JAMES HARVEY ROBINSON (continued 2)

The only other kinsman to whom we need refer is Petrarch's brother, Gherardo, who was apparently two or three years his junior. A considerable number of the letters are addressed to him. The two spent much of their early life together, but Gherardo, when about thirty-five years old, turned his back upon the world and entered a Carthusian monastery. Some years later the elder brother felicitated him upon his escape from the exacting cares of a life of fashion: he no longer suffered the "piratical tortures" of the curling-iron, and his close-cropped hair left eyes and ears free to perform their functions; the elaborate costume of the fourteenth-century dandy, whose scrupulous folds were liable to be discomposed by every careless movement, had been exchanged for a simple monastic garment, readily donned or laid aside, and affording its wearer no anxiety. Petrarch admits that he is himself still held in bondage, that he still has a partiality for good clothes, though this passion grows hopefully less from day to day. He had, however, worse sins to reflect upon than the elaborate coiffures and tight boots of their frivolous days at Avignon. "What," he asks, for example, "have trivial verses, tilled with the false and offensive praise of women,[33] in common with songs of praise and holy vigils?" We shall refer later to these letters addressed to Gherardo, for they afford a convenient illustration of Petrarch's views of that most cherished of mediæval ideals, the monastic life.[34]

Petrarch, like Erasmus and Voltaire, had no place that he could call home, unless it were the hated Avignon, whither he was taken when about nine years old. This migration to Provence, to which Avignon then belonged, important as it was in the life of our poet, did not involve so complete a separation from Italian influences as would at first sight appear. The boy had in his earliest years learned the Tuscan dialect, which, Dante impatiently declares, was unreasonably held by the Florentines to be the highest form of Italian.[35] There was on the Rhone a considerable Italian colony, with which Petrarch's family associated, and at Carpentras, not far from Avignon, whither the family moved on account of the cheaper living, the little Checco, as he was familiarly called, had an Italian schoolmaster from Prato. Moreover, his later friends and patrons of the noble Roman house of Colonna undoubtedly maintained their national traditions, in spite of the growing French influences at the papal court.

At school (1315-19) Petrarch soon discovered an extraordinary fondness for Latin. While the other boys were still struggling with the simple Æsop, he was poring over Cicero's works, which fascinated him with their sonorous periods before he could grasp their meaning.[36] His old schoolmaster, Convennevole, was very proud of his pupil, and singled him out as the most illustrious of those whom he had instructed during his sixty years as pedagogue.

Petracco was anxious to provide a career for his son, and not unnaturally chose for him his own profession of the law. Like so many other notable literary spirits since his day, Petrarch began his career in a law school, first at the neighbouring University of Montpellier, and later at Bologna. But while Schumann began composing symphonies at Heidelberg, and intercalated a waltz "here and there between Justinian's Institutes and the Pandects," Petrarch appears to have made some progress in his uncongenial subject, and to have gained the esteem of one at least of his teachers. Of his four years at Montpellier we know practically nothing. The boy was only about nineteen when he removed to Bologna, the greatest of mediæval law schools. His three years here were pleasantly spent with the congenial friends he made among his fellow-students. They took long excursions into the country, often not returning until late at night, but such was the happy security of the time that, even if the gates were closed, they had no difficulty in getting over the dilapidated fortifications, which presented no very formidable barrier to active young students. It was during this period that he first visited Venice, then at the height of her glory.

The motives that induced Petrarch promptly to give up the law as soon as he heard of his father's death, are not far to seek. Some of them are noted in his Letter to Posterity, One of his professors, whom in later life he sharply criticised for his ignorance of classical philology, accused him, in turn, of cowardly desertion. He replied that it was never wise to oppose nature, who had made him a devotee of solitude, not of the courts; and while he conceded it to be a happy circumstance that he had spent some time in Bologna, he believed himself to have been equally fortunate in leaving it when he did.[37] As an old man, however, he judged these seven years at the universities to have been "not so much spent, as totally wasted."[38]

Once at least (in 1335) Petrarch put his legal knowledge to the test, by acting as counsel for the Correggi in a case involving the control of the city of Parma. The merits of the case need not occupy us; Petrarch believed the claims of his client to be just, and he assures us that only the fairest means were employed in his successful defence before the papal consistory.[39] He certainly won the friendship of Azzo di Correggio; and his cordial relations with this equivocal person afford the first example of the sympathetic intercourse which he maintained throughout his life with the distinguished despots of the time.

It is probable that Petrarch's mother soon followed his father to the grave. The modest property which Petracco had accumulated in exile was dishonestly appropriated by the executors, and the brothers were left to shift for themselves. Petrarch almost immediately took orders, but probably did not, as has been generally supposed, ever become a priest.[40] He had to face the same problem that in succeeding centuries confronted those who wished to devote themselves to literature. At a time when an author could expect no remuneration for his work, except perhaps for dedications, he might secure a livelihood by putting himself in the way of preferments in the church, or, as was the custom of the Humanists of the fifteenth century, he might rely upon the patronage of some great prince or prelate. Petrarch enjoyed the advantages of both these sources of income. He was, very early in life, so fortunate as to gain the esteem of the Colonnesi, the most influential of the noble Italian families at the papal court. Giacomo, the youngest of the seven sons of old Stephano Colonna, had been struck by Petrarch's appearance when they were students together at Bologna, and on returning to Avignon and learning of Petrarch's situation he made advances which led to one of the most enthusiastic friendships which the poet records. With his aid and that of his eldest brother, Cardinal Giovanni Colonna, the young writer gained immediate recognition, and did not thereafter want for friends and admirers. It was through the influence of Cardinal Colonna that he received his first benefice, in 1335.

Although Petrarch had, as Dante says of himself, "drunk the waters of the Arno before he had cut his teeth," fate made him, like Dante, a citizen of the world.[41] His life was interrupted by frequently recurring journeys and changes of residence. Scarcely two years had elapsed after his return to Avignon before an invitation from Giacomo Colonna, newly appointed Bishop of Lombez, enabled him to visit Toulouse and spend a "celestial summer" within sight of the Pyrenees.

But before we trace his various pilgrimages, a word must be said of the curious city in which he and several of his most intimate friends spent much of their life. Avignon, although a town of no great importance when Petracco first brought his wife and family thither, was destined to become one of the great European capitals. Clement V., a Gascon, who had been chosen pope in 1305, summoned the cardinals to Lyons to celebrate his coronation, instead of going himself to Rome. During his pontificate he held his court at various French towns, and resided for a time in the Dominican cloister at Avignon. He was succeeded by the energetic old Frenchman, John XXII. (1316-1334), who was followed by six other French popes, all of whom maintained their court at Avignon. Although they appear to have been, upon the whole, good and upright men, they were all Frenchmen, and deliberately chose to reside in a city but just across the Rhone from France; they thus inevitably sacrificed the cosmopolitan character that their predecessors had enjoyed at Rome. Moreover, the college of cardinals became largely French, so that the curia soon came to be regarded as a servile exponent of French interests. The national jealousy in Germany was augmented by the long struggle between the popes and Louis of Bavaria, while the outbreak of the Hundred Years' War produced in England a revolt against the claims not only of "French popes," but of popes in general. An added explanation of the ill-repute into which the head of the Church fell is to be found in the extortions of the papal treasury; for it became necessary to repair in some way the deficiency caused by the diminution of the Italian revenue, and to meet the ever-increasing expenses of a scandalously luxurious court. The most loudly decried of the financial expedients of the popes owe their origin, or at least their outrageous extension, to this period.

Petrarch's span of life exactly coincided with the exile of the popes from Rome, and his "fate or his sins" made him a most unwilling citizen of their new home, "the Babylon of the West." He never tires of execrating the city, but we may safely assume that he paints too lurid a picture of its condition when he declares that it was "filled with every kind of confusion, the horror of darkness overspreading it, and contained everything fearful which had ever existed or been imagined by a disordered mind." Although the popes were building a magnificent palace, calling a Giotto to aid in their artistic undertakings, and collecting a large library,[42] Petrarch describes their capital as "a hell on earth," and no longer what it was in his earlier days, although even then the most foul and filthy of places.[43] But doubtless he owed more to his residence in the "windy city" than he was ready to admit. He was willing to share in the good things at the pope's disposal, so long as no duties were involved which would interfere with his cherished freedom. To his sojourn in this great centre of international intercourse may be ascribed, in large part, his wide acquaintance with men of all nations, as well as the profound influence which he exercised over his contemporaries.

