PETRARCH THE MAN 



the Minorite Friars, is not conclusive proof, either. 

 Other Lauras might have died at the same time and 

 been buried in the same place. We must look for some 

 important family in the district mentioned, and there 

 Flamini finds the Sabrans, some of whose members 

 were so brutal that we can understand Petrarch's 

 speaking of Laura as a " Candida rosa nata in dure 

 spine,'' and his telling her to turn her glances away 

 from the place where she was bom. Her husband was 

 a noble, and probably Italianized. That is why Pe- 

 trarch, who knew Provencal perfectly, wrote verse in 

 Itahan to win the favor of the woman he loved. 



Another problem intimately bound up with that of 

 the identity of Laura has perplexed students of the 

 Canzoniere. It is this: assuming there was such a 

 person as Laura, is she the only woman mentioned in 

 the collection of poems ? Is she the only woman to 

 whom the poems were addressed ? Mestica, Volpi, and 

 Cesareo believe that she was not. Cesareo (in his 

 article in the Nuova Antologia of June 15, 1895) guesses 

 that Petrarch, forming a collection of his poems in his 

 old age, included with those celebrating Laura others, 

 treating of other women, which he altered sufiiciently 

 to make them accord with his purpose. The principal 

 opponent of this theory is Enrico Sicardi {Gli Amori 

 estravaganti e molteplici di Francesco Petrarca, 1900), 

 who maintains that in none of Petrarch's poems are 

 found traces of any love for any woman except Laura, 

 and that the poet was singularly chaste. It is hard to 



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