by their guardian. It was possibly his deprivation of means that led Petrarch to take the tonsure. But in those days, there was not that strict sense of propriety and of the earnestness of a religious calling that has grown up since; and the court and society of Avignon were remarkable as well for luxury as for the air of gallantry that was indigenous in that home of the joyous science of the Troubadours. At this period, his many brilliant social qualities attracted the attention of the Colonna family, a branch of which was settled at Avignon. He also found a friend in John of Florence, Apostolic- Secretary, a learned and patriotic Italian. Here were the two young men, Francis and Gerard, thrown upon their own resources. Petrarch barely twenty-two, with a complexion which the women envied him, a gracefulness of person and demeanor that drew every eye upon him in admiration, fastidious as a lady in his attire, actually pinching his feet in small shoes with an excess of foppishness, with a scholar's skill in chivalrous verse, whether vulgar or learned, was at that date fit for nothing so much as a grand pas- sion, and only needed a proper object to adore and be miserable about. This, he found at Matins, April 6th, 1327, in the church of Santa Glara, in Avignon. This day was at that period a sort of red letter Lady day, and may have been fixed upon by the lover as a proper conventional period whence to date his real passion. It is amusing to notice how many hearts, then as now, Cupid pierced with shafts sent from the ambush of a jirayer book. No wonder those early illuminators worked the little wretch as an ornament into the borders of the most fervent orisons! I'etrarch's father dies. Petrarch returns to Avignon. Acquaintance with the Colonnas. 1327, April 6, sees Laura fnr the first time. Laura de Noves, wife of Hugo de Sade, was then in her twentieth year, and had been a wife two years. Taking it for granted that the alleged portraits of her that have reached us are correct, her style of beauty had a demure dignity which would have been certain to enthral an intellectual person, who might be attracted by it when jKJScd in religious huiuility upon a liassock at early devotions. She was not a blue stocking. It has been murmured by priggish critics that she could barely have known how to read. She seems to have been femininely fond of gorgeous attire. She had two dresses, the description of which has come down to us, that, to use an enthusiastic expression, were "just too lovely for anything." I-nura was, however, remarkable for her virtue and discretion, and all the |)ersonal beauty and accomplishments of the embryo poet ap- I)ear not to have caused her to swerve a hair's breadth from the safe path of conjugal fidelity. Heine's malicious verses might apply to her: "Zu dcr I^uhcit iind cer Flauhcit Deincr Secle passte nicht Mciner Liebe wilde Rauheit, Die sich Bahn Jurch KeNen briclu. I)u, du iiebtest die Chausscen In dcr Liebe, und ich schau Dich am Arm des Gattcn gehen " Hut |)Oor Petrarch took the disease in its most virulent form. His divinity's charms were thenceforth ever in his thoughts; and he recorded his feelings and sorrows in a succession of sonnets, madri- gals, ballads, and canzoni that, superior to the class of erotic lyrics then in circulation, fell in with the taste in that regard of his cotem- |»oraries; and he became famous, not so much for his great qualities as a man as for his unhappy weakness as a lover. It may be fairly set down as a fact that a disappointment or mis- fortune in an author's love affairs, is the best recommendation to |x>pular favor that he can have. Successful love, it is true, excites a certain degree of tender interest; but the sentimental world admits the jilted swain, or him who has loVed and forever lost, at once to its heart without asking for passi:ort. It is the nightingale with breast tortured by the thorn, whose song is the most emotional. Ix)ss of wealth or i)ower cannot move the heart nearly so effectually as the misfortune which s|)rings from the adverse whim of some simple girl, or the removal by death of some uni)retending wife from the circle of a man's worldly happiness. Hyperion is a bright book of travel; but I question if its pictures of old world experiences would strike us half so vividly if it were not that we view them through the eyes of a young husband stricken by the greatest domestic misfortune. In his twenty-eighth year, Petrarch left .-\vignon for a grand tour through France and Germany. He hoped by this absence to dull the pain of his unfortunate passion. He visited Paris, the Low 8 Countries, and Germany ; and on coming back to Italy, he, together with Jacob Colonna, journeyed to Rome to gratify their enthusiastic taste for its anticiuities. But Avignon and Laura were ever associated in his thoughts ; he hastened back, and on his return, thither, at the instance of his pa- tron, Cardinal Colonna, he entered the service of John XXII, then Pope, who employed him as an envoy to France, to Italian princes, and even, as is said, to England. Wearying of this, Petrarch sought retirement in Vaucluse, where he nursed his love griefs with the most tender assiduity. Vaucluse ( Val Chinsa, Vallis Clausa) is a beautiful and romantic spot fourteen miles from Avignon. Its rocks, its picturesque