It was not long after his return from Bologna that Petrarch first saw his Laura. Twenty-one years later he made a note upon a fly-leaf of his favourite copy of Virgil, in which he was accustomed to record his bereavements. Placed apart from the others, in order that it might often catch his eye, it reads as follows: "Laura, who was distinguished by her own virtues, and widely celebrated by my songs, first appeared to my eyes in my early manhood, in the year of our Lord 1327, upon the sixth day of April, at the first hour, in the church of Santa Clara at Avignon; in the same city, in the same month of April, on the same sixth day, at the same first hour, in the year 1348, that light was taken from our day, while I was by chance at Verona, ignorant, alas! of my fate. The unhappy news reached me at Parma, in a letter from my friend Ludovico, on the morning of the nineteenth of May, of the same year. Her chaste and lovely form was laid in the church of the Franciscans, on the evening of the day upon which she died. I am persuaded that her soul returned, as Seneca says of Scipio Africanus, to the heaven whence it came. I have experienced a certain satisfaction in writing this bitter record of a cruel event, especially in this place where it will often come under my eye, for so I may be led to reflect that life can afford me no farther pleasures; and, the most serious of my temptations being removed, I may be admonished by the frequent study of these lines, and by the thought of my vanishing years, that it is high time to flee from Babylon. This, with God's grace, will be easy, as I frankly and manfully consider the needless anxieties of the past, with its empty hopes and unforeseen issue."[44]

This meagre notice contains all that we really know of the woman whose name is associated for all time with that of Francesco Petrarca. While she is, it is hardly necessary to say, the theme of nearly all his Italian lyrics, little or no reference is made to her in the Latin works, with two notable exceptions, to be spoken of later. In the vast collection of prose letters two or three vague allusions to his love for her may be found. Once only is Laura mentioned by name,—in a letter to Giacomo Colonna, who had begun to suspect that the much besung sweetheart was but a play upon words—a personification of the longed-for poet's laurel (Laurea). "Would that your humorous suggestion were true," Petrarch replies; "would to God it were all a pretence, and not a madness!"[45] From none of these sources do we learn anything of the lady herself. Many ingenious theories have been based upon the descriptions in the Canzoniere, which, though often sufficiently detailed, are however poetic, allegorical, and conflicting. The futility of such deductions can be made clear by a single example. Upon no other topic does the poet dwell with more evident pleasure, or more varied detail, than the eyes of his mistress; yet it cannot be determined whether these were blue or dark.[46]

While it must, therefore, be acknowledged that attempts to learn more of the object of Petrarch's devotion have proved unavailing, it is possible, from the material at our disposal, to study satisfactorily and profitably the poet's attitude toward one great preoccupation of humanity, the love of woman. The genuineness of the passion that fills the sonnets, no one who reads the Latin works can doubt, although it is touched upon in only a very few instances. Its reality is attested by two passages of considerable length, which also serve to explain the conflict of emotions depicted in the Italian lyrics. One of these, a Latin metrical epistle to Giacomo Colonna, we may neglect[47]; the other bit of self-analysis it behooves us to examine somewhat carefully, since it casts a flood of light, not only upon the extraordinary man with whom we are dealing, but upon a fundamental contrast between mediæval and modern thought.[48]

Petrarch was, as we have seen, engaged in a lifelong struggle to reconcile the opposing ideals, both moral and intellectual, toward which he felt himself drawn. During his best years the most terrible of his inward conflicts was that between the monk and the self-respecting lover; between the mediæval, ecclesiastical, and the modern, secular, conception of love. By the ecclesiastical, or monkish, conception, we mean the belief in the inherent sinfulness of love, regardless of the relations that may exist between the lover and the object of his affection. This belief was, of course, part of a complex theological system, which owes its formulation, in large measure, to Petrarch's spiritual guide, St. Augustine.[49] A great deal of the unnatural and often indecent twaddle about women which fills the theological works of the Middle Ages may be traced more or less directly to him. It was woman who brought sin into the world in the beginning; it is she who is responsible for its propagation ever since. Man, it is assumed, would be a pure, God-fearing, well-nigh angelic being were it not for the perverse seductions of the other sex. The most scandalous tales were not considered out of place by the preachers of the thirteenth century, to illustrate the diabolical origin of woman's charms and the disastrous effects of the only kind of love of which a Jacques de Vitry or the retired inquisitor, Stephen of Bourbon, could form a conception.[50]

In order to discuss the matter in all its bearings, Petrarch chose the form of an imaginary dialogue, his Secret, between himself and his favourite ghostly adviser, St. Augustine; and a most extraordinary bit of modern introspective and psychological acumen it is.

In this dialogue, of which some account is given later in this volume, Petrarch defends, with refreshing earnestness, the higher conception of love; but his respect for Augustine, who vigorously asserts the debasing nature of the passion, is too great to permit him ultimately to reject the monkish notions. Much he freely confesses to the Bishop; much is extorted from him by a clever process of cross-questioning. This love for a woman, together with his longing for fame,[51] Augustine declares to be the poet's most conspicuous failings, which serve to bar his way to a higher life. Upon Augustine's expressing his astonishment that so superior a mind should languish for so many years in the shameful bonds of love, Francesco passionately declares that it is the soul, the innate celestial goodness, that he loves and admires; that he owes all to her, who has preserved him from sin and stimulated him to develop his greatest powers.[52] These arguments are, however, easily met. The poet is forced to acknowledge that his life has shown only degeneration since he first saw Laura; it was her virtue, not his, which maintained a purely platonic relation between them. His confessor points out that if he looks in the glass he cannot fail to see how the fire of passion and the loss of sleep have made him old before his time. However, he must not despair; let him travel, that may furnish a remedy. But Petrarch has already vainly fled from temptation. Then let him meditate upon the infirmity of the body, and the shortness of life. "Think shame of yourself," his mentor exclaims, "that you are pointed at, and have become a subject of gossip with the common herd! Think how ill your morals correspond with your profession; how this passion has injured you in soul, body, and estate; how much you have needlessly suffered on its account; how often you have been deluded, despised, and neglected! Think how proud and distant your mistress has always shown herself toward you, how you have made her famous and yet have sacrificed yourself, solicitous for her good name when she spent no thought upon your welfare! Separated from God by this earthly love, you have subjected yourself to a thousand miseries. Consider the useful and honourable tasks that you have so long neglected, the many incompleted works that lie before you and that demand your whole energy, not merely the odd moments which your passion leaves free." "Few indeed there be," Augustine characteristically remarks, "who, having once imbibed the sweet passion of desire, manfully endeavour to grasp the truly foul character of woman's person."[53] Consequently they easily relapse with every new temptation. If the poor victim would be free, he must banish the past from his thoughts; no day or night must elapse without tearful prayers which may, perchance, at last bring divine relief.

It is only by remembering the general condemnation of the love of woman among the ecclesiastical class, which was, up to Petrarch's time, nearly synonymous with the literary class, that we can understand the general form which the discussion takes in the dialogue just outlined. It is his pure affection for a pure woman that fills Petrarch with apprehension. He studiously neglects all other considerations, however important. One possible vague reference to his connection with the church occurs[54]; but there is none at all to the fact that the object of his devotion was, as we may assume, a married woman. If Laura was unmarried, the arguments against the attachment become still more unnatural, as measured by a modern or secular standard. Of that liaison which resulted in two illegitimate children no notice is taken, although it would seem a natural subject for criticism upon the part of a confessor like Augustine. The dialogue is therefore a discussion of love at its best. The arguments which Petrarch puts in the mouth of St. Augustine are mainly conventional and monastic, with some suggestions of the interference with work which a literary bachelor would be likely to apprehend.[55] The defence, on the other hand, is purely modern,—modern enough fully to grasp, and even defend against the perversions of monasticism and the current theological speculation, one of the noblest of man's attributes. But Petrarch was too thoroughly conservative in everything touching religion to reject a view of love so systematically inculcated by the church.

Turning again to the course of Petrarch's life, we find him undertaking his first long journey in 1333. He visited Paris, the Netherlands, and the Rhine, and described his experiences in two charming letters to his friend, Cardinal Colonna, who probably supplied him with the means necessary for the expedition. The poet exhibited the same love of travel for travel's sake that was characteristic of his countrymen from Marco Polo to Columbus, but unfortunately the letters describing his impressions of foreign lands are relatively few.[56]

Three years after the journey to the north Petrarch first visited Rome. Both as a Humanist and as a mediæval Christian he had longed to behold that holy city, "which never had and never would have an equal." It was there that Scipio Africanus, the hero of his epic, had dwelt, and there, too, was the resting-place of innumerable other men whose names would never die. He might also, he hoped, wander among the tombs of the saints, and gaze upon the spots that had been hallowed by the presence of the Apostles.[57] Petrarch was much too ardent and sincere a Catholic to allow Brutus and Cato to crowd out Peter and Paul. Indeed there was no break, in his mind, between the history of pagan and Christian Rome. It was to him, as it had been to Dante, a single divine epic: "When David was born, Rome was born; then it was that Æneas came from Troy to Italy, which was the origin of the most noble Roman city, even as the written word bears witness. Evident enough, therefore, is the divine election of the Roman Empire, by the birth of the holy city, which was contemporaneous with the root of the race from which Mary sprang."[58]

Petrarch might have rejected as faulty Dante's proof from chronology, but they would have agreed that Rome was always peopled not with human, but with heavenly citizens, who were inspired by divine love in loving Rome. "Wherefore," Dante exclaims, "one should not need to inquire further to see that an especial birth and an especial destiny were decreed, in the mind of God, to that holy city. I am of the firm opinion that the stones that remain in her walls are deserving of reverence, and that she is worthy, beyond all that is praised and glorified by men."[59] A similar conviction in Petrarch's mind helps to explain his unquestioning devotion to Cicero and Augustine alike, and his mystical trust in the eternal youth of the hopelessly senile Holy Roman Empire.[60]

He was not disappointed in what he saw, in spite of the apprehension expressed by Cardinal Colonna that the city, in its terrible state of ruin,[61] would seem sadly different from the picture the poet had formed of it in his anticipations. On the contrary, his wonder and admiration were but increased by the sight of what remained of the ancient mistress of the earth. That she should have conquered the world no longer affords him surprise, but only that she did not conquer it sooner.[62]

Upon his return to Avignon, Petrarch found the city more disgusting than ever, and in turning over the question of a more agreeable home he bethought him of a valley not far away, which he had visited in his boyhood, and there he determined to take up his abode. Of the beauties of Vaucluse, where he spent most of the following fifteen years, and of his life and surroundings there, he has given us many a charming picture. This life of literary seclusion in the suburbs of a great city is so essentially modern in character that it serves to bridge the five centuries that separate us from Petrarch and to bring him into sympathy with the scholar and litterateur of to-day.

