His soul, he said, was like a field of battle, where
his passion and reason held continual conflict.
his passion and reason held continual conflict.
Petrarch
"This great man
never made me feel that he was my superior in station. He was like a
father or an indulgent brother; and I lived in his house as if it had
been my own. " At a subsequent period, we find him on somewhat cooler
terms with John Colonna, and complaining that his domestic dependence
had, by length of time, become wearisome to him. But great allowance is
to be made for such apparent inconsistencies in human attachment. At
different times our feelings and language on any subject may be
different without being insincere. The truth seems to be that Petrarch
looked forward to the friendship of the Colonnas for promotion, which he
either received scantily, or not at all; so it is little marvellous if
he should have at last felt the tedium of patronage.
For the present, however, this home was completely to Petrarch's taste.
It was the rendezvous of all strangers distinguished by their knowledge
and talents, whom the papal court attracted to Avignon, which was now
the great centre of all political negotiations.
This assemblage of the learned had a powerful influence on Petrarch's
fine imagination. He had been engaged for some time in the perusal of
Livy, and his enthusiasm for ancient Rome was heightened, if possible,
by the conversation of old Stefano Colonna, who dwelt on no subject with
so much interest as on the temples and palaces of the ancient city,
majestic even in their ruins.
During the bitter persecution raised against his family by Boniface
VIII. , Stefano Colonna had been the chief object of the Pope's
implacable resentment. Though oppressed by the most adverse
circumstances, his estates confiscated, his palaces levelled with the
ground, and himself driven into exile, the majesty of his appearance,
and the magnanimity of his character, attracted the respect of strangers
wherever he went. He had the air of a sovereign prince rather than of an
exile, and commanded more regard than monarchs in the height of their
ostentation.
In the picture of his times, Stefano makes a noble and commanding
figure. If the reader, however, happens to search into that period of
Italian history, he will find many facts to cool the romance of his
imagination respecting all the Colonna family. They were, in plain
truth, an oppressive aristocratic family. The portion of Italy which
they and their tyrannical rivals possessed was infamously governed. The
highways were rendered impassable by banditti, who were in the pay of
contesting feudal lords; and life and property were everywhere insecure.
Stefano, nevertheless, seems to have been a man formed for better times.
He improved in the school of misfortune--the serenity of his temper
remained unclouded by adversity, and his faculties unimpaired by age.
Among the illustrious strangers who came to Avignon at this time was our
countryman, Richard de Bury, then accounted the most learned man of
England. He arrived at Avignon in 1331, having been sent to the Pope by
Edward III. De Sade conceives that the object of his embassy was to
justify his sovereign before the Pontiff for having confined the
Queen-mother in the castle of Risings, and for having caused her
favourite, Roger de Mortimer, to be hanged. It was a matter of course
that so illustrious a stranger as Richard de Bury should be received
with distinction by Cardinal Colonna. Petrarch eagerly seized the
opportunity of forming his acquaintance, confident that De Bury could
give him valuable information on many points of geography and history.
They had several conversations. Petrarch tells us that he entreated the
learned Englishman to make him acquainted with the true situation of the
isle of Thule, of which the ancients speak with much uncertainty, but
which their best geographers place at the distance of some days'
navigation from the north of England. De Bury was, in all probability,
puzzled with the question, though he did not like to confess his
ignorance. He excused himself by promising to inquire into the subject
as soon as he should get back to his books in England, and to write to
him the best information he could afford. It does not appear, however,
that he performed his promise.
De Bury's stay at the court of Avignon was very short. King Edward, it
is true, sent him a second time to the Pope, two years afterwards, on
important business. The seeds of discord between France and England
began to germinate strongly, and that circumstance probably occasioned
De Bury's second mission. Unfortunately, however, Petrarch could not
avail himself of his return so as to have further interviews with the
English scholar. Petrarch wrote repeatedly to De Bury for his promised
explanations respecting Thule; but, whether our countryman had found
nothing in his library to satisfy his inquiries, or was prevented by his
public occupations, there is no appearance of his having ever answered
Petrarch's letters.
Stephano Colonna the younger had brought with him to Avignon his son
Agapito, who was destined for the church, that he might be educated
under the eyes of the Cardinal and the Bishop, who were his uncles.
These two prelates joined with their father in entreating Petrarch to
undertake the superintendence of Agapito's studies. Our poet, avaricious
of his time, and jealous of his independence, was at first reluctant to
undertake the charge; but, from his attachment to the family, at last
accepted it. De Sade tells us that Petrarch was not successful in the
young man's education; and, from a natural partiality for the hero of
his biography, lays the blame on his pupil. At the same time he
acknowledges that a man with poetry in his head and love in his heart
was not the most proper mentor in the world for a youth who was to be
educated for the church. At this time, Petrarch's passion for Laura
continued to haunt his peace with incessant violence. She had received
him at first with good-humour and affability; but it was only while he
set strict bounds to the expression of his attachment. He had not,
however, sufficient self-command to comply with these terms. His
constant assiduities, his eyes continually riveted upon her, and the
wildness of his looks, convinced her of his inordinate attachment; her
virtue took alarm; she retired whenever he approached her, and even
covered her face with a veil whilst he was present, nor would she
condescend to the slightest action or look that might seem to
countenance his passion.
