Note 6 — Chapter V · PETRARCH AS MAN OF LETTERS

From the epistle to Barbatus, Coleridge says of the entire composition: “Had Petrarch lived a century later, and, retaining all his substantiality of head and heart, added to it the elegancies and manly politure of Fracastorius, Flaminius, Vida, and their co-rivals, this letter would have been a classical gem” (Anima Poetæ, p. 263).