The form which Petrarch's desire for glory assumed in his earlier days was the aspiration publicly to receive the laurel crown of the poet. One of his most intimate friends came to the conclusion, as we have seen, that this yearning for the laurel had led the poet, by a skilful personification, to delude the world into the belief that it was a woman's charms that held him captive. Augustine is made to say in the Confessions that Petrarch's worldly madness reaches its climax in the worship that he paid, not only to Laura's person, but even to her name, so that he cherished, "with incredible levity," everything that resembled it in sound. "Wherefore thou hast so loved the imperial or poetic laurel, which was called by her name [Laurea], that since that time thou hast let scarcely a song escape thee without mentioning it."

However thoroughly convinced he may have become in later life of the vanity of such a distinction, Petrarch appears to have been willing as a young man to resort even to somewhat undignified, if not actually dishonest, expedients to accomplish his end. When he tells us that upon the same day (September 1, 1340) invitations to receive the laurel chaplet reached him from both Rome and Paris, we may safely look, primarily at least, to the poet's own contrivances, for an explanation of this double honour. Up to the time of his coronation he was known only by his Italian verses, since his great epic, the Africa, had but just been got under way. He had influential friends, however. At Paris his fellow-citizen Roberto de' Bardi, chancellor of the renowned university, was ready to do him a good turn; and at Rome his powerful friends the Colonnesi were in a position to help him to realise his cherished ideal. He seems, nevertheless, to have relied chiefly upon the aid of King Robert of Naples.[63] He was, it must be remembered, a subject of this monarch, to whom Avignon at that time belonged. It was doubtless his friend Dionisio da Borgo San Sepolcro who first brought the comparatively unknown poet to the attention of the King, and Robert showed his awakened confidence by despatching to him an epitaph of his own composition for criticism. Petrarch was, not unnaturally, dazzled by the royal verses: "Happy the pen," he exclaims, "to which such words were committed!" Far from venturing any strictures, he is doubtful what he should most admire, the classic brevity of the diction, the elevation of the thought, or the grace of expression.[64] It occurred to him later that he might employ the favour of Robert to gratify his own ambition. The following extract from a letter to Dionisio (January 4, 1339) tells us more, perhaps, than we should wish to know of his plans: "As for me, I intend soon to follow you [to Naples]. You well know how I regard the laurel. I have resolved, all things being considered, to be indebted for it to no one else than the King of whom we have just been speaking. If I shall seem sufficiently worthy in his eyes for him to invite me, all will be well. Otherwise, I may pretend to have heard something which will explain my coming, or I will, as if in doubt, so interpret the letter which he sent me containing such friendly and flattering recognition of an unknown man, that I shall appear to have been summoned."[65] Happily, however, subterfuges were unnecessary, as two invitations to receive the laurel came without applying to Robert.

After some feigned hesitation Petrarch chose Rome rather than Paris. There is in reality little doubt that nothing would have induced him to give the preference to any other place than the Capitol, which exercised an unrivalled fascination over his mind. Poets had, during his time, been crowned elsewhere,—Mussato, a poet and historian, at Padua, and his old master, Convennevole, at Prato; but centuries had passed since anyone had been granted cosmopolitan recognition by having the laurel placed upon his head by a Roman senator. In imitation of the Olympian games Domitian had, toward the end of the first century, established similar periodical contests in Rome in honour of Jupiter Capitolinus. The victor's brow, according to Martial, was encircled by an oak chaplet; but in other contests held at the Emperor's villa, the laurel crown was given. The later history of the institution is obscure, but the custom doubtless perpetuated itself, and may have lasted until the destruction of the Empire. A vague tradition was current that many poets had received the laurel upon the Capitol. This Petrarch accepted, evidently assuming that the great Augustan writers, whom he so much admired, had enjoyed this distinction; and in his address upon the occasion of his coronation he refers to the numerous distinguished poets who had been crowned before him upon that spot. Statius, who died circa 96 A.D., and who must have been one of the first to gain the honour, he cites as the last person recorded to have received it.[66]

As he tells us in his Letter to Posterity, Petrarch first betook himself to Naples, where, as a preparation for his coronation, he submitted to an examination by the King. Robert was somewhat of a philistine, as we may infer from the fact that Petrarch found it necessary carefully to explain to him the nature of poetry, the function of the poet, and the significance of the laurel, and to defend his noble art against the aspersions of a theological age. However skilled in other matters, the King was but slightly versed in literature. Yet he expressed the conviction that, could he earlier have heard Petrarch's defence, he would have devoted no inconsiderable portion of his time to poetry.[67] Of the details of the coronation very little is known. Petrarch describes it in very general terms in a metrical epistle,[68] and we have besides two or three brief and inaccurate contemporary accounts.[69] The address which he made upon the Capitol has, however, recently been discovered and printed,[70] but it is, unfortunately, a very disappointing composition quite unworthy of Petrarch's powers. His text is a line or two from Virgil:

"But I am caught by ravishing desire, above the lone Parnassian steep,"[71]

but instead of developing his subject, as does Cicero in his defence of Archias, he adopts the repellent, conventional form of the times, pedantically classifying his ideas by headings and numbers, like a scholastic theologian. He extols the laurel in a truly mediæval fashion for its magic virtues in causing its wearer to dream true dreams, and in protecting him from lightning, etc. The most significant part of the address is his defence of poetry.

"The coronation of Petrarch as poet," Körting declares, "is an episode standing alone, not only in the annals of the city of Rome, but in the whole history of mankind. It is an epoch-making event in the fullest acceptance of the word."[72] This may very well be somewhat exaggerated, but the coronation was certainly a solemn attestation of a new interest in culture, although as we have seen by no means a spontaneous tribute, unsought by the poet. Later in life he deprecated the whole affair as a piece of youthful arrogance which left him, in Faust's words, so klug als wie zuvor. At the time, however, he was confident that the revival of the custom of Imperial Rome would be a source of glory, not only to the city, but to Italy as a whole.

From Rome Petrarch—went northward to Parma, where he arrived most opportunely, since his old friend Azzo di Correggio and his three brothers had just obtained possession of the town. The poet's relations with the professional despot of the time are so cordial and constant as naturally to arouse astonishment in one unfamiliar with the political and social conditions of the period. Yet he but furnishes an illustration of one of the most curious characteristics of the Renaissance, the—comradery between the bloodstained tyrant and the man of letters. The "age of despots" and the palmy days of humanism coincide. Tyranny and the revival of classical learning are historically so closely affiliated as to suggest some causal relation. Certain it is that they flourished together, and early in the sixteenth century disappeared together.

The fate of Parma, where Petrarch resided at intervals, and the future career of his beloved and respected Azzo, are too typical of the period to be completely ignored even in this brief sketch. Azzo had first taken orders, but married later, and entered upon the then recognised métier of tyrant.[73] It will be remembered that Petrarch had earlier represented him in a lawsuit involving the possession of a town, and the friendship formed at Avignon remained constant to the end. A lull in the business of the Correggio family led Azzo to make what our less picturesque bosses of the present day would call a "deal." Parma was, at the moment, under the control of the Scaligeri of Verona. Azzo, anxious for even temporary occupation, promised Luchino Visconti of Milan, another of Petrarch's friends, to turn over the town to the Visconti after four years, if he would aid him to dispossess the present proprietors. It was under these conditions that, with the incidental approbation and support of the citizens, the Scaligeri were ousted. Petrarch celebrated the occasion in an enthusiastic ode to Liberty![74]

The administration of the Scaligeri had been execrable, and there was some reason for looking upon the coup de main as a deliverance. The brothers, says a chronicler, began to reign not as lords but as fathers, without partiality or oppression of any kind. Had they but persevered, they might have continued to hold the town forever, but at the end of a year they changed their policy.[75] The most fair-minded of the brothers died, and, regardless of the arrangement for the speedy transfer to Milan, Azzo sold the town, in 1344, to the Marquis of Este, for 60,000 gold florins, hoping to retain the position of governor. This led to a struggle between half a dozen neighbouring despots, and two years later the town was ceded to Milan, on condition that the Marquis of Este should be reimbursed for the sum he had paid to Azzo. Azzo soon made up with his enemies, the Scaligeri, and so far gained their confidence that he was twice appointed governor of Verona. During his master's absence, however, a revolt broke out, which was naturally attributed to him, and the shifty adventurer found that no excuses or explanations would serve to pacify the offended Can Grande. He was obliged to flee, leaving his wife and children in the hands of his incensed lord. For a time he wandered helplessly about among the towns of northern Italy, until Petrarch, who was at that time residing at the court of the Visconti, procured him a comfortable refuge at Milan. As a salve for his wounds, the poet dedicated to the ill-starred ex-tyrant, his Antidotes for Good and Evil Fortune.[76] We have abundant proof, in both his Latin and Italian verses, of Petrarch's partiality and admiration for this strange character. Upon Azzo's death, he addressed letters of consolation to the widow and children of the deceased, and asserted that in him he had lost that which gave life its especial charm—Perdidi propter quod præcipue me vivere delectabat![77] We must recollect that the affinities which lead to friendship are often obscure, even where our opportunities for observation are most favourable. Petrarch doubtless saw something more than a mere adventurer in this man, who has left so despicable an historical record.