beauty, and the fact that here Petrarch idled away so many hours of lovesick melancholy, have rendered the place with the petulant little river Sorgue that boils through the valley, one of the most interesting attractions for literary pilgrimages in the south of Europe. In this spot Petrarch lived with an old fisherman and his wife — ignorant peasants, whom Petrarch, however, easily found worthy of his friendship, and about whom he wrote some of his most interesting and touching observations. At this period he projected his Latin epic, Africa, desiring thereby to glorify his great hero, Scipio Africanus. At this time, too, he seems to have had an intrigue which might give cause to doubt his sincerity in his poetic professions of homage to Laura. Whatever feeling Petrarch invested in the experience, the girl involved does not appear to have been as rigorous as Laura. A son, Giovanni, was born in 1337, whom Petrarch afterwards recog- nized and had legitimated. What a relief the matter-of-fact facilit}- of this humble love must have been to the icicle-tii)ped sentiment of the stately Laura ! Returns to Avignon; settles at Vaucluse. Latin epic, Africa. >337. Petrarch's son, Giovanni, bom. But his learning, his political experience, and his amiable char- acter (and above all, perhaps, the romance of his barren love), began to bring him literary glory; and at this time, he received from the Chancellor of the University of Paris and from the Roman Senate, simultaneous invitations to visit those capitals for the purpose of receiving a laurel crown as a mark of recognition of his eminence as a poet. He decided from patriotic motives to accept the Senate's invitation. His real claims as a poet rested at that period properly upon his Tuscan sonnets; but these he regarded as but trifles, and he felt that to entitle him to the glory proffered, he should produce something in 1340. 1 he I'niversity of Paris and Roman Senate offer him a laurel crown I34«. April 17, crowned at Rome. Death of Oiacomo L'olonna. Latin, namely, his epic, Africa, before mentioned. This j rize poem, in an unllnished state, he submitted to Robert, the cul- tivated King of Naples, who formally examined him as to his qualifications as Laureate, and pronounced him worthy, giving him his own robe of state as a fitting garment in whicl\ to present himself at Rome for the expected honor. Those were the days of pageantry; and the laurel wreath was bestowed upon Petrarch, April 17, 1341, in a manner most gratifying to the recipient, and reflecting credit upon the taste and culture of all concerned in the ceremony. The crowning of Petrarch as poet laureate was the great event of his life. Thereafter, he visited Parma, where he learned of the death of his great friend, Jacob Colonna, the P>ishop of Lombes, of which event he experienced a presentiment in a dream. Here, he received a stall in the cathedral as arch-deacon, and thereafter devoted his time to the perfecting of his ei)ic. Deputed with Kienzi by the Romans to un;c leiurii of Pope to Rome; But his passion drew him back, to Avignon and Vaucluse, having been commissioned to the new Poi)e, Clement VL as advocate of the Roman people; and in his days of retirement, he wrote his three imaginary dialogues with St. Augustine, wherein he sought to lay bare his feelings and motives in the matter of his love passion. The business which Petrarch was to manage at this date, was to urge the new Pope to return to Rome and re-establish the papal throne in that city. His colleague in the office was Nicola Gabrino, better known as Cola di Rienzi, afterwards famous, weak, and unfortunate, as the Roman Tribune, who commenced by attacking the nobles, and ended by aj'ing them. The Pope, however, notwithstanding the kindness with which he behaved towards the Roman deputies, declined to take the step de- sired. He permitted the Jubilee, however, which had theretofore been celebrated only once a century, to be {proclaimed for 1350. Petrarch was indignant at the neglect which Rome received at the hands of His Holiness, and gave vent to his feelings in abuse of Avignon, which place he likened unto the scriptunal Babylon, styling his work "Liber epistolarum sine titulo." Gherardo, Petrarch's brother, became at this time a Carthusian friar, having received an impulse to the act from a visit which the two brothers made to a convent. It is said that Gherard became a monk because of grief at the loss of his mistress by death. 1343. Studies Greek In 1342, Petrarch took up the study of Greek with Bernardo Barlaamo, a Calabrian monk, an envoy sent by the Emperor of the East to the Pope. He subsecjuently continued the study under Leonzio Pilato, a pupil of Barlaamo's, but never actually acquired any proficiency as a Grecian. In 1343, a second child, a daughter, Francesca, was born to Petrarch by his everyday mistress; Laura, of course, being only the Platonic tit- ular incumbent of his heart. This mistress died shortly afterwards. Francesca grew to be an estimable woman, and proved a great com- fort to her father in his old age. In this year, King Robert of Naples died, and was succeeded by his granddaughter, Giovanna. Petrarch went to Naples as embassa- dor to represent the Pope, and also to endeavor to obtain the release of some adherents of the Colonna family, who had been imprisoned. He was treated by the Queen with great consideration, but otherwise was unable to mitigate the tragic disputes between her and the brother of her murdered husband, the King of Hungary. After a short sojourn at Rome, under the invitation of Jacob H, of Carrara, he visited Padua, and was named by his host as a Canon of Parma. Here he wrote his treatise, " De viris illustribus." '343- 1 I aiicesca i^etrarca born. Embass)' to Naples. 