PETRARCH THE AUTHOR 



learned man to whom the Lord shall have revealed 

 it, and not Saturn or Mars.'' As has been shown by 

 Soldati, who published in 1906 a work on La Poesia 

 Astrologica net Quattrocento, a careful reading of this 

 letter shows that Petrarch did not set out to confute 

 the principles of astrology, but only wished to confound 

 the necromancers of his day. Even with them he was 

 sometimes lenient; and once, when one of them ad- 

 mitted that he thought exactly as Petrarch did, but had 

 to live, the poet said nothing more. Perhaps it is 

 unwise, then, to give Petrarch very much credit for his 

 attitude towards astrology. 



It will be noticed that Petrarch couples physicians 

 with necromancers. Here again it may be well to be a 

 little chary with one's praise, though Voigt says that 

 our poet deserves a high place in the history of medicine 

 for being " the first to attack the old system with the 

 arms of skepticism." In other realms it is possible to 

 be more unreserved in one's approval. From lack of 

 observation, love of the mysterious, the marvellous, 

 and the extraordinary, a great amount of pseudo- 

 scientific material had been accumulated during the 

 Middle Ages, which nowadays we regard as very de- 

 pressing or very amusing, according to our mood or 

 point of view. Petrarch was no profound student of 

 natural sciences (although, loving his gardens as he did, 

 he knew something about plants), but his native good 

 sense revolted against the statements of the bestiaries 

 as to the nature and habits of beasts, and against the 



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