Petrarch lingered in Parma, or its suburbs, about a year, but the election of a new pope, Clement VI. (May, 1342), made it expedient for him to return to Avignon and present his compliments to the head of the church, with a hope, perhaps, of securing some favour that might increase his precarious income from the prebend at Lombez. As we have seen, benefices were regarded, and with justice, as foundations for the support of indigent scholars. Before returning to Avignon the poet addressed a lengthy metrical epistle[78] to Clement, urging his return to Rome. The Pope accepted some, at least, of the suggestions contained in the letter, and furthermore granted its author a priorate near Pisa.

The quiet life at Vaucluse was resumed only to be again interrupted by a journey to Naples, as representative of the Pope. The mission was not particularly successful, but the letters written from Naples, describing the savage state of the inhabitants and the continued celebration of gladiatorial contests, are of great interest.[79] It was on his return from Naples, while visiting some of the towns of Lombardy (1345), that he discovered at Verona a codex containing Cicero's letters to Atticus, Brutus, and Quintus. They came, however, too late to exercise any important influence upon his own epistolary style.[80] The following two years (1346-7) were spent at Vaucluse, where he made certain improvements in his villa and began his work in praise of the life of solitude. But soon an extraordinary and absorbing political crisis distracted his attention from the amenities of his country home.

Cola di Rienzo, with whose ideas he had been fascinated upon their first meeting, three years before, had suddenly proclaimed himself, in the name of the people, ruler of Rome (May 20, 1347). An explanation of Petrarch's interest in this famous coup d'état will be given later in connection with some of the letters which passed between him and the tribune.[81] So fully was his sympathy aroused that late in the year 1347, some six months after Rienzo's accession to power, he resolved to go to Rome and join in the glorious movement of enfranchisement. But, on reaching Genoa, he was arrested by the news of Rienzo's mad conduct, and abruptly gave up the journey southward. After despatching a letter of expostulation and warning, he turned toward Parma, where another prebend had recently been granted him by the Pope. The town, which had fared hardly during the later years of Azzo's rule, was now under the undisputed sway of Luchino Visconti, and Petrarch found the conditions there much improved. We may infer that he now enjoyed a tolerable income from his benefices; he was at any rate able to build himself a house, which still stands at the corner of Borgo di San Giovanni and Vicolo di San Stephano. He seems always to have had a genuine fondness for outdoor life as a relief and recreation. In his garden at Parma he raised choice fruits, and he took pride in the specimens of his horticulture that he sent to Luchino, the lord of the city.

But, in spite of the seemingly favourable conditions, his residence at Parma marks a crisis of affliction and bereavement in Petrarch's life, from which he never entirely recovered. "This year, 1348," he declared long after, "I now perceive to have been the beginning of sorrow." Rienzo, in whose fate he was so deeply concerned, soon weakly abdicated, but not before Petrarch's former friends the Colonnesi had been slaughtered at the gates of Rome. Then came the fearful plague which swept over Italy and far beyond, and which Boccaccio has pictured in his introduction to the Decameron." Life is but one long agony"—Magnus dolor est vivere—our poet cried in desperation, as bereavement after bereavement was announced to him. The death of Laura and of Cardinal Colonna severed the two dominant attachments of his earlier life. Many other friends fell victims to the same fearful disease, among them Roberto de' Bardi, who had procured him the invitation to receive the laurel at Paris, and Luchino Visconti himself.

We may infer that the once attractive Parma now aroused only sombre associations. Petrarch wandered for a time hither and thither, but at the end of 1348 he appears to have taken up a transitory residence at Padua, at the urgent invitation of its ruler, Giacomo II. of Carrara. Here, as he tells us, he was received as the blessed are welcomed in heaven. His new friend was a typical despot, who had murdered his cousin, the legitimate successor, and was himself murdered a few years later (December, 1350), by his nephew. He proved himself, nevertheless, a wise ruler and an enthusiastic friend of literature; he, too, gave Petrarch a prebend, in order to keep him at his court. In the poet's admiration for this man we perceive the same instinctive deference to political sagacity that led Machiavelli to declare Cæsar Borgia to be the model of princes.

The year 1350 had been designated as a year of jubilee, a timely occasion for the exhibition of the devotion stimulated by the terrible calamities of the preceding years. With mediæval fervour Petrarch joined the pilgrims bound for Rome. On his way southward he visited Florence for the first time, and for the first time saw face to face his greatest literary contemporary and most sympathetic friend, Giovanni Boccaccio. At Rome he did not neglect to visit the various churches and perform the usual devotions. Writing to a friend a little later, he declares that it was providentially arranged that they did not meet in Rome, else, instead of visiting the churches devotione catholica, they would, careless of their souls, have wandered about the city curiositate poetica, for, however delightful intellectual pursuits may be, they are as nothing unless they tend to the one great end.[82] But the stay in Rome was short, and we have no picture of the impressions which this international mediæval "revival" produced upon the enlightened traveller.

This visit to his father's native city of Florence had suggested to its people the idea of re-establishing the distinguished son of their exiled fellow-citizen in his rights; they even extended to him an invitation to occupy a position in their newly founded university. For these attentions the poet thanked the Florentines warmly, but discreetly put aside the suggestion of the university position. He had estimated fairly the quality of Florentine admiration, and preferred the patronage of the despots. He felt, instinctively, the danger to his reputation from continued contact with his carping, novelty-loving, outspoken compatriots. Some years later (1363), in a moment of irritation at the comments made by the Florentines upon a portion of his great epic which had, by accident, fallen into their hands, he writes to Boccaccio that the wise prince, Frederick II., who knew the nation well, concluded that "all familiarity with the Italians should be avoided, since they are extremely curious and perceive all too quickly the defects of others. They pass judgment upon everything, not only upon the truth, but upon what they have entirely misconceived, so that everything is turned to ridicule that is not just what they would have it. Such is their presumption that they esteem themselves capable of criticising anything and everything." "I will not," Petrarch continues, "discuss the truth of this opinion, but I believe myself to be right in saying that if these words were applied not to the Italians at large but to our fellow-citizens, nothing could be truer or more to the point. With them there is no such thing as intimacy and friendship, but only censure, and that by no means mild and benevolent, but harsh and inexorable. There is no one among them who, although he may be more lax than Sardanapalus in his conduct, does not outdo Fabricius or Cato in the severity of his judgments. But I will not discuss their views of things which have nothing to do with my case. In dealing with literature they seem to assume that nothing is properly expressed which does not tickle their own great spreading ears.... Elsewhere, even beyond the Alps and the Danube, my poor verses have encountered no fault-finders; but nothing fills the Florentines with such horror as the mention of a fellow-citizen. It is not I alone who suffer; anyone who would rise above the common level becomes thereby a public enemy. Believe me, my friend, you who sympathise so fully in my indignation at the wrong I suffer, believe me, we were born in a city[83] where to praise one, is to reproach many."[84] Petrarch had doubtless long harboured such feelings, and wisely chose not to risk the danger, upon which both he and Dante dwell, of the contempt which comes from close intercourse.