1346. ' anon of Panna. In 1347, the dramatic rise of Rienzi at Rome took place. Ri- enzi was elected tribune, and the popular movement received the hearty approval of the Pope (Clement VI), and also of Petrarch. But Rienzi's vanity worked his own destruction, and helped to dis- gust the aristocratic churchmen with liberty in that shape. It may be well to call attention to the fact that the ecclesiastics of those days were in no sense political absolutists ; but seemed only too anxious to raise up the old Roman Republic from under the ruins of the Capitol. In 1348, the Pest, so eloquently and vividly pictured by Boccaccio, broke out in Italy. It travelled finally to Avignon: and one of its shining victims was Laura, the news of whose death came to Petrarch at Verona, where he was then sojourning. His grief for the death of his mistress was excessive, and to it we owe some of his tenderest lyrics. Indeed, the poems written subsequently to the death of the lady are remarkable for their genuine feeling, dignity, and beauty. In 1350, he went to Rome to gain the indulgence promised in connection with the papal Jubilee; and after accomplishing his duty, tarried at Arezzo, his birth-place. Here he was honored with an en- thusiastic reception; and a decree was entered by the community that the house wherein he was born should be ever kept in its then condition as a sacred place. '347- Rise of Rienzi. He returned to Vaucluse and Avignon, where he remained until 1352 ; but Laura was dead; he never had liked Avignon save because she lived there; and he determined to return to Lombardy. Here he entered into diplomatic duties, mainly for the Milanese Visconti : and as additional employment, he was jjlaced in charge of the library which the Archbishop (Giovanni had established at Padua. He remained in the service of the Visconti ten vears. >3S4- Visits the Emperor Charia at .Mantua. 1 30 1. Resides at Venice: presents hi;> library to St. Maries. In 1354, Charles IV, F^mperor, invited him to his court, then held at Mantua. Charles had been a great admirer of Petrarch — indeed, the story is told that in 1346, when at Avignon with his father, Charles had singled out Laura from all the bevy of beauties at the luxurious court of Avignon, and had then and there kissed her, at the expense of arousing the tender jealousy of the poet. Petrarch was ver)' tree in his remarks to Charles, upon royal and imperial duties, but the latter took it in gentle part: spoke ever in the most enthusiastic terms of the poet, wishing to have him permanently in his court; the chancellor of the Empire sending the poet a patent as Count Palatine. But the days when a court poet was an enviable profession had for a generation gone by when the Hohenstauffen dynasty failed ; and Petrarch possibly did not feel ambitious of a position in which he might find his personal dignity shading off into that of the court jester; and he therefore clung to his loved Italy, and after a lengthy sojourn at Milan, he practically setded at Padua, finally making his home at Arqua. But ever restless, and yet ever seeking repose, he betook himself to Venice, then a city of wonderful growth, civilization, and glory. The Venetians honored him highly; and by way of grateful return, he presented to the state his library, which became the nucleus of the famous collection of St. Mark's. Another motive for the gift may be found in the fact that, to a restless man, ever changing his domicile, the trans}X)rtation of such treasures as books were in those days, would be a matter of great anxiety. The Venetian Senate also appointed a palace for his residence. At this time his relations with Boccaccio became intimate. He used to wear the great prose writer's portrait with his own in a ring ; and Boccaccio gave him the works of St. Augustine, Varro, and some of Cicero's, besides copying for his use, with his own hands, Dante's great poem. Indeed, the connection between Petrarch and Boccaccio is one of the purest friendships ever formed between two literarj' men, and shows to great advantage the lack of small envies in the compo- sition of both men. Boccaccio successfully procured the re-instatement of Petrarch (135 1 ) as a citizen of Florence, from which place he had been from prenatal days a hereditary exile. The Florentines demanded of the Pope (Urban V, 1365) that the poet be inducted into a canonry either in Florence or Fiesole. But Petrarch, although appreciating the honor and kindness, declined to return, and ultimately fixed his abode, in 1370, at Arqua, in the Euganean Hills, a short distance from Padua. His last public act was a diplomatic service in the in- terest of a patron, P>ancesco Novello da Carrara, Prince of Padua, to settle a dispute with Venice. After finishing the mission in an honorable but not altogether successful manner, he returned to Arqua, and June 18, 1374, was found dead, sitting in a chair in his library. His funeral was conducted with all the pomp which appertained to the sepulture of a man who had possessed so great an influence as ecclesiastic, poet, and statesman, his colleagues of the diocese joming with his friend, the reigning Prince of Padua, in doing the honors of his burial. riorentines ask the Pope to give him preferment at Florence. 