Note 20 — II. TO M. T. CICERO

In a large tome containing Cicero’s writings, and supposed to have belonged to Petrarch, there occurred the rubric “de laude ac defensione philosophiae, introducens Lucullum loquentem ad Hortensium, liber primus incipit.” Petrarch, misled by this heading, had been of the opinion that the work following was the Hortensius. As a matter of fact, it was book ii of the Academica Priora, which has the separate subtitle “Lucullus” (P. de Nolhac, I, pp. 228, 244 ff.). He labored under this delusion for some time, until in reading St. Augustine he met citations from the real Hortensius, which of course he could not verify in his supposed Hortensius. Finally he received from Marco Barbato da Sulmona, whom he had met in 1341 at Naples, a manuscript containing a work inscribed Academica. Investigation quickly showed him that this work and his supposed Hortensius were one and the same. But he was unwilling to relinquish the idol he had worshiped so long. Doubts still remained. On his visit to Naples in 1343, however, he identified once and for all the work in his own manuscript; and on his return he entered the following note abreast of the heading: “This title, though common, is nevertheless a false one. This is not the De laude philosophiae, but the last two of the four books of the Academica.” The present letter to Cicero was written in 1345, two years after the correction of his error; hence Petrarch rightly places the De laude philosophiae (sive Hortensius) in the catalogue of lost books.