In June, 1351, after four years filled with bereavement and anxiety, we find Petrarch back in his old surroundings at Vaucluse. During his brief stay here he was called upon to co-operate in no less a task than the drafting of a constitution for Rome. The Pope, convinced by the disorders of the past years that some change was necessary, deputed a commission of cardinals to prepare a new form of government, and they, aware of Petrarch's familiarity with the conditions in Rome, asked his co-operation. Those curious to study the poet as constitution-monger will find his plan among his letters.[85] The power, he urged, should be given back to the people, and the barons should be excluded, for the time being, from the government. It was about this time that he avoided accepting an onerous papal secretaryship which his friends were anxious to force upon him, by ingeniously submitting so elegant a sample of his style that he was rejected on the ground that he could not write in the barbarous but official forms of the curia.[86]

Pope Innocent VI., who followed Clement VI. at the close of the year 1352, was an exceptionally unenlightened person, who, from Petrarch's well-known fondness for Virgil, inferred that he must be addicted to magic. After the confidence and respect that he had enjoyed under the preceding popes, Innocent's suspicions appeared to him intolerable, and doubtless supplied one of the motives which led him definitely to abandon his old haunts. The death, or departure from Avignon, of many of his friends, and the loss of his trusted and faithful housekeeper at Vaucluse, had helped to render the city and its surroundings more distasteful than ever, and in May, 1353, he left the region forever and joyfully saluted his own dear Italy:

Salve cara Deo tellus sanctissima salve, ... agnosco patriam gaudensque saluto, Salve pulchra parens, terrarum gloria salve.[87]

Luchino Visconti had, at his death in 1349, been succeeded in Milan by his brother, the famous Bishop Giovanni, from all accounts one of the greatest rulers of his century. Like his brother, he was an admirer of literature, or at least he realised that the presence of distinguished scholars at his court might enhance his influence; and by the mild but potent aid of science and letters he sought, as Rousseau declares the tyrant is wont to do, "to overspread his iron chains with garlands of flowers." His rule could not but receive a certain sanction, which would serve to give it an air of legitimacy in the eyes of the Italians, if Petrarch, the exponent of Italian patriotism, could be induced to come and reside in his capital. The now homeless poet, while doubtless flattered by the august attentions of the Bishop, evidently felt some hesitation in accepting his hospitality. He objected on the ground that the noise of a city disturbed him; he feared, too, that his duties towards his new lord might restrict his now inveterate and somewhat vagrant fondness for liberty and change. But upon his inquiring what was expected of him, the Bishop replied that he asked only his presence, "which, he believed, would grace both himself and his reign."[88] To his scandalised friends in republican Florence the poet confesses that he was induced to stay, partly because he was quite at a loss where else to go, and partly out of respect for the ill-disguised commands of "the greatest of the Italians." He defends himself against the reproaches of Boccaccio and other friends on the ground that he has in no way sacrificed his freedom; but he admits that it will be no such easy matter to convince the public of the purity of his motives.[89]

A commodious house was selected for the new-comer in the retired western portion of the city, where he could look out upon the church of St. Ambrose, and, far beyond the walls, could see the snowy circle of the Alps. Eight years were spent in Milan, which, under the Visconti, was rapidly becoming the busy capital of a small but important European state. There is no reason to think that Petrarch did not sincerely love the solitude and quiet delights of the country, but, like many a modern man of letters, he recognised that urban life, if an evil, was after all a necessary one. It is probable, too, that, like the later Humanists, he was dependent upon princely patronage for the funds required to support himself and to hire the necessary copyists, since his benefices appear to have afforded him an insufficient income. Whatever his motives, the precedent was established, and later Humanists were not only subservient to princes, but even resorted to a species of blackmail, by threatening, if money was not forthcoming for dedications, to blast the reputation of the offender to all coming generations.[90]

That Petrarch was a member of the Bishop's council of state is not probable, but he certainly delivered more than one address upon solemn occasions, and undertook several embassies for the Visconti. Bishop Giovanni lived but a year and a half after his arrival, and was succeeded by his three notorious nephews, Matteo, Bernabò, and Galeazzo, the first of whom soon died, leaving the possessions of the Visconti to be divided between the two other brothers.

No very satisfactory history of the Visconti has been written; the opinions of their contemporary judges, as well as of later writers, are exceedingly contradictory. In reaching a conclusion as to the character of the more prominent members of the family, the reader may always choose between the seemingly irreconcilable epithets of vir diabolicus and pater patriæ. There is nothing extraordinary in this, however, and when the earnest investigator has examined all the testimony he will doubtless accept both titles, for they are not really incompatible. All periods offer instances of the most conflicting qualities in the leaders of men, and the Renaissance was especially rich in examples, from the conduct of Boniface VI., that upright and conscientious savage, who read the hours in a loud voice as he walked up and down near the place of torture, listening to the cries of his aged victims,[91] to the licentious pranks which Cellini narrates of himself and his fellow-artists. Especially common are the examples of bad men who were unquestionably great statesmen. It may be true that Galeazzo Visconti introduced the most hideous system of producing death, by a carefully graduated process of mutilation, but it may be equally true that he himself suffered tortures of gout little inferior to those of the unfortunate criminal with a fortitude and equanimity which brought tears to the eyes of his attendants. For years he not only endured these torments with patience, but, according to Petrarch, carried on his government with magnanimity and foresight, and when fortune went against him,[92] exhibited a high degree of philosophical resignation. The same man who induced his courtiers to play at dice to their undoing, might conciliate the learned by supporting scholars or establishing a university. The magnificent palace at Pavia, although one of the most beautiful in the whole world, as Corio declares,[93] may well have sadly afflicted the tax-payer. The public man, whatever his character and aims, is pretty sure, if he rises above mediocrity, to be accused of unscrupulousness. The expedients of a fifteenth-century tyrant were doubtless of a fiercer stamp than the shifts of to-day, but that need not prevent our understanding the admiration expressed by Petrarch or Machiavelli for the better qualities of a Giacomo di Carrara, a Galeazzo Visconti, or a Cæsar Borgia.

The sojourn at Milan was interrupted, as we have said, by several diplomatic missions. In November, 1353, Petrarch was sent to Venice to try to arrange a peace between that city and Genoa. But his eloquence was vain, and the war was continued, in spite of a personal letter of expostulation to the Doge.[94] Of Petrarch's relations with the Emperor Charles IV. something will be said later.[95] In 1356, the year after he first met Charles in Italy, Petrarch was sent to Prague as the representative of the ruler of Milan. He tells us little or nothing of his experiences, but he evidently made several friends in this northern centre of culture, with whom he continued to correspond after his return, thereby greatly widening the scope of his influence.[96] Still a third mission remained, which was to carry him beyond the Alps. King John of France had, in 1356, been defeated by the Black Prince and carried a prisoner to England, where, four years later, he gained his freedom only by the payment of an enormous ransom. At this juncture Galeazzo Visconti offered him timely pecuniary aid, upon condition that his son, Gian Galeazzo, should marry King John's daughter. The match was promptly arranged, and the nuptials took place in October, 1360. It then seemed only proper that Galeazzo should give some formal proof of the satisfaction he felt at King John's release, and Petrarch was chosen as a fitting person to carry his congratulations. The King and his court were so delighted with the poet that they would gladly have induced him to remain at Paris. This was, as Petrarch complacently points out in a letter to the Emperor Charles, but another proof of the skill of the astrologer who had long before predicted that he would be upon terms of intimacy with almost all the great princes of his age.[97]

A new outbreak of the plague, the invasion of the mercenary troops (compagnies) which had been left without resources by the temporary cessation of the Hundred Years' War, and personal bereavement in the death of his son and of his friend "Socrates," all served to cast a shadow over the opening years of the period covered by the Letters of Old Age (1363-1374). The plague, which had spared Milan in 1348, raged there with especial fury in 1361, and compelled Petrarch to leave the city. After a time of hesitation, during which he resolved first to return to Vaucluse, and then to accept Charles's invitation to Prague, he was forced, by the uncertainty of the roads, to give up both plans. He decided in the fall of 1362 to establish himself in Venice. Here he was furnished with a mansion, on the Riva degli Schiavoni, upon the condition that he should leave his library to the city. But, while Venice fulfilled her part of the bargain, the books, as we have seen, were never delivered.[98] The quiet of the city and its freedom from the martial turmoil of Lombardy, as well as the circumstance that it was the home of his daughter, who was happily married to a young nobleman,—all served to make Venice an attractive refuge. The city was naturally much visited by travellers, and Petrarch often had the pleasure of entertaining distinguished guests in his charming home, from the windows of which he could look off upon the busy harbour. Boccaccio came to see him more than once, but would not consent, in spite of Petrarch's entreaties, to make his permanent home with him.

The rest of the story is soon told. After five years at Venice the restless old man moved to Padua, where Francesco di Carrara, the son of his former friend, was in power. It was for this younger prince, with whom he lived upon the happiest terms, that he composed his little work upon The Best Form of Government.[99] This affords, as may readily be inferred, a marked contrast to the practical suggestions of Machiavelli's famous hand-book. The latter, however, only formulated principles of conduct already discovered by the very house of Carrara for which Petrarch prepared his manual.

Distracted by the noise of the city, which his failing health rendered the more distressing, the poet found a charming home at Arquà, pleasantly situated in the Euganean Hills, some twelve miles south of Padua. In this new Vaucluse he passed, with few interruptions, the last four years of his life. He was found by his attendants upon the 18th of July, 1374, his face bowed upon the book before him, dead.

During the long life that we have just reviewed Petrarch allowed scarcely a day to pass without writing one or more letters. The historical importance and multiform interest of his correspondence have already been dwelt upon. Letter-writing was, as he was aware, a veritable passion with him, which was destined to retain its hold until the very end. He frequently reasoned about it with characteristic self-consciousness, and the reader will note many allusions to the subject throughout the present collection. There is, however, one particularly full discussion of his feelings towards his favourite literary occupation, which is to be found in the following dedicatory preface, written, probably in 1359, as an introduction to his first collection of letters. In many ways it is one of the most suggestive of the epistles and merits careful study.

