PETRARCH THE CRITIC AND 

 READER 



Other men before Petrarch had loved beautiful speech, 

 and had tried to acquire a beautiful style: Eginhard, 

 for instance, Servatus Lupus, the poets of Provence 

 and those of the dolce stil nuovo, the author of the 

 Novellino. Dante's remarks upon the matter show how 

 deeply interested he was in it, and how carefully he 

 considered it. The story which Petrarch tells of his 

 youth, of his father throwing his Latin books into the 

 fire because he thought that they were stumbling- 

 blocks in the way of the lad's career as a successful 

 lawyer, is significant. The boy was early attracted 

 to Cicero, not merely because of the ancient Roman's 

 philosophy, but also by the " dulcedo " and " sonori- 

 tas " of his style. He is always seeking those qualities, 

 to gratify his craving for them; and he finds them, of 

 course, principally in the works of men who are con- 

 scious and ambitious literary artists. " What attracted 

 him in the literature of antiquity," says Pierre de 

 Nolhac, " was its being a work of art. For the first 

 time in centuries (there can be no doubt of this), per- 

 fection of form determined an intellectual preference. 

 This seeking of the beautiful for itself alone, and this 



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