Petrarch complains of these severities in many of his melancholy
sonnets. Meanwhile, if fame could have been a balm to love, he might
have been happy. His reputation as a poet was increasing, and his
compositions were read with universal approbation.
The next interesting event in our poet's life was a larger course of
travels, which he took through the north of France, through Flanders,
Brabant, and a part of Germany, subsequently to his tour in Languedoc.
Petrarch mentions that he undertook this journey about the twenty-fifth
year of his age. He was prompted to travel not only by his curiosity to
observe men and manners, by his desire of seeing monuments of antiquity,
and his hopes of discovering the MSS. of ancient authors, but also, we
may believe, by his wish, if it were possible, to escape from himself,
and to forget Laura.
From Paris Petrarch wrote as follows to Cardinal Colonna. "I have
visited Paris, the capital of the whole kingdom of France. I entered it
in the same state of mind that was felt by Apuleias when he visited
Hypata, a city of Thessaly, celebrated for its magic, of which such
wonderful things were related, looking again and again at every object,
in solicitous suspense, to know whether all that he had heard of the
far-famed place was true or false. Here I pass a great deal of time in
observation, and, as the day is too short for my curiosity, I add the
night. At last, it seems to me that, by long exploring, I have enabled
myself to distinguish between the true and the false in what is related
about Paris. But, as the subject would be too tedious for this occasion,
I shall defer entering fully into particulars till I can do so _viva
voce_. My impatience, however, impels me to sketch for you briefly a
general idea of this so celebrated city, and of the character of its
inhabitants.
"Paris, though always inferior to its fame, and much indebted to the
lies of its own people, is undoubtedly a great city. To be sure I never
saw a dirtier place, except Avignon. At the same time, its population
contains the most learned of men, and it is like a great basket in which
are collected the rarest fruits of every country. From the time that its
university was founded, as they say by Alcuin, the teacher of
Charlemagne, there has not been, to my knowledge, a single Parisian of
any fame. The great luminaries of the university were all strangers;
and, if the love of my country does not deceive me, they were chiefly
Italians, such as Pietro Lombardo, Tomaso d'Aquino, Bonaventura, and
many others.
"The character of the Parisians is very singular. There was a time when,
from the ferocity of their manners, the French were reckoned barbarians.
At present the case is wholly changed. A gay disposition, love of
society, ease, and playfulness in conversation now characterize them.
They seek every opportunity of distinguishing themselves; and make war
against all cares with joking, laughing, singing, eating, and drinking.
Prone, however, as they are to pleasure, they are not heroic in
adversity. The French love their country and their countrymen; they
censure with rigour the faults of other nations, but spread a
proportionably thick veil over their own defects. "
From Paris, Petrarch proceeded to Ghent, of which only he makes mention
to the Cardinal, without noticing any of the towns that lie between. It
is curious to find our poet out of humour with Flanders on account of
the high price of wine, which was not an indigenous article. In the
latter part of his life, Petrarch was certainly one of the most
abstemious of men; but, at this period, it would seem that he drank good
liquor enough to be concerned about its price.
From Ghent he passed on to Liege. "This city is distinguished," he says,
"by the riches and the number of its clergy. As I had heard that
excellent MSS. might be found there, I stopped in the place for some
time. But is it not singular that in so considerable a place I had
difficulty to procure ink enough to copy two orations of Cicero's, and
the little that I could obtain was as yellow as saffron? "
Petrarch was received at most of the places he visited, and more
particularly at Cologne, with marks of great respect; and he was
agreeably surprised to find that his reputation had acquired him the
partiality and acquaintance of several inhabitants. He was conducted by
his new friends to the banks of the Rhine, where the inhabitants were
engaged in the performance of a superstitious annual ceremony, which,
for its singularity, deserves to be recorded.
"The banks of the river were crowded with a considerable number of
women, their persons comely, and their dress elegant. This great
concourse of people seemed to create no confusion. A number of these
women, with cheerful countenances, crowned with flowers, bathed their
hands and arms in the stream, and uttered, at the same time, some
harmonious expressions in a language which I did not understand. I
inquired into the cause of this ceremony, and was informed that it arose
from a tradition among the people, and particularly among the women,
that the impending calamities of the year were carried away by this
ablution, and that blessings succeeded in their place. Hence this
ceremony is annually renewed, and the ablution performed with
unremitting diligence. "
The ceremony being finished, Petrarch smiled at their superstition, and
exclaimed, "O happy inhabitants of the Rhine, whose waters wash out your
miseries, whilst neither the Po nor the Tiber can wash out ours! You
transmit your evils to the Britons by means of this river, whilst we
send off ours to the Illyrians and the Africans. It seems that our
rivers have a slower course. "
Petrarch shortened his excursion that he might return the sooner to
Avignon, where the Bishop of Lombes had promised to await his return,
and take him to Rome.
