PETRARCH 



95 



The poet's infancy was passed in Tuscany until 

 1312, when his father determined to go to Avignon, 

 whither the papal court had lately been trans- 

 ferred. There and in the neighbouring small 

 town of Carpentras Petrarch's studies began, and 

 were continued later at Montpellier and Bologna. 

 His father intended him to enter the legal pro- 

 i'e-sion ; but instead of jurisprudence he devoted 

 himself with enthusiasm to the study of the classics, 

 his favourite authors, on whose style he afterwards 

 strove to model his own, being Cicero and Virgil. 

 It was only later in life that he tried to learn 

 Greek, in which he never attained to any proficiency. 

 After his father's death, whom his mother did not 

 long survive, Petrarch returned to Avignon ( 1326). 

 As was the custom of the time, more especially at 

 the papal court, he and that brother Gherardo, 

 Iming without means, became ecclesiastics; but 

 Francesco never took holy orders. His chief 

 source of income livcaine the small l>enefices con- 

 ferred on him by his many powerful patrons ; but 

 in after-life he refused higher preferment, declining 

 even the much coveted post of papal secretary, 

 rather than compromise his independence. Petrarch 

 is reported to have lieen a handsome young man 

 of winning manners, fond of rich clothing and all 

 the refinement* of court-life. It was at this period 

 of his life that he first saw Laura, the lady whose 

 name he was to immortalise in his lyrics, and who 

 inspired him with a passion which has become pro- 

 vernial for its constancy and purity. The meeting 

 took place on April 6, 1327, in the church of St 

 Clara at Avignon. This date, as well as that of 

 Laura's death on the same day in the year 1348, 

 -tan. Is recorded by Petrarch's own hand on the 

 Hy-leaf of his Virgil, now amongst the treasures of 

 tin' Amhrosiaii Library at Milan. The identity of 

 Laura has )>een a subject of much discussion, the 

 most generally accepted bypotheail is that of the 

 Abbe de Sade, who identified the poet's love, on 

 somewhat slender evidence, with a memlier of his 

 own family. Lame de Noves, married in 1325 to 

 a Hugo de Sade : she became the mother of eleven 

 children, and died in April i:US. It was also at 

 this time that Petrarch's friendship l>egan with 

 the powerful Konmn family of the Colonnas, and 

 especially with Jacopo Colonna, Hishop of Lombez. 

 The dawn of the new birth of letters and art 

 which was to illumine the following century was 

 already altering the status of the poet and artist, 

 and as the fame of Petrarch's learning and genius 

 grew his position became one of unprecedented 

 consideration. His presence at their courts was 

 competed for by the most, powerful sovereigns of 

 the day, and such was the exceptional position he 

 enjoyed that he has said of himself that princes 

 had lived with him, not he with princes. His 

 chief patrons were Pope Clement VI., the Emperor 

 Charles IV., King RoVrt of Naples, the Viscoiitis 

 of Milan, Jacopo da Carrara, Lord of Padua, Azzo 

 da Correggio, Lord of Parma ; in Venice the senate 

 ed a palace on him in return for his promise 

 to leave that town his library ; Florence oll'ered 

 liim the restoration of the confiscated possessions 

 of his family if he would reside there, and in 

 Arezzo the house where he was born was held as a 

 wancttiary. When wearied by court-life he sought 

 retirement and quiet in Ms country-house at Vau- 

 liise, near Avignon. He travelled repeatedly in 

 France, Germany, and Flanders, wherever he went 

 searching diligently for manuscripts to enrich his 

 collection. He made some valuable bibliographical 

 rliscoveries, finding in Liege two new orations of 

 Cicero, in Verona a collection of letters of the 

 same writer, and in Florence a then unknown 

 Institution of Quintilian's. In the cosmopolitan 

 society of the papal court Petrarch became ac- 

 quainted with learned men of all countries, whom 



he interested in his unwearied search for valuable 

 manuscripts. The example given by Petrarch in 

 his loving preservation of books probably gave the 

 first incentive to the collection of manuscripts 

 which bore such rich fruits in the following century. 

 But the most glorious moment of Petrarch's 

 honoured career was when, invited by the senate 

 of Rome on Easter Sunday, 1341, he ascended the 

 capitol clad in the robes of his friend and ardent 

 admirer, Robert of Anjou, king of Naples, and 

 there, after delivering an oration on poetry and tlie 

 significance of the laurel, he was crowned poet- 

 laureate amid the acclamations of thousands. 

 After this pagan ceremony he went to leave his 

 crown on the altar of St Peter's. In 1353, after tlio 

 death of his beloved Laura and his friend Cardinal 

 Colonna, he left Avignon for ever, disgusted with 

 the corruption and vice of the papal court. The 

 remaining years of his brilliant life were passed in 

 various towns of Northern Italy, and in the retire- 

 ment of a country-house at Arqua, near Padua, the 

 only one of his many habitations still in existence. 

 There, tenderly cared for by his natural daughter, 

 Francesca, and her husband, and occupied to the 

 last in his favourite studies, he quietly ended his 

 life, 18th July 1374. 



Petrarch may be considered as the earliest of 

 the great humanists of the Renaissance and the 

 founder of modern classic culture. His passionate 

 admiration for antiquity and the classic authors was 

 no longer that of Dante and the earlier writers, whose 

 erudition was incorporated with the feelings and 

 needs of their own time and stamped with their 

 own individuality. The more contemplative and 

 less original mind of Petrarch lent itself rather to 

 an entire withdrawal from and disdain for all that 

 later times had produced, and his constant ell'ort 

 was to imitate as closely as possible the modes of 

 thought and expression of the great Latin writers. 

 He attained to a surprising purity of style in Ms 

 Latin works, and the admiration which these writ- 

 ings excited in his contemporaries was boundless. 

 Petrarch himself chiefly founded his claim to 

 posthumous fame on his epic poem Africa, the 

 hero of which is Scipio Africanus, and his historical 

 work in prose, De Viris Illustribus, a series of 

 biographies of classical celebrities. His other im- 

 portant Latin works are the eclogues and epistles 

 in verse ; and in prose the dialogues, De Contempt/i 

 Mundi and Secretmn, and the treatises De Otio 

 Beligiosorum (written while visiting his brother, 

 who had joined a Carthusian brotherhood) and 

 De Vita Solitaria (written at Vaucluse); and 

 particularly important for historical and bio- 

 graphical purposes is the numerous collection of 

 letters divided into Familiares, Varies, Ad Veteres 

 Illustres, Senifes, and Sine Titulo. 



Petrarch was an ardent patriot, but he had little 

 practical influence on the political life of his time. 

 His ideas were those of a poet, and not of a 

 statesman. However great his merits as patriot 

 or student, his name would be little remembered 

 now ; it is by his lyrics alone that his fame has 

 lasted for over five centuries. His title-deeds to 

 fame are in his Canzoniere, in the sonnets, madri- 

 gals, and songs written in Italian, almost all in- 

 spired by his unrequited passion for Laura, and in 

 which the character of the man and the reality of 

 a strong sentiment find their expression. The 

 history of Petrarch's love presents few incidents ; 

 its entire interest is psychological. In these poems 

 we see the picture of a human soul in all its 

 contradictions, pains, and struggles. Such self- 

 analysis was unknown in medireval writers, and 

 Petrarch has therefore been called the first modern 

 man. His last work was an allegorical poem in 

 'terzine,' / Trionfi ('Triumphs'), also in Italian, 

 and is of unequal merit, the only remarkable 