Petrarch's Preface to his First Collection of Letters

To his Friend "Socrates"[1]

What now, brother? We have tried almost everything, and nowhere have we found peace. When may we hope for that, and where shall we seek it? Time, as the saying is, has slipped between our fingers. Our early hopes are buried with our friends. The year 1348 has left us solitary and bereaved; and has taken from us what all the wealth of Ormus and of Ind could never replace.[2]

Such final losses are irreparable, and the wounds inflicted by death can never be healed. There is but one source of consolation; we shall soon follow those who have gone before. How long we must wait we know not. But this we do know, it cannot be for long; and the delay, however short, will not be without its trials. Yet let us, here at the outset at least, refrain from lamentation.

I do not know, brother, what anxieties are weighing upon you or what your present preoccupations may be. As for me, I am making up my bundles and, as those on the verge of departure are wont to do, I am trying to decide what to take with me, what to distribute among my friends, and what to throw into the fire. At any rate, I have nothing to sell. I possess, or rather am burdened by, more than I supposed. I found, for example, a vast store of scattered and neglected writings of different kinds in the house. I have laboriously exhumed boxes, buried in dust, and bundles of manuscript, half-destroyed by time. The importunate mouse as well as the insatiable bookworm, have plotted against me, and, a devotee of Pallas, I have been entangled in the toils of Pallas's enemy, the spider. There is, however, no obstacle which may not be overcome by persistent effort. Surrounded by the confused masses of letters and manuscripts I began, following my first impulse, to consign everything to the flames, with a view to escaping from the inglorious task of assorting the papers. Then, as one thought springs from another, it occurred to me that, like a traveller weary by reason of the long road, I might well look back as from an eminence, and step by step review the history of my younger days.

This counsel prevailed. It seemed to me, if not an exalted undertaking, at least not a disagreeable one, to recall the shifting feelings and sentiments of earlier times. But, taking up the disordered papers at random, I was astonished to see how distorted and blurred the past appeared to me, not of course that it, but rather that my mental vision, had changed, so that I hardly recognised my former self. Still, some things that I happened upon called up pleasant reminiscences of long ago. Some of the productions moved with the free step of prose, some were held in check by Homeric reins (I have rarely used those of Isocrates),[3] others, destined to charm the ear of the people, also obeyed their own appropriate laws. The last mentioned style of verse, revived, it is said, not many generations ago, among the Sicilians, spread in a short time throughout Italy, and even beyond. This kind of poetry was held in great repute by the earliest writers among the Greeks and Romans, and the common people of Rome and Athens are said to have been accustomed to the rhythmical lyrics only.

This chaotic medley kept me busy for several days, and, although I felt the potent charm and natural partiality which are associated with all one's own productions, the love for my more important works finally got the upper hand. These had suffered a long interruption and were still uncompleted, although they were anxiously awaited by not a few. The shortness of life was borne in upon me. I feared, I must confess, its snares and pitfalls. What indeed is more transient than life, and what more certain than death? It occurred to me to ask what foundation I had laid, and what would remain to me for all my toil and vigils. It seemed a rash, an insane thing, to have undertaken such long and enduring labours in the course of so brief and uncertain an existence, and thus to scatter my talents, which would scarcely suffice for the successful accomplishment of a single undertaking. Moreover, as you well know, another task awaits me more glorious than these in proportion as actions merit more enduring praise than words.[4]

But why dwell longer upon this matter? It will perhaps seem incredible to you, but it is none the less true, that I committed to Vulcan for correction a thousand or more scattered poems of all kinds and letters of friendly intercourse, not because I found nothing in them to my liking, but because they involved more work than pleasure. I did this, however, with a sigh, as I am not ashamed to confess. But with a mind so occupied it was necessary to resort even to somewhat harsh measures for relief, just as an overburdened ship must sometimes be lightened by the sacrifice of valuable cargo.

After disposing of these I noticed, lying in a corner, a few papers which had been preserved rather by accident than intention, or had, at some former time, been copied by my assistants, and so in one way or the other had escaped the perils of advancing age. I say a few—I fear they will seem a great many to the reader, and far too numerous to the copyist. I was more indulgent to these, and allowed them to live, not so much on account of their worthiness as of my convenience, for they did not involve any additional labour of my own. As I considered them with regard to the natural inclinations of two of my friends, the prose fell to you, while the verse I decided to dedicate to our friend Barbato. I recollected that this used to be your preference, and that I had promised to follow your wishes. My mood was such that I was on the point of destroying everything which I came across, not even sparing those writings just mentioned, when you both seemed to appear to me, one on my right and one on my left, and, grasping my hands, you admonished me in a friendly manner not to do violence at once to my good faith and your anticipations. This was the chief reason why these were spared, for otherwise, believe me, they would have gone up in smoke like the rest.

You will read your portion of what remains, such as it is, not only patiently, but even eagerly. I do not venture to repeat the boast of Apuleius of Madaura, "Reader, you have but to listen to be charmed"; for on what grounds could I venture to promise pleasure to the reader? But, you at least, will read the letters, my good Socrates, and, as you are very fond of your friends, you may discover some charm in them. Your partiality for the author will make his style pleasing (indeed what beauty of style is likely to be perceived by an unfriendly judge?); it is vain to adorn what already delights. If anything gratifies you in these letters of mine, I freely concede that it is not really mine but yours; that is to say, the credit is due not to my ability but to your good-will. You will find no great eloquence or vigour of expression in them. Indeed I do not possess these powers, and if I did, in ever so high a degree, there would be no place for them in this kind of composition. Even Cicero, who was renowned for these abilities, does not manifest them in his letters, nor even in his treatises, where, as he himself says, the language is characterised by a certain evenness and moderation. In his orations, on the other hand, he displayed extraordinary powers, pouring out a clear and rapid stream of eloquence. This oratorical style Cicero used frequently for his friends, and against his enemies and those of the republic.[5] Cato resorted to it often on behalf of others, and for himself four and forty times. In this mode of composition I am wholly inexperienced, for I have been far away from the responsibilities of state. And while my reputation may sometimes have been assailed by slight murmurs, or secret whisperings, I have so far never suffered any attack in the courts which I must needs avenge or parry. Hence, as it is not my profession to use my weapons of speech for the defence of others, I do not frequent the tribunals, nor have I ever learned to loan my tongue. I have, indeed, a deep repugnance for such a life, for I am by nature a lover of silence and solitude, an enemy of the courts, and a contemner of wealth. It was fortunate for me that I was freed from the necessity of resorting to a weapon which I might not have been able to use if I had tried. I have therefore made no attempt to employ an oratorical style, which, even if it had been at my disposal, would have been uncalled for in this instance. But you will accept this homely and familiar language in the same friendly spirit as you do the rest, and take in good part a style well adapted to the sentiments we are accustomed to express in ordinary conversation.

All my critics, however, are not like you, for they do not all think the same, nor do they all love me as you do. But how can I hope to please everybody, when I have always striven to gratify a few only? There are three poisons which kill sound criticism, love, hate, and envy. Beware lest through too much love you should make public what might better be kept concealed. As you are guided by love, so others may be influenced by other passions. Between the blindness of love and that of jealousy there is indeed a great difference in origin, but not always in effect. Hate, to which I have assigned a middle place, I neither merit nor fear. Still it can easily be so arranged that you may keep and read my trifling productions for your own exclusive pleasure, thinking of nothing except the incidents in our lives and those of our friends which they recall. Should you do this, it would be most gratifying to me. In this way your request will have been satisfied and my reputation will be safe. Beyond this I do not deceive myself with the vain hope of favour. For how can we imagine even a friend, if he be not an alter ego, reading without weariness such a mass of miscellaneous and conflicting recollections? There is no unity in the themes or composition of the letters, and with the various matters treated went varying moods, which were rarely happy and usually despondent.

Epicurus, a philosopher held in disrepute among the vulgar but esteemed by those better able to judge, confined his correspondence to two or three persons—Idomeneus, Polyænus, and Metrodorus. Cicero wrote to hardly more, to Brutus, Atticus, and the other two Ciceros, his brother and son. Seneca wrote to few except his friend Lucilius. It obviously renders felicitous letter-writing a simple matter if we know the character of our correspondent and get used to his particular mind, so that we can judge what he will be glad to hear and what we may properly communicate. But my lot has been a very different one, for heretofore almost my whole life has been passed in journeying from place to place. I might compare my wanderings with those of Ulysses; and certainly were we only on the same plane in reputation and in the fame of our adventures, I might claim that he had not wandered farther or been cast upon more distant shores than I. He was already well advanced in years when he left his native land, and, since nothing is long in our lives, the experiences of his old age were necessarily brief indeed: I, on the other hand, was conceived and born in exile, costing my mother such grievous pangs, and in such critical circumstances, that not only the midwives but the physicians long believed her to be dead. Thus I began to encounter dangers before I was born, and attained the threshold of life under the auspices of death. The event is commemorated by the no means insignificant city of Arezzo,[6] whither my father, driven from his country, had taken refuge, together with many another worthy man. Thence I was taken in my seventh month and carried about all over Tuscany by a certain sturdy youth, who wrapped me up in a cloth, just as Metabus did Camilla, and bore me suspended from a knotty staff, so as not to injure my tender body by any rough contact. But once, in crossing the Arno (I delight to recall with you the beginnings of my tribulations), his horse stumbled and he fell into the water, and while striving to save the burden entrusted to him he nearly sacrificed his own life in the raging flood.