When he arrived at Lyons, however, he was informed that the Bishop had
departed from Avignon for Rome. In the first paroxysm of his
disappointment he wrote a letter to his friend, which portrays strongly
affectionate feelings, but at the same time an irascible temper. When he
came to Avignon, the Cardinal Colonna relieved him from his irritation
by acquainting him with the real cause of his brother's departure. The
flames of civil dissension had been kindled at Rome between the rival
families of Colonna and Orsini. The latter had made great preparations
to carry on the war with vigour. In this crisis of affairs, James
Colonna had been summoned to Rome to support the interests of his
family, and, by his courage and influence, to procure them the succour
which they so much required.
Petrarch continued to reside at Avignon for several years after
returning from his travels in France and Flanders. It does not appear
from his sonnets, during those years, either that his passion for Laura
had abated, or that she had given him any more encouragement than
heretofore. But in the year 1334, an accident renewed the utmost
tenderness of his affections. A terrible affliction visited the city of
Avignon. The heat and the drought were so excessive that almost the
whole of the common people went about naked to the waist, and, with
frenzy and miserable cries, implored Heaven to put an end to their
calamities. Persons of both sexes and of all ages had their bodies
covered with scales, and changed their skins like serpents.
Laura's constitution was too delicate to resist this infectious malady,
and her illness greatly alarmed Petrarch. One day he asked her
physician how she was, and was told by him that her condition was very
dangerous: on that occasion he composed the following sonnet:[E]--
This lovely spirit, if ordain'd to leave
Its mortal tenement before its time,
Heaven's fairest habitation shall receive
And welcome her to breathe its sweetest clime.
If she establish her abode between
Mars and the planet-star of Beauty's queen,
The sun will be obscured, so dense a cloud
Of spirits from adjacent stars will crowd
To gaze upon her beauty infinite.
Say that she fixes on a lower sphere,
Beneath the glorious sun, her beauty soon
Will dim the splendour of inferior stars--
Of Mars, of Venus, Mercury, and the Moon.
She'll choose not Mars, but higher place than Mars;
She will eclipse all planetary light,
And Jupiter himself will seem less bright.
I trust that I have enough to say in favour of Petrarch to satisfy his
rational admirers; but I quote this sonnet as an example of the worst
style of Petrarch's poetry. I make the English reader welcome to rate my
power of translating it at the very lowest estimation. He cannot go much
further down than myself in the scale of valuation, especially if he has
Italian enough to know that the exquisite mechanical harmony of
Petrarch's style is beyond my reach. It has been alleged that this
sonnet shows how much the mind of Petrarch had been influenced by his
Platonic studies; but if Plato had written poetry he would never have
been so extravagant.
Petrarch, on his return from Germany, had found the old Pope, John
XXII. , intent on two speculations, to both of which he lent his
enthusiastic aid. One of them was a futile attempt to renew the
crusades, from which Europe had reposed for a hundred years. The other
was the transfer of the holy seat to Rome. The execution of this plan,
for which Petrarch sighed as if it were to bring about the millennium,
and which was not accomplished by another Pope without embroiling him
with his Cardinals, was nevertheless more practicable than capturing
Jerusalem. We are told by several Italian writers that the aged Pontiff,
moved by repeated entreaties from the Romans, as well as by the remorse
of his conscience, thought seriously of effecting this restoration; but
the sincerity of his intentions is made questionable by the fact that he
never fixed himself at Rome. He wrote, it is true, to Rome in 1333,
ordering his palaces and gardens to be repaired; but the troubles which
continued to agitate the city were alleged by him as too alarming for
his safety there, and he repaired to Bologna to wait for quieter times.
On both of the above subjects, namely, the insane crusades and the more
feasible restoration of the papal court to Rome, Petrarch wrote with
devoted zeal; they are both alluded to in his twenty-second sonnet.
The death of John XXII. left the Cardinals divided into two great
factions. The first was that of the French, at the head of which stood
Cardinal Taillerand, son of the beautiful Brunissende de Foix, whose
charms were supposed to have detained Pope Clement V. in France. The
Italian Cardinals, who formed the opposite faction, had for their chief
the Cardinal Colonna. The French party, being the more numerous, were,
in some sort, masters of the election; they offered the tiara to
Cardinal de Commenges, on condition that he would promise not to
transfer the papal court to Rome. That prelate showed himself worthy of
the dignity, by refusing to accept it on such terms.
To the surprise of the world, the choice of the conclave fell at last on
James Founder, said to be the son of a baker at Savordun, who had been
bred as a monk of Citeaux, and always wore the dress of the order. Hence
he was called the White Cardinal. He was wholly unlike his portly
predecessor John in figure and address, being small in stature, pale in
complexion, and weak in voice. He expressed his own astonishment at the
honour conferred on him, saying that they had elected an ass. If we may
believe Petrarch, he did himself no injustice in likening himself to
that quadruped; but our poet was somewhat harsh in his judgment of this
Pontiff. He took the name of Benedict XII.
