769 



PETRARCA, FRANCESCO. 



PETRARCA, FRANCESCO. 



770 



seems little probability that he it still among the living. In the last 

 poem of the first collection of his works beginning " Egy gondolat 

 b;int engemet,' be expresses a horror of dying in bed, and puts up an 

 ardent prayer for death on the battle-field. 



There is a collected edition of the poems of Petbfi up to 1846, in 

 two small volumes, of which a first edition was published at Pesth in 

 1847, and a second in 1848. Two additional volumes, containing his 

 subsequent works, were seized and suppressed by the Austrian govern- 

 ment after the defeat of the revolution of Hungary. Many of them 

 are to be found in a volume entitled ' Hangok & multbol ' (' Sounds 

 from the Past"), published at Leipzig in 1851, of which a German 

 translation by Vasfi and Benko, with interesting noted, was issued at 

 Brunswick in 1852, under the title of ' Nationallieder der Magyaren.' 

 As the wonderfully idiomatic elegance of the language is always 

 spoken of as one of the principal charms of the poems of Petofi, the 

 foreign reader can hardly expect to appreciate them with any approacli 

 to the relish of a native ; but there is a lightness and airiness about 

 the songs which make it easy to believe in the effect they are said to 

 produce on the sympathies of an Hungarian reader. It may be 

 remarked, that though Petofi has often been spoken of as a wild son 

 of nature, he had, aa has been shown, enjoyed ample opportunities of 

 education ; and he was in reality well acquainted with the German, 

 French, and English languages and literature. Oyulai, from whose 

 biographical article in the ' Uj Magyar Muzeum ' our information is 

 cbieily taken, informs us that in English his favourite authors were 

 Shakspere, Byron, Moore, and Dickens ; and that he was accustomed 

 to call Dickens, from the kindliness which his writings tend to incul- 

 cate, a " benefactor of mankind." Characteristically enough in a song- 

 writer, he regarded Bdranger as " the world's greatest poet." His own 

 long poems are very inferior to his short ones ; and in prose he can 

 only be considered to have succeeded in some short tales and articles 

 iu the 'Eletkepek.' 



PETRARCA, FRANCESCO, born at Arezzo, iu July 1304, was the 

 son of Pietro, or Petracco (an idiomatic form of Pietro), a notary of 

 Florence, who was banished in 1 302, at the same time as Dante and 

 others of the Bianchi faction. [DANTE.] The true name of Petrarca 

 was Francesco di Petracco, or ' Francis the son of Petracco,' which he 

 afterwards changed into the more euphonic name of Francesco 

 Petrarca. After losing all hope of being restored to his native town, 

 Petracco removed with his family to Avignon, where Pope Clement V. 

 had fixed the residence of the Papal court, and whitber strangers from 

 every country resorted. Ilia son Francesco, after studying grammar 

 and rhetoric, was sent by hi( father to Montpellier, and afterwards to 

 Bologna to study law, which was considered the most profitable pro- 

 fession. Toung Petrarca however had little taste for the law, especially 

 aa it was taught in that age, and he devoted much of his time to 

 reading and copying manuscripts of the classic writers. His father 

 and mother having died at Avignon nearly about the same time, 

 Petrarca left Bologna, and on his arrival at Avignon he found that his 

 paternal inheritance was but little. He assumed the clerical dress, 

 without however having taken priestly orders, that habit being then, 

 aa it still is, the customary dress of good company at the Papal resi- 

 dence. The Papal court at Avignon was very gay and even licentious; 

 and Petrarca, who was then only two and twenty years of age, and of 

 a handsome person, was one of the gayest in the fashionable circles. 

 But his love of pleasure was tempered by the love of study. He 

 contracted a friendship with the jurist Sorauzo,with the canon John 

 of Florence, who was apostolic secretary, and with Jamea Colonna, 

 bishop of Lombes in Gascouy, and other distinguished men, who were 

 fond of learning, and who supplied him with books, a scarce and 

 expensive commodity in those times. Petrarca accompanied the Bishop 

 of Lombes to his diocese at the foot of the Pyrenees, where they spent 

 much of their time in literary discussions and excursions in the 

 mountains, with two other friends of similar tastes, whom Petrarca 

 has recorded under the classical names of Socrates and Laelius 

 ('Trionfo d'Amore,' ch. 4). On his return to Avignon, the Cardinal 

 John Colonna, brother of James, gave Petrarca appartmeuts in his 

 own palace, and became his patron ; and when his father, Stephen 

 Colonna, a sturdy warlike old baron, but not illiterate, and well 

 known for his quarrels with Boniface VIII., came from Rome to 

 Avignon on a visit to his sons, Petrarca waa introduced to him, and 

 soon won his favour. Azzo da Corrcggio, lord of Parma, having come 

 to Avignon to defend, before Pope Benedict XII., bis title to that 

 sovereignty against the claims of Marsiglio Rossi, became acquainted 

 with PetrarcH, and prevailed on him to act as hid advocate at the 

 Papal chancery. Petrarca undertook the cause and won it. Azzo had 

 brought with him Quglielmo Pastrengo, a learned man of Verona, the 

 author of a work ' De Originibus Rcrum,' a kind of historical dictionary 

 in alphabetical order, which is considered the first specimen of that 

 kind of work. Petrarca formed ah intimacy with Pastrengo as well 

 as with the Calabrian monk Barlaam, who came to Avignon on a 

 mission from the emperor Andronicus the younger, and from whom 

 he learned the rudiments of Greek. But before this time an incident 

 had occurred which exercised a powerful influence over Petrarca's life. 