1370- Settles at Arqua '374- lune 17-18. Death. One feels, on reviewing Petrarch's life and works, continually reminded of Goethe. Both had been educated to the law; but abandoned it as a business full of unsatisfactory sophistry. Both lived in a revolution of culture. Goethe was not utterly carried away by the Storm-and-stress flood; but nevertheless its cur- rent shook up and kejit in movement his whole being. Petrarch was full of the excitement of the Revival of I>etters. Both found their bread-and-butter existence practically dependent upon their services to petty princes in fragmentary nationalities; for the Holy Roman Empire was as weak a bond in Italy in the days of Dante and Petrarch as it was four hundred years later, when the French Revolution burst under it and blew it to pieces. Both were lifted into notice by the poetic expression which they gave to their mental and moral throes and tortures as unsatisfied lov- ers, the one by his lyric poetr}', the other by his Sorrows of Werther. Had the Italian been able to break away from his passion or had the German suffered his to become chronic, the parallel would be com- plete, so far as there could be a likeness between the hale and hearty German and the morbid Florentine. Both were honored by the great ones of their time, and were characters as well in political as in literary history: And if we exam- Resemblances between Petrarch and Goethe. 13 ine their daily lives and ambitions as well as their successes and fail- ures, we may find much in the glorified sage of Weimar which has also its representative trait in him of Padua. Although somewhat fanciful and strained, one cannot help seek- ing what might be parallelisms in the lives of Petrarch and Goethe. 1 have picked out a few farts which show a certain ratio of coinci- dence. Goethe has left us more of his work which we can benefit by. Much of Petrarch's labor was of necessity apt only for the time in which he lived ; and his productions were formed or deformed in accordance with the mannerisms of that era. Both were successful in their worldly lives— a compensr.tion, in a manner, for the i)nngs of despised love which both suffered early in life. Here I might refer to Napoleon's famous criticism upon VVerther: that an unhappy pas sion was not. in itself, sufficient reason for suicide ; but that a failure in one's career must also supervene to warrant such extreme despair — in brief, that Glor}- and Fame are the best physicians for a broken heart, Petrarch and Goethe having successfully submitted to the treatment. Had Petrarch not been kept alive by the hopeful brill- iancy of the revival of letters and encouraged by the social regard paid him as a cherished favorite of the Colonnas, or had Goethe seen no grander life before him than that of a snuffy imperial chancery clerk, the burthen of an impossible love might have seemed to both, as it did to poor Jerusalem, too heavy to bear. PETR.\RCH. GOETHE. Family origin : The family of Pe- Maternally descended from Johann rarch's mother was probably more influ- Wolfgang Textor, Schultheiss of Frank - ential than that of his father, Petraccolo. fort, the family (as well as Goethe's Garzo, Petrarch's paternal grandfather, father) being heredhary ,^ens e/e ia ro/i,f. had something like the municipal status Goethe's mother was as brilliant in a of Textor, Goethe's maternal grandfa- feminine way as Goethe himself in his. iher. Petrarch's mother was a beautiful woman, of lovely disposition. Petrarch is destined for jurisprudence, Goethe's father resents his son's neg- but prefers the classics and poets, suffer- lect of the law. Goethe barely takes ing thereby his father's displeasure ; his doctorate degree (?) and never de- abandons the law when left to his own votes any serious attention to the subject devices. thereafter. Finds his enjoyment in the society of " Willst du genau erfahren was sich elegant ladies of Avignon. Fastidious ziemt in his dress. So frage nur bei edlen Frauen an." Goethe in his young days a thorougli fop. Petrarch's dissipation at Avignon. Goethe's wild days at Weimar. Petrarch's era the regeneration of Storm and Stress period : the crys- classical learning and rivalry of Latin tallization of the elegant modern High with Tuscan. German. H Laura de Sade. Sonnets and other Tuscan poems in the lifetime of Laura. Becomes famous by reason of his Tuscan poems. Makes the tour of France to forget his passion. Is a protege of the Colonna family and the bosom friend of Giacomo, August of Weimar Bishop of I,omlies. Enters diplomatic service under Car- dinal Colonna and Pope John XXII ; sui^sequently ends his career as minister of the Milanese V^isconti. Forms a liaison with some unknown woman, although he still celebrates LOTTE BUFK KeSTNER. The Sorrows of Werther. The wild enthusiasm of Germany over Werther. Goethe's songs, marvels of lyric perfection. Leaves Wetzlar. Swiss journey. The Stolbergs, and ultimately