Our wanderings through Tuscany finally ended at Pisa. From here, however, I was dragged away again, in my seventh year,[7] and in our journey to France by sea we were wrecked by winter storms, not far from Marseilles, and I was on the verge of being summoned away anew from the vestibule of life.—But I am straying from my subject. From then until now I have had little or no opportunity to stop and take breath. How many and how various the dangers and apprehensions I have suffered in my migrations no one, after myself, better knows than you. Hence I have felt free to recall these events, that you may keep in mind that I was born among perils and among perils have grown old,—if old I am, and there are not worse trials ahead. Although similar vicissitudes may be common to everyone entering this life, since existence is a warfare—nay more, a battle,—each nevertheless has his peculiar experiences, and the fighting differs greatly in kind. Each has his own burdens to bear, but it still makes a great difference what these burdens are.

Well then, to return to the matter in hand,—since amid the tempests of life I have never for long cast anchor in any one port, I have naturally made innumerable acquaintances. How many true friends I know not, for friends are not only exceedingly few, but difficult to distinguish. It has fallen to my lot, in consequence, to write to a great many who differed so widely from one another in mind and condition that on re-reading my letters it sometimes seemed to me as if I had said in one precisely the opposite from what I had in another. Yet anyone who has been in a similar position will readily admit that I was almost forced into such contradictions. The first care indeed in writing is to consider to whom the letter is to be sent; then we may judge what to say and how to say it. We address a strong man in one way and a weak one in another. The inexperienced youth and the old man who has fulfilled the duties of life, he who is puffed up with prosperity and he who is stricken with adversity, the scholar distinguished in literature and the man incapable of grasping anything beyond commonplace,—each must be treated according to his character or position. There are infinite varieties among men; minds are no more alike than faces. And as the same stomach does not always relish the same kind of food, the same mind is not always to be fed upon the same kind of writing. So the task becomes a double one, for not only have we to consider the person to whom we propose to write, but how those things we are planning to say are likely to affect him when he reads them. Owing to these difficulties I have often been forced into apparent contradictions. And in order that unfavourable critics may not turn this against me, I have relied in a measure upon the kind aid of the flames for safety, and for the rest, upon your keeping the letters secret and suppressing my name.

But friends are lynx-eyed, and nothing is likely to escape them; so that if you cannot keep the letters from the few who still remain, be sure to urge them to destroy immediately any of my communications that they may possess, lest they be disturbed by any changes which I have made in the words or matter. These changes are due to the fact that, since it never occurred to me that you would ask or that I would consent to have the letters brought together in a single collection, I was accustomed, in order to avoid labour, to repeat now and then something I had said in a previous letter, using my own as my own, as Terence says. Now that letters sent off years ago to the most distant regions are brought together at once in a single place, it is easy to perceive deformities in the whole body which were not apparent in the separate parts. Phrases which pleased when they occurred but once in a letter, begin to annoy one when frequently repeated in the same collection; accordingly they must be retained in one and expunged from the others. Many things, too, which related to every-day cares and which deserved mention when I wrote, would now weary even the most eager reader, and were therefore omitted. I recollect that Seneca laughed at Cicero for including trivial matters in his letters, and yet I am much more prone in my epistles to follow Cicero's example than Seneca's. Seneca, indeed, gathered into his letters pretty much all the moral reflections which he had published in his various books: Cicero, on the other hand, treats philosophical subjects in his books, but fills his letters with miscellaneous news and the gossip of the day. Let Seneca think as he likes about this; as for me, I must confess that I find Cicero's letters very agreeable reading. They relax the tension produced by weighty matters, which if long continued strains the mind, though if occasionally interrupted it becomes a source of pleasure.

I cannot sufficiently wonder at the boldness of Sidonius, although I may be a bit rash myself in denouncing this boldness when I do not very well understand his sarcasms, either because of my slow wit or his obscure style, or, as is not impossible, by reason of some error in the text. One thing, however, is clear; Cicero is ridiculed, and by a Sidonius![8] What liberty!—effrontery I would say, did I not fear to exasperate those whom I have already offended by calling him bold. Here is one of the Latin people who finds it in his heart to attack Cicero. Nor does he speak of some single weakness, for if that were all I should have to ask pardon for both Seneca and myself; human frailty, indeed, can hardly escape criticism. But this Sidonius has dared to make sport of Cicero's eloquence,—his whole style and his method in general. This Arvernian[9] orator does not simply imagine himself, as he says, a brother of the Latin orator, which would be audacious enough, but he assumes the rôle of a rival, and, what is worse, of a scoffer. He would deprive him of the renown which all but a few of his contemporaries and fellow-citizens unanimously concede to him: even those few were doubtless warped in their judgment and goaded on by envy, the constant attendant upon contemporary fame. But neither time nor place afford any extenuation in the case of Sidonius. Consequently I wonder more and more what manner of person this was who thus attacked the undoubted prince of orators, although he was himself a disciple of oratory, and belonged to another age, and was born in another land. Upon turning the whole matter over in my mind, I find it impossible to accept in the case of so learned a man the excuse of ignorance, and to ascribe his perverted opinions to a weakness of the head rather than of the heart. I may be mistaken in this matter, as in many others, but if I am I rejoice that I am mistaken in company with many, and those by far the most distinguished, judges in believing that Cicero leaves all fault-finders far behind, and that to him belongs the palm for prose eloquence. From this point of view the moral and intellectual perversity of those who deny him pre-eminence becomes as clear as day.

Sidonius brings forward, it is true, a certain Julius Titianus and certain Frontoniani,[10] of whom I have never heard, as the authorities for his sarcasms. To these, and to all those holding such views, I make one and the same reply, namely, that Seneca was right when he said, "Whatever strength or advantage Roman eloquence may have to oppose to the arrogance of Greece was developed by Cicero." Moreover, Quintilian, among the many glorious things which he says of Cicero, well observes: "He was sent by the special gift of providence, with such extraordinary powers that in him eloquence might manifest all her resources." And after many proofs of this, he continues: "It was therefore but right that his contemporaries should declare with one accord that he reigned supreme in the courts. With succeeding generations it has come to pass that Cicero is no longer regarded as the name of a man, but of eloquence itself. To him, therefore, let us look, placing him before us as our model. When a student comes to admire Cicero greatly, he may know that he is making progress."[11] I hold moreover that, conversely, it is quite true that one to whom Cicero's style is displeasing either knows nothing of the highest eloquence or hates it.

Anxious as I was to hasten on, I could not pass over this calumny altogether. To return again to the letters, you will find many written in a familiar style to friends, including yourself; sometimes referring to matters of public or private interest, sometimes relating to bereavements, which form, alas! an ever recurring theme, or to other matters which circumstances brought into prominence. I have discussed almost nothing else, except as I have spoken of my state of mind, or have imparted some bit of news to my friends. I approve, you see, what Cicero says in his first letter to his brother, that it is the proper aim of a letter to inform the one to whom it is addressed of something of which he was ignorant. These considerations account for the title which I have selected. For, on thinking over the matter, although the simple rubric "epistles" was quite appropriate, I rejected it, both because many older writers had chosen it, and because I myself had applied it to the verses to my friends which I mentioned above,[12] and consequently disliked to resort to it a second time. So I chose a new name, and entitled the volume Letters of Familiar Intercourse,[13] letters, that is, in which there is little anxious regard to style, but where homely matters are treated in a homely manner. Sometimes, when it was not inappropriate, there may be a bit of simple narration or a few moral reflections, such as Cicero was accustomed to introduce into his letters.

To say so much about a small matter is justified by the fear of censorious critics, who, instead of producing work of their own to be judged, set themselves up as the judges of others' talents—a most audacious and impudent set, whose only safety lies in holding their tongues. Sitting upon the shore with folded hands, we are safe in expressing any opinions we please upon the art of navigation. By keeping the letters secret you will at least shield these crude productions, that I have carelessly thrown off, from such impudence. If ever I put the last touches to this work, I will send you, not a Phidian Minerva, as Cicero says, but an image, in some sort, of my mind and character, hewn out with great labour. When it reaches you, place it in some safe niche.

So far, so good. The next matter I would gladly say nothing about, but a serious ailment is not easily concealed; its very symptoms betray it. I am ashamed of a life which has lapsed into weakness. As you will see, and as the order of the letters testifies, the language of my earlier years was sober and strong, betokening a valiant heart. I not only stood firm myself, but often consoled others. The succeeding letters become day by day weaker and more dispirited, nor have the lamentations with which they are filled a sufficiently manly tone. It is these that I would ask you to guard with special care. For what would others say to sentiments which I myself cannot re-read without a blush? Was I indeed a man in my youthful days, only to become a child when I reached maturity?