Shortly after his exaltation, Benedict received ambassadors from Rome,
earnestly imploring him to bring back the sacred seat to their city; and
Petrarch thought he could not serve the embassy better than by
publishing a poem in Latin verse, exhibiting Rome in the character of a
desolate matron imploring her husband to return to her. Benedict
applauded the author of the epistle, but declined complying with its
prayer. Instead of revisiting Italy, his Holiness ordered a magnificent
and costly palace to be constructed for him at Avignon. Hitherto, it
would seem that the Popes had lived in hired houses. In imitation of
their Pontiff, the Cardinals set about building superb mansions, to the
unbounded indignation of Petrarch, who saw in these new habitations not
only a graceless and unchristian spirit of luxury, but a sure indication
that their owners had no thoughts of removing to Rome.
In the January of the following year, Pope Benedict presented our poet
with the canonicate of Lombes, with the expectancy of the first prebend
which should become vacant. This preferment Petrarch is supposed to have
owed to the influence of Cardinal Colonna.
The troubles which at this time agitated Italy drew to Avignon, in the
year 1335, a personage who holds a pre-eminent interest in the life of
Petrarch, namely, Azzo da Correggio, who was sent thither by the
Scaligeri of Parma. The State of Parma had belonged originally to the
popes; but two powerful families, the Rossis and the Correggios, had
profited by the quarrels between the church and the empire to usurp the
government, and during five-and-twenty years, Gilberto Correggio and
Rolando Rossi alternately lost and won the sovereignty, till, at last,
the confederate princes took the city, and conferred the government of
it on Guido Correggio, the greatest enemy of the Rossis.
Gilbert Correggio left at his death a widow, the sister of Cane de la
Scala, and four sons, Guido, Simone, Azzo, and Giovanni. It is only with
Azzo that we are particularly concerned in the history of Petrarch.
Azzo was born in the year 1303, being thus a year older than our poet.
Originally intended for the church, he preferred the sword to the
crozier, and became a distinguished soldier. He married the daughter of
Luigi Gonzagua, lord of Mantua. He was a man of bold original spirit,
and so indefatigable that he acquired the name of Iron-foot. Nor was his
energy merely physical; he read much, and forgot nothing--his memory was
a library. Azzo's character, to be sure, even with allowance for
turbulent times, is not invulnerable at all points to a rigid scrutiny;
and, notwithstanding all the praises of Petrarch, who dedicated to him
his Treatise on a Solitary Life in 1366, his political career contained
some acts of perfidy. But we must inure ourselves, in the biography of
Petrarch, to his over-estimation of favourites in the article of morals.
It was not long ere Petrarch was called upon to give a substantial proof
of his regard for Azzo. After the seizure of Parma by the confederate
princes, Marsilio di Rossi, brother of Rolando, went to Paris to demand
assistance from the French king. The King of Bohemia had given over the
government of Parma to him and his brothers, and the Rossi now saw it
with grief assigned to his enemies, the Correggios. Marsilio could
obtain no succour from the French, who were now busy in preparing for
war with the English; so he carried to the Pope at Avignon his
complaints against the alleged injustice of the lords of Verona and the
Correggios in breaking an express treaty which they had made with the
house of Rossi.
Azzo had the threefold task of defending, before the Pope's tribunal,
the lords of Verona, whose envoy he was; the rights of his family, which
were attacked; and his own personal character, which was charged with
some grave objections. Revering the eloquence and influence of Petrarch,
he importuned him to be his public defender. Our poet, as we have seen,
had studied the law, but had never followed the profession. "It is not
my vocation," he says, in his preface to his Familiar Epistles, "to
undertake the defence of others. I detest the bar; I love retirement; I
despise money; and, if I tried to let out my tongue for hire, my nature
would revolt at the attempt. "
But what Petrarch would not undertake either from taste or motives of
interest, he undertook at the call of friendship. He pleaded the cause
of Azzo before the Pope and Cardinals; it was a finely-interesting
cause, that afforded a vast field for his eloquence. He brought off his
client triumphantly; and the Rossis were defeated in their demand.
At the same time, it is a proud trait in Petrarch's character that he
showed himself on this occasion not only an orator and a lawyer, but a
perfect gentleman. In the midst of all his zealous pleading, he stooped
neither to satire nor personality against the opposing party. He could
say, with all the boldness of truth, in a letter to Ugolino di Rossi,
the Bishop of Parma, "I pleaded against your house for Azzo Correggio,
but you were present at the pleading; do me justice, and confess that I
carefully avoided not only attacks on your family and reputation, but
even those railleries in which advocates so much delight. "
On this occasion, Azzo had brought to Avignon, as his colleague in the
lawsuit, Guglielmo da Pastrengo, who exercised the office of judge and
notary at Verona. He was a man of deep knowledge in the law; versed,
besides, in every branch of elegant learning, he was a poet into the
bargain. In Petrarch's many books of epistles, there are few letters
addressed by him to this personage; but it is certain that they
contracted a friendship at this period which endured for life.
