PETRARCH THE AUTHOR 



portance and significance in the history of the Renais- 

 sance. It was not perversity that made him set up 

 Plato as a rival to the philosopher of the scholastics. 

 Plato's eloquence partly accounts for Petrarch's dis- 

 cipleship; and, besides, Plato was greatly admired by 

 writers, pagan and Christian, whom Petrarch himself 

 loved — by St. Augustine above all. Petrarch lacked 

 the philosopher's mind, but he studied with earnestness 

 and intelligence those of Plato's works which were 

 accessible to him. 



Now, leaving philosophy, there are other subjects in 

 which our author shows some independence. I think 

 " some " is the word to apply, especially in connection 

 with a pseudo-science which flourished vigorously in 

 Petrarch's day, and which, if it is aging now, is enjoying 

 a very green old age. This is astrology. The best 

 place to get an expression of Petrarch's views is in a 

 letter (Senilia, iii, i) written to Boccaccio. " Shut your 

 eyes to illusions," he says, " your ears to nonsense; 

 avoid physicians, flee astrologers; the ones do injury 

 to the body, the others to the soul. If the air is infected 

 by a change of nature, and by hidden causes, or if, as 

 they say, an unknown constellation pursues us, that 

 evil will cease when the corruption has been burned 

 away and absorbed by the sun's rays, or when the plague 

 shall have been turned aside. But supposing that one 

 or both of these things is destined to arrive, it is not the 

 investigator of the planets who knows it in advance, 

 it is the Creator of Heaven, or possibly some pious, 



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