PETRARCH THE AUTHOR 



Roman, and did not realize how heavy was the indebt- 

 edness of the latter to the Greek writers. At the same 

 time, he really longed to become acquainted with th-e 

 famous writers of Greece, and was apparently the first 

 man of modern times to make serious efforts to obtain 

 their works. Hesiod, Euripides, and Sophocles he 

 never secured; but one cannot help feeling that, if he 

 had to be satisfied with only two, as was the case, he 

 could not have done better than acquire Plato and 

 Homer. In addition he had some translations: the 

 TimcBus, Phcedo, and Meno of Plato; the Nicomachean 

 Ethics and Politics (and some other less important 

 works) of Aristotle; and then there was the transla- 

 tion of Homer, connected with which there is quite a 

 story. 



As Petrarch is the first seeker for manuscripts, he is 

 also the first ItaHan humanist to take lessons in Greek. 

 His teacher was a Basilian monk, Barlaam of Seminara, 

 who on two occasions went on a religious mission to 

 Avignon. On his second visit, in 1342, Petrarch began 

 to take daily lessons of this ablje and learned man, 

 hoping to fit himself to read Plato. The result of his 

 studies was far more modest: he learned to read and 

 write the uncial hand. Sixteen years later, he made the 

 acquaintance of a different type of man at Padua, a 

 Calabrian, Leontius Pilatus by name, who spoke Greek 

 and who claimed to be a pupil of Barlaam — a curious 

 and apparently rather repulsive person, whom Boccac- 

 cio was able to put up with better than could the more 



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