All this time the Bishop of Lombes still continued at Rome; and, from
time to time, solicited his friend Petrarch to join him. "Petrarch would
have gladly joined him," says De Sade; "but he was detained at Avignon
by his attachment to John Colonna and his love of Laura:" a whimsical
junction of detaining causes, in which the fascination of the Cardinal
may easily be supposed to have been weaker than that of Laura. In
writing to our poet, at Avignon, the Bishop rallied Petrarch on the
imaginary existence of the object of his passion. Some stupid readers of
the Bishop's letter, in subsequent times, took it into their heads that
there was a literal proof in the prelate's jesting epistle of our poet's
passion for Laura being a phantom and a fiction. But, possible as it may
be, that the Bishop in reality suspected him to exaggerate the flame of
his devotion for the two great objects of his idolatry, Laura and St.
Augustine, he writes in a vein of pleasantry that need not be taken for
grave accusation. "You are befooling us all, my dear Petrarch," says the
prelate; "and it is wonderful that at so tender an age (Petrarch's
tender age was at this time thirty-one) you can deceive the world with
so much art and success. And, not content with deceiving the world, you
would fain deceive Heaven itself. You make a semblance of loving St.
Augustine and his works; but, in your heart, you love the poets and the
philosophers. Your Laura is a phantom created by your imagination for
the exercise of your poetry. Your verse, your love, your sighs, are all
a fiction; or, if there is anything real in your passion, it is not for
the lady Laura, but for the laurel--_that is_, the crown of poets. I
have been your dupe for some time, and, whilst you showed a strong
desire to visit Rome, I hoped to welcome you there. But my eyes are now
opened to all your rogueries, which nevertheless, will not prevent me
from loving you. "
Petrarch, in his answer to the Bishop,[F] says, "My father, if I love
the poets, I only follow, in this respect, the example of St. Augustine.
I take the sainted father himself to witness the sincerity of my
attachment to him. He is now in a place where he can neither deceive nor
be deceived. I flatter myself that he pities my errors, especially when
he recalls his own. " St. Augustine had been somewhat profligate in his
younger days.
"As to Laura," continues the poet, "would to Heaven that she were only
an imaginary personage, and my passion for her only a pastime! Alas! it
is a madness which it would be difficult and painful to feign for any
length of time; and what an extravagance it would be to affect such a
passion! One may counterfeit illness by action, by voice, and by manner,
but no one in health can give himself the true air and complexion of
disease. How often have you yourself been witness of my paleness and my
sufferings! I know very well that you speak only in irony: it is your
favourite figure of speech, but I hope that time will cicatrize these
wounds of my spirit, and that Augustine, whom I pretend to love, will
furnish me with a defence against a Laura who does not exist. "
Years had now elapsed since Petrarch had conceived his passion for
Laura; and it was obviously doomed to be a source of hopeless torment to
him as long as he should continue near her; for she could breathe no
more encouragement on his love than what was barely sufficient to keep
it alive; and, if she had bestowed more favour on him, the consequences
might have been ultimately most tragic to both of them. His own
reflections, and the advice of his friends, suggested that absence and
change of objects were the only means likely to lessen his misery; he
determined, therefore, to travel once more, and set out for Rome in
1335.
The wish to assuage his passion, by means of absence, was his principal
motive for going again upon his travels; but, before he could wind up
his resolution to depart, the state of his mind bordered on distraction.
One day he observed a country girl washing the veil of Laura; a sudden
trembling seized him--and, though the heat of the weather was intense,
he grew cold and shivered. For some time he was incapable of applying to
study or business.
His soul, he said, was like a field of battle, where
his passion and reason held continual conflict. In his calmer moments,
many agreeable motives for travelling suggested themselves to his mind.
He had a strong desire to visit Rome, where he was sure of finding the
kindest welcome from the Bishop of Lombes. He was to pass through Paris
also; and there he had left some valued friends, to whom he had promised
that he would return. At the head of those friends were Dionisio dal
Borgo San Sepolcro and Roberto Bardi, a Florentine, whom the Pope had
lately made chancellor of the Church of Paris, and given him the
canonship of Notre Dame. Dionisio dal Borgo was a native of Tuscany, and
one of the Roberti family. His name in literature was so considerable
that Filippo Villani thought it worth while to write his life. Petrarch
wrote his funeral eulogy, and alludes to Dionisio's power of reading
futurity by the stars. But Petrarch had not a grain of faith in
astrology; on the contrary, he has himself recorded that he derided it.
