PETRARCH THE AUTHOR 



There is one work which has disappeared, much to 

 the regret of every student of the Renaissance. That is 

 the comedy, Philologia, which he wrote when a very 

 young man. It would appear to have been the first 

 humanistic Renaissance comedy, just as the Eccerinis 

 is the first tragedy. According to Creizenach, Petrarch 

 seems to have been especially fond of Plautus and 

 Terence, more so than were any of the scholars imme- 

 diately before his day. What is more, he appears to 

 have heartily enjoyed the fun in Plautus, and, because 

 of it, for some time to have preferred him to Terence. 

 Nevertheless, Boccaccio says his pky shows more 

 strongly the influence of Terence. It has a forbidding 

 title, which can hardly have meant the study, philo- 

 logy; rather it was the name of a girl. Even then the 

 choice cannot be said to have been fehcitous. Boccac- 

 cio calls it the Philostratus, and another name given it 

 was the Tranquillus. Creizenach gathers from these 

 names that the piece was more than a mere close imi- 

 tation of Terence, and the evidence of other humanistic 

 comedies, written later, makes this hypothesis seem 

 probable. As to its merits, Boccaccio says that it was 

 most beautiful and that, if it were better known, it 

 would probably be preferred to its models. This is the 

 generous, undiscriminating praise one might expect 

 from Boccaccio. 



There is, fortunately, one work of Petrarch's existing, 

 which, because of a certain dramatic power and not a 

 Httle humor (a quality we miss too often in Petrarch), 



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