On the Gth of April 1327, while he was attending service iu the 

 church of St. Clair, at Avignon, he was struck with the beauty of a 

 young lady who happened to be near him, and he conceived a violent 

 pauion for her. The lady's came was Laura. According to the 



BIOO, DIV. VOL. IV. 



received opinion, supported by documents, for Petrarca himself never 

 mentions her family name, she was the daughter of Audibert of Noves, 

 a small place in the territory of Avignon ; she had a considerable 

 fortune, and had been married about two years to Hugh de Sade, a 

 gentleman of Avignon ; when Petrarca first saw her, she wag nineteen 

 years of age. The attractions of Laura's person have been so fully 

 described and probably exaggerated by Petrarca, that it is needless to 

 say anything on the subject. But the qualities of her mind, which he 

 also praises, seem to have been truly remarkable in a provincial lady 

 of those times and of no very exalted rank. In her conduct for a 

 long course of years towards her handsome, accomplished, and impet- 

 uous admirer, whom she could not help meeting wherever she went, 

 at parties of pleasure, in walking, or at church, she exhibited a rare 

 mixture of firmness and courtesy, of respect for her own character 

 with a considerate regard for her enthusiastic lover. She has been 

 called a coquette, but we ought not to judge the conduct of a French- 

 woman of the 14th century by the standard of manners in England or 

 even France in the 19tli century. To those acquainted with the 

 manners of Italy and Spain even at the present day, the passion of 

 Petrarca for Laura de Sade is nothing uncommon. Such attachments 

 are frequent, and though often of a platouic nature, are certainly not 

 always so. That the attachment of Petrarca continued to be platouic, 

 was owing to Laura's sense of duty, or to her indifference, or to both, 

 but that it did not drive her lover to madness and ruin was owing to 

 her consummate address, of which we have abundant evidence in 

 Petrarca's own confessions. When he ventured on a declaration, she 

 sternly rebuked him, and avoided his presence ; but when she heard 

 that he was ill, she assumed towards him the manners of a friend 

 interested in his welfare ; she succeeded in purifying his passion, and 

 in making him satisfied with her conversation, and with giving vent to 

 his feelings in poetry. (Petrarca's Latin ' Epistle to James Colonna, 

 bishop of Lombes.') She was probably flattered by his praise, which 

 brought no imputation on her character, and made her the most cele- 

 brated woman of her day. Petrarca's sonnets and canzoni iu praise of 

 Laura circulated throughout Europe. When Charles of Luxembourg, 

 afterwards the Emperor Charles IV., came on a visit to Avignon, one 

 of his first inquiries was after the Laura celebrated by Petrarca, and 

 being introduced to her iu the midst of a large assembly, he respect- 

 fully begged to be allowed to kiss her on the forehead as a mark of 

 his esteem. (Petrarca, ' Sonnet ' 201.) It was not however without a 

 violent struggle that Petrarca allowed himself to be led by her better 

 judgment. For ten years after he had first teen Laura, bis life was 

 one continued strife between his passion and his reason. He left 

 Avignon repeatedly, travelled about, returned, but was still the same. 

 Wishing, if possible, to forget Laura, he formed a connection with 

 another woman, and had by her a son, and afterwards a daughter. 

 But still his mind recurred perpetually to the object of his first 

 attachment. He took care of his illegitimate children, but broke off 

 the connection. For several years he" fixed his residence at Vaucluse, 

 a solitary romantic valley near Avignon, on the bauks of the Sorga, of 

 which he has given some beautiful descriptions. In a letter addressed 

 to James Colonna, and dated June 1338, he assigns as a reason for his 

 retirement, that he was disgusted with the vice and dissoluteness of 

 the Papal court of Avignon, in leaving which, he says, he sang to 

 himself the psalm 'In exitu Israel de -Egypto.' He also says, that he 

 was tired of waiting for the fulfilment of the promises of honour and 

 emolument made to him by the pope. 



Meantime, year after year rolled on, and the beauty of Laura faded 

 away. She became the mother of a large family. But Petrarca con- 

 tinued to see her with the eyes of youth. In the year 1348, while 

 Petrarca was staying iu Italy, the plague spread into France and 

 reached Avignon. Laura was attacked by the disease, and she died 

 after three days' illness, on the 6th of April, in the fortieth year of 

 her age. Her death, from the account of witnesses, appears to have 

 been placid and resigned as her life had been. Petrarca has beautifully 

 described her passing away like a lamp which becomes gradually 

 extinct for want of nourishment. (' Trionfo della Morte,' ch. L) 



When the news reached Petrarca in Italy, he felt the blow as if he 

 had lost the only object that attached him to earth. He wrote on a 

 copy of Virgil, his favourite author, the following memorandum : " It 

 was in the early days of my youth, on the 6th of April, iuthe morning, 

 and in the year 1327, that Laura, distinguished by her virtues, and 

 celebrated in my verses, first blessed my eyes in the church of St. Clara, 

 at Avignon ; and it was in the same city, on the 6th of the very same 

 month of April, at the same hour in the morning, in the year 1348, 

 that this bright luminary was withdrawn from our sight, whilst I was 

 at Verona, alas 1 ignorant of my calamity. The remains of her chaste 

 and beautiful body were deposited in the church of the Cordeliers, on 

 the evening of the same day. To preserve the painful remembrance, 

 I have taken a bitter pleasure in recording it particularly in this 

 book, which is most frequently before my eyes, in order that nothing 

 in this world may have any further attraction for me, and that this 

 great bond of attachment to life being now dissolved, I may by frequent 

 reflection, and a proper estimation of our transitory existence, be 

 admonished that it is high time for me to think of quitting this 

 earthly Babylon, which I trust will not be difficult for me, with a 

 strong and manly courage, to accomplish." Petrarca's ' Virgil," with 

 this affecting memorandum, is now in the Ambrosiau library at Milan, 



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