After having obtained, with some difficulty, the permission of Cardinal
Colonna, he took leave of his friends at Avignon, and set out for
Marseilles. Embarking there in a ship that was setting sail for Civita
Vecchia, he concealed his name, and gave himself out for a pilgrim going
to worship at Rome. Great was his joy when, from the deck, he could
discover the coast of his beloved Italy. It was a joy, nevertheless,
chastened by one indomitable recollection--that of the idol he had left
behind. On his landing he perceived a laurel tree; its name seemed to
typify her who dwelt for ever in his heart: he flew to embrace it; but
in his transports overlooked a brook that was between them, into which
he fell--and the accident caused him to swoon. Always occupied with
Laura, he says, "On those shores washed by the Tyrrhene sea, I beheld
that stately laurel which always warms my imagination, and, through my
impatience, fell breathless into the intervening stream. I was alone,
and in the woods, yet I blushed at my own heedlessness; for, to the
reflecting mind, no witness is necessary to excite the emotion of
shame. "
It was not easy for Petrarch to pass from the coast of Tuscany to Rome;
for war between the Ursini and Colonna houses had been renewed with more
fury than ever, and filled all the surrounding country with armed men.
As he had no escort, he took refuge in the castle of Capranica, where he
was hospitably received by Orso, Count of Anguillara, who had married
Agnes Colonna, sister of the Cardinal and the Bishop. In his letter to
the latter, Petrarch luxuriates in describing the romantic and rich
landscape of Capranica, a country believed by the ancients to have been
the first that was cultivated under the reign of Saturn. He draws,
however, a frightful contrast to its rural picture in the horrors of war
which here prevailed. "Peace," he says, "is the only charm which I could
not find in this beautiful region. The shepherd, instead of guarding
against wolves, goes armed into the woods to defend himself against men.
The labourer, in a coat of mail, uses a lance instead of a goad, to
drive his cattle. The fowler covers himself with a shield as he draws
his nets; the fisherman carries a sword whilst he hooks his fish; and
the native draws water from the well in an old rusty casque, instead of
a pail. In a word, arms are used here as tools and implements for all
the labours of the field, and all the wants of men. In the night are
heard dreadful howlings round the walls of towns, and and in the day
terrible voices crying incessantly to arms. What music is this compared
with those soft and harmonious sounds which. I drew from my lute at
Avignon! "
On his arrival at Capranica, Petrarch despatched a courier to the Bishop
of Lombes, informing him where he was, and of his inability to get to
Rome, all roads to it being beset by the enemy. The Bishop expressed
great joy at his friend's arrival in Italy, and went to meet him at
Capranica, with Stefano Colonna, his brother, senator of Rome. They had
with them only a troop of one hundred horsemen; and, considering that
the enemy kept possession of the country with five hundred men, it is
wonderful that they met with no difficulties on their route; but the
reputation of the Colonnas had struck terror into the hostile camp. They
entered Rome without having had a single skirmish with the enemy.
Stefano Colonna, in his quality of senator, occupied the Capitol, where
he assigned apartments to Petrarch; and the poet was lodged on that
famous hill which Scipio, Metellus, and Pompey, had ascended in triumph.
Petrarch was received and treated by the Colonnas Like a child of their
family. The venerable old Stefano, who had known him at Avignon, loaded
our poet with kindness. But, of all the family, it would seem that
Petrarch delighted most in the conversation of Giovanni da S. Vito, a
younger brother of the aged Stefano, and uncle of the Cardinal and
Bishop. Their tastes were congenial. Giovanni had made a particular
study of the antiquities of Rome; he was, therefore, a most welcome
cicerone to our poet, being, perhaps, the only Roman then alive, who
understood the subject deeply, if we except Cola di Rienzo, of whom we
shall soon have occasion to speak.
In company with Giovanni, Petrarch inspected the relics of the "eternal
city:" the former was more versed than his companion in ancient history,
but the other surpassed him in acquaintance with modern times, as well
as with the objects of antiquity that stood immediately before them.
What an interesting object is Petrarch contemplating the ruins of Rome!
He wrote to the Cardinal Colonna as follows:--"I gave you so long an
account of Capranica that you may naturally expect a still longer
description of Rome. My materials for this subject are, indeed,
inexhaustible; but they will serve for some future opportunity. At
present, I am so wonder-struck by so many great objects that I know not
where to begin. One circumstance, however, I cannot omit, which has
turned out contrary to your surmises. You represented to me that Rome
was a city in ruins, and that it would not come up to the imagination I
had formed of it; but this has not happened--on the contrary, my most
sanguine expectations have been surpassed. Rome is greater, and her
remains are more awful, than my imagination had conceived. It is not
matter of wonder that she acquired universal dominion. I am only
surprised that it was so late before she came to it. "
In the midst of his meditations among the relics of Rome, Petrarch was
struck by the ignorance about their forefathers, with which the natives
looked on those monuments. The veneration which they had for them was
vague and uninformed. "It is lamentable," he says, "that nowhere in the
world is Rome less known than at Rome. "
It is not exactly known in what month Petrarch left the Roman capital;
but, between his departure from that city, and his return to the banks
of the Rhone, he took an extensive tour over Europe. He made a voyage
along its southern coasts, passed the straits of Gibraltar, and sailed
as far northward as the British shores. During his wanderings, he wrote
a letter to Tommaso da Messina, containing a long geographical
dissertation on the island of Thule.