Karl Appointed Legutionsralh, and sub- sequently promoted. Becomes the atlmirer of Baroness von Stein, and has a connection which Goethe wastes his energy in erroneous theories as to natural science. Napoleon's interview with Goethe : Voila un homine. " Lotte, an old woman, the mother of Laura in his verse. Two children born ultimately ends in a marriage with of the connection. Christiane Vulpius. Receives a patent as Count Palatine Is ennobled. of the Roman Empire. Petrarch's epic and his republican ideas a failure, The following century criticises his Latin style. Petrarch greatly honored by the Emperor Charles. Laura in her matronly days conies to be proud of the glory conferred on her twelve children, visits Goethe, by Petrarch's verse, and affects a senti- mental friendship for him. Boccaccio's friendship. .Schiller's friendship. Old age at Arqua. Cultured ease Old age at Weimar. An object of amid books and objects of art, admired veneration to both his countrymen and by the great and scholarly of his time, strangers. Chaucer's verdict upon Petrarch, as Thackeray's ^'Ttintiim vidi'' recorded in "The Gierke's Tale." In reading Petrarch's letters and noting his personal doings, one is struck with the almost insupportable burthen as a scribe that must have pressed upon him. It would not be giving too strong an illustra- tion in that regard to suggest the sort of labor which a lad of to-day would undergo, if, to reach a liberal education, he were compelled to slavishly copy every author he read in a fair engrossing hand. How many people would have favorite authors in these times, if the claim had to be supported by laboriously engrossing them on parch- ment ? What misery the want of })aper must have caused ! Pe- trarch used a leather jerkin, which he treated as a sort of note-book when he was out of reach of fitting writing materials, which garment was still in existence in 1527, when it was a prized relic in the hands of the erudite Cardinal Sadoletti. It will be seen what respectable His manual drudgery as a scribe. 15 precedent one has for soiling one's cuffs with memoranda. The Vatican has his Rime in autograph — a fair copy. At Florence, is a transcript by him of certain eijistles of Cicero, bound in wood with iron clasps, the corners of copjjer, the identical book which so often fell on his unlucky left leg, and came near costing him its amputation. He forever complains of the unreliability of copyists, who, in those days, received the abuse which we now lavish, deservedly or otherwise, on the printers. The calligraphist was an artist in those times, as was also the illuminator, one oi whom Dante finds in Pur- gatory. Petrarch was an elegant scribe. His handwriting was so neat and clear that when in 1501-2, Aldus Manutius invented the so-called Italic type as an improvement upon black letter, he made it a fac simile of Petrarch's hand. Character of It is not alwavs that the grand (lualities inherent in a man are the La""- L • r 1 • ' • ■ • basis of his reputation or fame. Petrarch is a shining example of the weakness of a great mind, proving the connecting sympathetic link binding to him the regard and affection of his fellow-men for a |)eriod of centuries in duration. Laura seems to have been a grande dame of the Court at Avig- non, filling the part of a sort of local queen, with no particular intel- lectual gifts, probably, but with a comjjlete appreciation of the power of her beauty, and a disposition to set it off as much as possible by an attention to dress and coquettish requirements. She recognized the advantage of having a great man and poet grovelling at her feet ; and it seems that it annoyed her when she ran the risk of losing him. She was selfish about it, however. She granted him no favors. She snubbed him when he effervesced into indiscretion, and jiractically and crushingly said, "Messer Petrarcha, I am no such woman.' r non son forse chi tu credi. She seems to have been remarkably prolific ; and whether she loved her lord or no, she was most of the time in that state in which women who do like to be. There are ten or eleven children men- tioned as born of her marriage, and we do not know how many got away. It is singular to notice in that regard, how she and Lottie Kestner, Goethe's great passion, are compeers. Now, the spectacle of poor Petrarch, as it were, getting in his tributes of adoration of her person (p't'b's exhaustum) in such breathing spells as were allowed to the midwives, might draw a sneer from lips moulded for sarcasm. What an opportunit}' would have been offered for the great mod- ern song writer of Germany to say something piquant, had he been 16 1 aura, a cold thrown back, five hundred years in some anachronistic way, and as a barbarian, have met the demure Laura swinging through the streets of the Gascon capital on the arm of her noble spouse, " Eine brave schwangere Frau !" Of course, we must acquit Laura of any yielding to the poet. She could not have been imitating that methodical Roman Empress, exemplary who, when asked why, when she had so many lovers, her children wore her husband's features, answered — Numquam nisi navi plena toUo vectorem Perhaps, however, if Laura had possessed the cjuality of ready negotiability in the matter of affections such as a malign Venus vested in Sordello's Cunizza, it