Note 145 — X. TO HOMER

Fond hopes was Petrarch nourishing, and vain! We must remember that when Leonzio Pilato finished his translation of Homer in 1363, there was but one copy of it, and that that copy remained at Florence. We can well imagine Petrarch’s eagerness to peruse it. His first inquiry is made in Seniles, III, 6 (of March 1, 1365), by which letter he requests that some portion at least of the Odyssey be forwarded to him, continuing that he is quite content to wait for the rest. From Seniles V, 1 (Padua, December 14, 1365, Koerting, Bocc., p. 263, n. 2), we learn that when Boccaccio received this pressing note, the Iliad had already been transcribed; and so he hastened to make with his own hand a transcription of that passage in the Odyssey describing the descent of Ulysses to Hades. In the same letter Petrarch expresses satisfaction at hearing that this is at last on its way to him. Through some mishap, however, the precious package had not yet reached its destination at Venice by the 25th or 27th of January, 1367 (Sen., VI, 1; Koerting, op. cit.; P. de Nolhac, II, p. 165). The joy of Petrarch, when he at last grasped the translation of Homer with his own hands and beheld it among the books on his own shelves, is simply expressed in the closing words of Seniles VI, 2 (undated, but later than VI, 1). To conclude, the translation, which was begun by Leonzio in the latter half of 1360 (the date of Fam., XXIV, 12), did not reach him who was the most eager for it till seven years later.