Petrarch approached the British shores; why were they not fated to have
the honour of receiving him? Ah! but who was there, then, in England
that was capable of receiving him? Chaucer was but a child. We had the
names of some learned men, but our language had no literature. Time
works wonders in a few centuries; and England, _now_ proud of her
Shakespeare and her Verulam, looks not with envy on the glory of any
earthly nation. During his excitement by these travels, a singular
change took place in our poet's habitual feelings. He recovered his
health and spirits; he could bear to think of Laura with equanimity, and
his countenance resumed the cheerfulness that was natural to a man in
the strength of his age. Nay, he became so sanguine in his belief that
he had overcome his passion as to jest at his past sufferings; and, in
this gay state of mind, he came back to Avignon. This was the crowning
misfortune of his life. He saw Laura once more; he was enthralled anew;
and he might now laugh in agony at his late self-congratulations on his
delivery from her enchantment. With all the pity that we bestow on
unfortunate love, and with all the respect that we owe to its constancy,
still we cannot look but with a regret amounting to impatience on a man
returning to the spot that was to rekindle his passion as recklessly as
a moth to the candle, and binding himself over for life to an affection
that was worse than hopeless, inasmuch as its success would bring more
misery than its failure. It is said that Petrarch, if it had not been
for this passion, would not have been the poet that he was. Not,
perhaps, so good an amatory poet; but I firmly believe that he would
have been a more various and masculine, and, upon the whole, _a greater
poet_, if he had never been bewitched by Laura. However, _he did_ return
to take possession of his canonicate at Lombes, and to lose possession
of his peace of mind.
In the April of the following year, 1336, he made an excursion, in
company with his brother Gherardo, to the top of Mount Ventoux, in the
neighbourhood of Avignon; a full description of which he sent in a
letter to Dionisio dal Borgo a San Sepolcro; but there is nothing
peculiarly interesting in this occurrence.
A more important event in his life took place during the following year,
1337--namely, that he had a son born to him, whom he christened by the
name of John, and to whom he acknowledged his relationship of paternity.
With all his philosophy and platonic raptures about Laura, Petrarch was
still subject to the passions of ordinary men, and had a mistress at
Avignon who was kinder to him than Laura. Her name and history have been
consigned to inscrutable obscurity: the same woman afterwards bore him a
daughter, whose name was Francesca, and who proved a great solace to him
in his old age. His biographers extol the magnanimity of Laura for
displaying no anger at our poet for what they choose to call this
discovery of his infidelity to her; but, as we have no reason to suppose
that Laura ever bestowed one favour on Petrarch beyond a pleasant look,
it is difficult to perceive her right to command his unspotted faith. At
all events, she would have done no good to her own reputation if she had
stormed at the lapse of her lover's virtue.
In a small city like Avignon, the scandal of his intrigue would
naturally be a matter of regret to his friends and of triumph to his
enemies. Petrarch felt his situation, and, unable to calm his mind
either by the advice of his friend Dionisio dal Borgo, or by the perusal
of his favourite author, St. Augustine, he resolved to seek a rural
retreat, where he might at least hide his tears and his mortification.
Unhappily he chose a spot not far enough from Laura--namely, Vaucluse,
which is fifteen Italian, or about fourteen English, miles from Avignon.
Vaucluse, or Vallis Clausa, the shut-up valley, is a most beautiful
spot, watered by the windings of the Sorgue. Along the river there are
on one side most verdant plains and meadows, here and there shadowed by
trees. On the other side are hills covered with corn and vineyards.
Where the Sorgue rises, the view terminates in the cloud-capt ridges of
the mountains Luberoux and Ventoux. This was the place which Petrarch
had visited with such delight when he was a schoolboy, and at the sight
of which he exclaimed "that he would prefer it as a residence to the
most splendid city. "
It is, indeed, one of the loveliest seclusions in the world. It
terminates in a semicircle of rocks of stupendous height, that seem to
have been hewn down perpendicularly. At the head and centre of the vast
amphitheatre, and at the foot of one of its enormous rocks, there is a
cavern of proportional size, hollowed out by the hand of nature. Its
opening is an arch sixty feet high; but it is a double cavern, there
being an interior one with an entrance thirty feet high. In the midst of
these there is an oval basin, having eighteen fathoms for its longest
diameter, and from this basin rises the copious stream which forms the
Sorgue. The surface of the fountain is black, an appearance produced by
its depth, from the darkness of the rocks, and the obscurity of the
cavern; for, on being brought to light, nothing can be clearer than its
water. Though beautiful to the eye, it is harsh to the taste, but is
excellent for tanning and dyeing; and it is said to promote the growth
of a plant which fattens oxen and is good for hens during incubation.
Strabo and Pliny the naturalist both speak of its possessing this
property.
The river Sorgue, which issues from this cavern, divides in its progress
into various branches; it waters many parts of Provence, receives
several tributary streams, and, after reuniting its branches, falls into
the Rhone near Avignon.
Resolving to fix his residence here, Petrarch bought a little cottage
and an adjoining field, and repaired to Vaucluse with no other
companions than his books. To this day the ruins of a small house are
shown at Vaucluse, which tradition says was his habitation.