is possible that Petrarch never would have developed as a poet. Gratified love stills the music of men as effectually as of birds. It will be remembered how when the brother and the lover of Beatrix Esmond discovered her intrigue with the Chevalier, and were uneasy lest she had already yielded, their minds were set at rest by the discovery that the Prince was still in the verse-writing stage of the flirtation. Petrarch never passed from it, in spite of the slanderous hints of Madame Deshoulieres. No, Laura was good ; fJn <^ / " And whether coldness, or virtue dignify A woman, so she is good, what does it signify?" To sentimental souls, I must frankly admit my lack of inclination to crown Laura with the customary nimbus of angelic phosphores- cence. She doubtless was extremely good, but not " too good to be unkind," at least, to her passionate admirer. Of course, as supporters of the ethical dogma of wifely virtue, we ought to feel a glow of en- thusiasm at the fact that five centuries ago, under the warm sun of Provence, in a very dissipated capital, and with a crossish sort of husband, a woman was found of such Arctic rigor as to return only an iceberg reflection of the flaming glow of her servant's passion; but at the same time, we may be allowed to cherish a sneaking regret that the garland of poetic blossom — the first of the new growth of mod- ern European civilization, should have brought no response from the lady at whose feet it was laid, save the throwing in the poet's eyes of a shovelful of the ashes of her flickering conjugal fires. It was a practical blessing to Petrarch, when the Plague eloped with her. It ended his haunting Provence when he should have been in Italy, where he rightfully belonged. For my part, I feel a sense of relief when I come to the poems which record Laura as in Heaven, and her disturbing and l)aleful influence removed from the gentle canon's existence. »7 Hu mistaken His mannerism Petrarch': undue faitli Ck' ■ the ; We may pardon Petrarch's morbid passion for Laura. It was a disease that had settled on him in his youth — a rheumatic disorder of his blood, which kept him ever in unrest. But his other idols were equally objects of mistaken homage. He believed that Virgil and his Latin predecessors and successors of the classical age were sacred prophets. He worshipped their sandal strings. He attempted to bring back their language, not as a philological enquiry, not as ma- terial in an archaic museum, not as a stage costume, but as a matter of daily habit. He was not alone in his error. Dante and the pre- ceding generation were equally enthusiastic— equally wrong. Cicero nian Latin and Roman Freedom seemed to all the bright intellects of that day, whether ])ope or king, priest or layman, matters to strug- gle and strive after as the theoretical suinmum honiim of earthly pol- ity and culture. His talk was full of allusions and illustrations from Roman and Grecian history. It forcibly reminds one of the orators of the French Revolution ; and possibly also of the classical mannerisms of some of our own Revolutionary fathers' stilted effects in speech, which have long ago been abandoned to schoolboy rhetoric. Petrarch, like many an enthusiastic student since his time, was carried off his feet by the voluble graces of Cicero. He esteemed it true statesmanship to adopt Cicero's opinions. He did his best to write Ciceronian Latin. He. amidst those grim Italian tyrants, who had more of Catiline than of .Augustus in their composition, actually tried, as the acme of genius to be attaimd, to be an orator such as was Cicero, forgetful that Cicero himself in his vanity as a Roman Consul was probably more conceited, inwardly, over his petty mili- tary success and his doubtfu* title of imperator than over his most brilliant civic victories. Petrarch's friend, Dandolo, the Doge of Venice, gave him a rough rebuke in that regard. But if Cicero was a failure when in the glow of life and action, with a Roman Senate behind him as clients, and a populace in front charmed by his wealth of diction, it would not be likely that Petrarch, as a mediaeval sorcerer, by sprinkling his fickle ashes and muttering his silvery phrases all over Italy, could invoke the old Roman phantoms of glory. And in so blindly taking Cicero as a model, Petrarch did what he himself reprehends : His opinions were more like pictures of Roman bass-reliefs than like flesh and blood descendants of Roman heroes. But even Petrarch's mumbling of Ciceronian expressions was not free from criticism. Writing a dead language is like solving a mystic i8 fifteen puzzle— a matter of ingenious fitting of mosaic. Petrarch was dab at it ; but the succeeding century grew more expert at the game ; and Petrarch's stilted hexameters became a matter of about as much literary regard as John Tz^tzes' epic balderdash, made out of the splinters of Homer. A work in a dead lan\;uage can no more be miitated than a stained-glass window can be restored from its frag- ments, after the art of staining glass has been lost. Petrarch's Italian verse has long been held above criticism. Per- haps we feel a half monotonous weariness at the uniformity of a col- lection of sonnets on one subject, and that a cloying one, when any one of the poems by itself, would excite nothing but simple admira- tion. But one