With a disingenuousness which I reprehend and deplore, I conceived the plan of changing the order of the letters, or concealing from you entirely those that I condemn. Neither subterfuge would have deceived you, since you possess the originals of these melancholy missives, and are aware of the year and day upon which each was written. Consequently I must arm myself with excuses. I have grown weary in the long and arduous battle. While courage and valour stood by me, I made a stand myself and encouraged others to resist; but when, by reason of the strength of the enemy and the fierceness of his onset, I began to lose my footing, and my spirits began to droop, that fine, bold tone promptly deserted me, and I descended to those weak laments which are so displeasing. My affection for my friends may perhaps extenuate my offence, for while they remained unharmed I never groaned on account of any wound of fortune. But when almost all of them were hurried away in a single great catastrophe, nay when the whole world seemed about to perish,[14] it would have been inhuman, rather than courageous, to remain unmoved. Before that who ever heard me complain of exile, disease, litigation, elections, or the whirl of public affairs?[15] Who ever heard a tearful regret for my father's house, for lost fortune, diminished fame, squandered money, or absent friends? Cicero, however, shows such a want of manliness in the way he writes of such grievances that his sentiments often offend as much as his style delights me. Add to this his litigious epistles, and the complaints and insults which, with the utmost fickleness, he directs against distinguished men whom he himself has but just been lauding to the skies! On reading these I was so shocked and discomposed that I could not refrain in my irritation from writing to him and pointing out what offended me in his writings, as if he were a friend and contemporary.[16] Ignoring the space of time which separates us, I addressed him with a familiarity springing from my sympathy with his genius. This letter suggested others of the kind. For instance, on re-reading, after some years, Seneca's tragedy of Octavia,[17], I felt the same impulse to write to him, and later I wrote, on various themes, to Varro, Virgil, and others.[18] A few of these, which I have inserted in the latter part of this work, might produce the utmost astonishment in the mind of the reader, were he not forewarned. The rest I burned up in that general holocaust of which I told you above.

Just as Cicero was absorbed in his trials, so was I at one time in mine. But to-day—that you may know my present temper—it would not be inappropriate to attribute to me that serenity which comes, as Seneca says, even to the most untried, the serenity of despair itself. Why indeed fear, when one has so many times striven with death itself?

Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem.

You will see me work and speak with growing courage from day to day. If I should hit upon any subject worthy of my pen, the style itself will be more vigorous. Many themes will undoubtedly offer themselves. My writing and my life I foresee will come to an end together.

But while my other works are finished, or bid fair to be, these letters, which I began in an irregular fashion in my early youth, and am now bringing together in my old age and arranging in a volume,—this work the love of my friends will never permit me to finish, since I must conscientiously reply to their messages; nor can I ever persuade them to accept the oft-repeated excuse of my other occupations. When you shall learn that I have at last begged to be freed from that duty, and have brought this work to an end, then you may know that I am dead and freed from all life's burdens. In the meantime I shall continue to follow the path which I have entered upon, not looking for its end until darkness comes upon me. Pleasant work will take the place of repose with me. Moreover, having placed the weakest of my forces in the centre, as orators and generals are wont to do, I shall take care that, as I showed a solid front in beginning my book, so my rear-guard too shall not be wanting in courage. Indeed, I may make better head against the attacks and buffets of fortune, thanks to a gradual process of hardening which has gone on through life. In short, although I dare not assert how I shall demean myself in the stress of circumstances, I am firmly resolved not to succumb to any trial hereafter. "Beneath the crash of worlds undaunted he appears." You may picture me thus armed with the good thoughts of Virgil and Horace, which I used often to read and praise in my earlier years, and which, in my latter days of calamity, stern necessity has forced me to make my own.

My communion with you has been very pleasant, and I have, in my enjoyment, been led half unconsciously to prolong it. It brought back your face over land and sea, and kept you with me until evening. I took up my pen this morning, and the day and this letter are coming to an end together.

Well, this which I dedicate to you, my brother, is a fabric, so to speak, of many coloured threads. But should I ever find a resting-place, and the leisure I have always sought in vain (and there is the promise of such a change), I intend to weave for you a more worthy and certainly more uniform web. I should be glad to think that I am among the few who can promise and confer fame; but you can lift yourself into the light without my aid, borne on the wings of your own genius. However, if I am able to rise, in spite of all the difficulties which beset me, you hereafter shall assuredly be my Idomeneus, my Atticus, and my Lucilius. Farewell.

The selection and copying of the letters, which Petrarch appears to have begun about 1359, when he was fifty-five years old, proved to be a trying task that dragged through five or six years. Writing to Boccaccio, in 1365, he describes a clever youth of Ravenna who had come to him two years before and, among other duties, had assisted him in editing the correspondence.[19] "My prose epistles to my friends,"[20] he says, "are very numerous; would that they were proportionately valuable! What with the confusion of the copies and the pressure of my other occupations I had almost despaired of editing them. Four friends had promised me their aid, but after a trial had left the task half done; yet this young man has, quite by himself, completed the collection, which does not include all indeed, but as many of them as will go into a not too huge volume. Counting this one, they amount to three hundred and fifty,[21] which, if it please God, you shall sometime behold, written in his hand. You will not find the ill-defined though sumptuous penmanship affected by our copyists, or rather painters, of to-day, which delights us at a distance, but, as if invented for any other purpose than to be read, strains and tires the eyes when we look at it intently, thus belying the saying of the prince of grammarians that the word letter comes from legere, to read. This youth's characters are, on the contrary, compressed[22] and clear, carrying the eye with them, nor will you discover any faults of orthography or grammatical errors."

It is safe to infer that the additional labour involved in duplicating from the outset all his letters, so that he might retain copies of them, was not undertaken without the expectation of ultimately bringing them together into a collection for publication, like the correspondence of Seneca and that of Abelard, with both of which he was familiar. (Of Cicero's letters he knew little if anything until he himself discovered a copy of part of them at Verona, in 1345, when he was already forty-one years old, too late for them to exercise any decisive influence upon the formation of his epistolary style.[23]) He had, moreover, long before the editing began, promised his friend "Socrates" that these prose epistles should be dedicated to him.[24] There can even be no doubt that individual letters were destined for a more or less wide circle of readers, as is shown by their careful composition and, here and there, by a naive confession, as in the repetition for the benefit of others of the earlier part of the story of the goldsmith, with which the friend to whom he was writing was already familiar.[25] Indeed he closes his collection with an explicit appeal to the "candid reader, whoever thou art," exhorting him by their common love for the same studies not to allow himself to be disturbed by the confusion and unstudied language of the work, but to recall the excuses offered in the Preface.[26]

The entire prose correspondence of Petrarch falls into four divisions. The largest group, the one that he discusses in the Preface given above, embraces three hundred and forty-seven letters, which were written between the years 1332 and 1362.[27] To this collection, which filled the "not too huge volume," he decided to give the unassuming general title of De Rebus Familiaribus, by which he meant to imply that every-day topics were therein discussed with his friends, with no especial attention to style. He evidently wished to avoid any possible inference that he supposed that so miscellaneous and heterogeneous a mass of work could possess real literary form and merit. The title may fairly enough, if not literally, be translated Letters of Friendly Intercourse.

A second and much smaller collection was formed from those which could not be included in the main volume without unduly increasing its bulk.[28] About seventy of these have been re-discovered, and constitute the so-called Miscellaneous Letters (Epistolæ Variæ).

But the editing of this earlier correspondence did not bring the work to a close; the love of his friends admitted no conclusion to the task. "Their messages," he declares, "will still continue to come and I must continue to reply to them." Consequently a new division of the correspondence was formed, the important Epistolæ de Rebus Senilibus,—Letters of Old Age,—which were written during the last twelve years of the poet's life. A short dedication to "Simonides" (i.e., Francesco Nelli) is prefixed to them.[29] There are one hundred and twenty-four in this group, some of them very long.

Lastly, there is a little group of about twenty letters, some of which contained such frank strictures upon the régime of the popes at Avignon that Petrarch found it expedient to put them by themselves and to suppress the names of those to whom they were addressed. These, the Epistolæ sine Titulo,[30] are so acrid in tone, and so unmeasured in the abuse which they heap upon the degraded churchmen, that their author has sometimes mistakenly been reckoned as a forerunner of the Reformation; but, as we shall see, he had no thought of questioning a single dogma of the Catholic Church.

Of the Letters of Friendly Intercourse, scarcely half appear in the most complete of the older printed editions,[31] but they have, not long since, been edited in full by Giuseppe Fracassetti, who includes no less than one hundred and twenty-eight never before printed. The Epistolæ Variæ—Miscellaneous Letters—are also to be found in his excellent edition.[32] The Letters of Old Age were early printed in their entirety, but unfortunately have not been reproduced since 1581. If one would read them in the original he must still turn to the miserable Basle editions of the works, which would almost appear to have been printed by persons unfamiliar with the rudiments of Latin, so numerous and incredible are the typographical errors which not only try the reader's temper but often entirely obscure the meaning.

How far Petrarch modified the original form of the letters in editing them is an important question, but one upon which we have but little information. He says in the Preface that the unworthy expedient occurred to him of suppressing such letters as exhibited his past weakness, or so changing their order that he should at least appear in a more favourable light. But this, he decided, would be quite useless, since his friends possessed the properly dated originals. On the other hand, he certainly destroyed a large number of his papers. What canons he adopted in his selection we cannot determine, but obviously the temptation to exclude those which might seem to place him in a false position must have been almost irresistible. Moreover, he did not hesitate, as we have seen, in order to avoid repetition and monotony, to so alter the language that he felt it necessary to ask his friends, in some instances, to destroy their original copies lest they should be hurt by the changes he had made.