should not read the poet in that way. The proper mode to appreciate Petrarch is to dawdle under the shade of a tree ; to sleepily open to any chance page, and to stop after turning the leaf. A sonnet is like an intaglio gem : you must not expect heroic breadth therein; it must be examined with half shut eyes to bring out its beauties. Many of Petrarch's poems are as fantastic and in- volved as a particolored twist of silk. But to put a bundle of thoughts into so small a compass as fourteen lines, is a task like stowing a lady's robe into a traveller's hand-bag: there must inevitably be some little wrinkling of ideas. For the same reason, the difficulty of translating into a foreign language a sonnet which is closely packed in the original, becomes insurmountable. Besides, the day of the English sonnet ended with the death of Queen Elizabeth. The poets of that era spoke a lan- guage more fitted for the purpose of rendering Petrarch, and they were entitled to take more liberties with the idiom. Dante's great epic was sparingly commended by Petrarch, who could not fail to note its beauties, and who was the soul of fairness as a critic, even when heavily handicapped with the delusions of his day; but it was in the common tongue, and to him, it was admirable only with reservations. In Petrarch's old age, he produced his Trionfi. Here, perhaps, by the influence of Boccaccio, he takes Dante somewhat as a model. That these efforts were excellent of their kind, may be seen from the fact that so many modern poets have followed in his wake, and have adopted analogous forms for their poetic art. The great wealth of new themes shining in the epics of barbarian Germany which had found expression in the preceding century, awoke little interest in Petrarch. The music of the Minnesingers and the Petrarch's Latin style criticised by the succeeding age. Petrarch's Tuscan poems. Difficulty of translation. Depreciates Dante's poems in the vulgar tongue. Petrarch's Trionfi a great succe.ss. Betrays no enthusiasm for ( lothic, or Romantic epic pnetrv . 19 cycles of Roland and Arthur worked itself into Italian literature two centuries later, when Boiardo, Ariosto, and Tasso found the legends worthy subjects for their verse. Petrarch was unconsciously attempting to bring back the modes of thought and action of the ancient world, forgetful that that world could not be in harmony with Christian tra- dition and Christian chivalry. Only a Christian gentleman could have suffered or been victimized by such a passion as Petrarch enter- tained for Laura. A Greek or Roman would not have understood it or its morbid pains ; and Petrarch's political and literary views were out of place as much as was the tribuneship of Rienzi, decked with the gewgaws of mediaeval knighthood. For these reasons, Petrarch might well complain, "Solco onde, e 'n rena foiido e scrivo in vento." Chaucer and A Striking instance of the mode in which // gran canonico was ab- sorbed in his Nirvana of classical contemplation, maybe drawn from the scanty facts tending to prove his intercourse with Chaucer. There can be no moral doubt but that Chaucer knew Petrarch personally. They were both in France many times, where they might have met. They were both courtiers. They both had an enthusiasm for scholarship. Whether they met then, or whether Chaucer, when on his visit to Genoa, specially visited the Italian, it does not appear. I do not imagine that a visit by the hearty beef-eating Valettus Nos- ier to the fruit-eating poet of Arqua, would have been very cheery as a feast-hunting episode; but the only reason that such a visit could not have occurred, lies in the fact that Petrarch himself does not record it. Still, on the other hand, would he have mentioned the visit of a man who was the servant of a barbarous monarch, and whose only claim to notice, literarywise, was his cultivation of an unknown and uncouth dialect, that was half bastard French? I think that we must accept Landor's Imaginary Conversations, Boccaccio and Petrarch, and then Chaucer as an intervenor, as con- ventional truths, whether direct evidence to support the idea is ever found or not. Petrarch's patriolisni . Petrarch's patriotism was of the sturdiest order. His hopes were for the return of the Pope to Rome, to the end that the horde of petty tyrants who swarmed over Italy and made it the bloody ground of their aimless and endless brawlings, might be overawed by a strong central power at Rome. He was not averse to a temporal emperor sitting side by side with a spiritual pontiff; but he wished that em- peror to be the right hand of Italy, and to fight its battles for a return to supremacy of Roman ideas and the Roman race, as exponents of civilization. Petrarch was a man of strong, clear, almost skeptical mind. He was a disbeliever in judicial astrology and alchemy — superstitions which clung to western civilization far into the eighteenth century. He saw through the quackery of what its professors were, in those days, pleased to style the medical profession; and by his railleries at its expense, he won the animosity of the guild as deservedly as did Mo- liere three centuries later. He was so scientifically intelligent that he won from Innocent VI, the ignoramus among the Avignon popes, the reputation ( in those days a dangerous one) of being, like his cherished model, Vir- gil, a sorcerer; and taking one line as a prophecy, we might almost fancy him foretelling the discovery of America: — " Che '1 di nostro vola A gente che di la forse 1' aspetta " To an American, there is something peculiarly attractive in the vspectacle of the great poet looking over the Atlantic, straining his eyes to catch a glimpse of another world, bathed in the glories of the setting sun. A hundred years later, Luigi Pulci borrowed and expanded this idea of Petrarch. Charles Sumner, in his Prophetic Voices about America, notices Pulci, but overlooks Petrarch's pre- cedence. Pulci, however, might have learned at the same source as Columbus. Petrarch in advance of his age. Divines the existence of a western continent. Had Petrarch sought riches by the road of mercantile enterprise — and those were the days of mercantile power — he might have founded a family that would have rivalled the Medici, and his declining age would have been spent in an old gentlemanly fever of enthusiasm over antique gems and coins and amid a collection of chipped torsos from his pet Roman Imperial days. Had he, like Sordello, worn a cuirass instead of a cassock, and flourished a sword instead of a censer, he might have sprung into power as a condotiiefe, and as either the Pope's trusty man-at-arms or the Emperor's legate, have won for his beloved Italy that peaceful unity, prosperity, and stability as a nation which have ever seemed a mirage of glory that has shifted away from every Italian patriot in every age as he has attempted to gr.isp and detain them. Petrarch was a great man — above such vanity as caused Rienzi to burst like the fabled frog— sincere and loving in his friendships, a genuine broken-hearted lover who never took revenge upon his 21 Had Petrarch won the same degree of success in arms which he acquired in letters, his greatness would have been more appreciated and his work more perm.'inent. prudish mistress, either in word or deed, and who did not sit down and wither into intellectual apathy because she was not kind. He stood out from his age as pure and symmetrical in character as an antique column left standing amid the ruins of his own dear Rome, Petrarch. after Gothic devastations, to mark a trysting place for lovers and a surface whereon to engrave the date of the regenerate birth of classi- cal and philosophical learning in modern Europe out of the mingled ashes of monkish scribes and gallant bards of Provence, and the epitaph of the last and greatest of the Troubadours. the last of the I r, .,,».. .1 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL. It would, of course, be a piece of presumption to attempt any list either of editions, annotators, or biographers of Petrarch. Marsand, we believe, collected long ago a Biblioteca Petrarchesca of nine hundred volumes! (Now, at Paris.) And the list has been steadily increasing. The best that can be done, therefore, (and all that is necessary in an essay like the present,) is to note some of the more curious or more popular works or editions which a student of Petrarch may find referred to in his reading. I.-LIST OF PUBLISHED WORK.S OF PETRARCH. Published WRITTEN IN TUSCAN. works. 1st. Sonnets ; written in the lifetime of Laura, 227 ; after her death, 90. This is exclusive of 6 sonnets discovered and published by G. Veludo, and one found in the French National Libiary by M. L. Podhorsky and the one (alleged to be by Petrarch) found in Laura's tomb. 2d. Canzoni ; written in Laura's lifetime, 21 ; after her death, 8. 3d. Sestine ; written in Laura's lifetime, 8 ; after her death, I. 4th. Ballate ; written in Laura's lifetime, 6; after her death, i. 5th. Madrigals, (all in Laura's lifetime,) 4. 6th. Trutmphs, begun in 1357, left unfinished at the death of the poet. Love, Chastity, Death, Fame, Time, Eternity. LATIN POEMS. 1st. Africa, (commenced in 1341 ; not finished for years after,) XII books. 2d. Bucolicum carmen. 3d. Epistolae, III books. 4th. Septem Psalmi Penitentiales ; novem confessionales. ETHICAL or philosophical WORKS. 1st. Secretum de Contemptu Mundi ; III dialogues. De Conflictu Curarum Suarum. 2d. De Avaritia Vitanda. 3d. De Otio Religioso ; II books ; written in consequence of a visit to his brother in a Carthusian convent. 4th. De Vera Sapientia; II dialogues. 5th. De Remediis Utriusque Fortunae ; commenced in 1358. 6th. De Vita Solitaria, II books ; written for the Bishop of Cavaillon (Vaucluse); commenced as a sketch in 1346 ; finished in 1366. 7th. De Sui Ipsius et Aliorum Ignorantia; a rebuke to Atheism. 1370. 8th. Epistola ad Posferitatem. POLITICAL discussions. 1st. De Officiis et Virtutibus Imperatoris. 2d. Exhortations to Attempt the Recovery of Liberty ; to restore peace to Italy. 3d. Ad Quosdam ex Illustribus Antiquis. 4th. De Republica Optime Administranda ; written for the Prince of Padua (I373-) 23 302037 5th. 6th. 1st. 2d. 2d. 4th. 1st. 2d. 3^1 Liber Epistolarum sine Titulo (coiKerning the Papal sojourn at Avignon.) Letters; to Humbert, Dauphin of the Viennois, (1339); to the Emperor Charles, (1350); to Dandolo, Doge of Venice, (1351.) HISTORILAl.. Epitome lihistrium Virorum. l>e Kehus Memorandis, I\' booi THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY This book is DUE on the last date stamped below Form L-f' 2-.iii-10."n(24M) AT