If his object was to forget Laura, the composition of sonnets upon her
in this hermitage was unlikely to be an antidote to his recollections.
It would seem as if he meant to cherish rather than to get rid of his
love. But, if he nursed his passion, it was a dry-nursing; for he led a
lonely, ascetic, and, if it were not for his studies, we might say a
savage life. In one of his letters, written not long after his settling
at Vaucluse, he says, "Here I make war upon my senses, and treat them as
my enemies. My eyes, which have drawn me into a thousand difficulties,
see no longer either gold, or precious stones, or ivory, or purple; they
behold nothing save the water, the firmament, and the rocks. The only
female who comes within their sight is a swarthy old woman, dry and
parched as the Lybian deserts. My ears are no longer courted by those
harmonious instruments and voices which have so often transported my
soul: they hear nothing but the lowing of cattle, the bleating of sheep,
the warbling of birds, and the murmurs of the river.
"I keep silence from noon till night. There is no one to converse with;
for the good people, employed in spreading their nets, or tending their
vines and orchards, are no great adepts at conversation. I often content
myself with the brown bread of the fisherman, and even eat it with
pleasure. Nay, I almost prefer it to white bread. This old fisherman,
who is as hard as iron, earnestly remonstrates against my manner of
life; and assures me that I cannot long hold out. I am, on the
contrary, convinced that it is easier to accustom one's self to a plain
diet than to the luxuries of a feast. But still I have my
luxuries--figs, raisins, nuts and almonds. I am fond of the fish with
which this stream abounds, and I sometimes amuse myself with spreading
the nets. As to my dress, there is an entire change; you would take me
for a labourer or a shepherd.
"My mansion resembles that of Cato or Fabricius. My whole
house-establishment consists of myself, my old fisherman and his wife,
and a dog. My fisherman's cottage is contiguous to mine; when I want him
I call; when I no longer need him, he returns to his cottage.
"I have made two gardens that please me wonderfully. I do not think they
are to be equalled in all the world. And I must confess to you a more
than female weakness with which I am haunted. I am positively angry that
there is anything so beautiful out of Italy.
"One of these gardens is shady, formed for contemplation, and sacred to
Apollo. It overhangs the source of the river, and is terminated by
rocks, and by places accessible only to birds. The other is nearer my
cottage, of an aspect less severe, and devoted to Bacchus; and what is
extremely singular, it is in the midst of a rapid river. The approach to
it is over a bridge of rocks; and there is a natural grotto under the
rocks, which gives them the appearance of a rustic bridge. Into this
grotto the rays of the sun never penetrate. I am confident that it much
resembles the place where Cicero went to declaim. It invites to study.
Hither I retreat during the noontide hours; my mornings are engaged upon
the hills, or in the garden sacred to Apollo. Here I would most
willingly pass my days, were I not too near Avignon, and too far from
Italy. For why should I conceal this weakness of my soul? I love Italy,
and I hate Avignon. The pestilential influence of this horrid place
empoisons the pure air of Vaucluse, and will compel me to quit my
retirement. "
It is clear that he was not supremely contented in his solitude with his
self-drawn mental resources. His friends at Avignon came seldom to see
him. Travelling even short distances was difficult in those days. Even
we, in the present day, can remember when the distance of fourteen miles
presented a troublesome journey. The few guests who came, to him could
not expect very exquisite dinners, cooked by the brown old woman and her
husband the fisherman; and, though our poet had a garden consecrated to
Bacchus, he had no cellar devoted to the same deity. His few friends,
therefore, who visited him, thought their angel visits acts of charity.
If he saw his friends seldom, however, he had frequent visitants in
strangers who came to Vaucluse, as a place long celebrated for its
natural beauties, and now made illustrious by the character and
compositions of our poet. Among these there were persons distinguished
for their rank or learning, who came from the farthest parts of France
and from Italy, to see and converse with Petrarch. Some of them even
sent before them considerable presents, which, though kindly meant, were
not acceptable.
Vaucluse is in the diocese of Cavaillon, a small city about two miles
distant from our poet's retreat. Philip de Cabassoles was the bishop, a
man of high rank and noble family. His disposition, according to
Petrarch's usual praise of his friends, was highly benevolent and
humane; he was well versed in literature, and had distinguished
abilities. No sooner was the poet settled in his retirement, than he
visited the Bishop at his palace near Vaucluse. The latter gave him a
friendly reception, and returned his visits frequently. Another much
estimated, his friend since their childhood, Guido Sette, also repaired
at times to his humble mansion, and relieved his solitude in the shut-up
valley. [G]
Without some daily and constant occupation even the bright mind of
Petrarch would have rusted, like the finest steel when it is left
unscoured. But he continued his studies with an ardour that commands our
wonder and respect; and it was at Vaucluse that he either meditated or
wrote his most important compositions. Here he undertook a history of
Rome, from Romulus down to Titus Vespasian. This Herculean task he never
finished; but there remain two fragments of it, namely, four books, De
Rebus Memorandis, and another tract entitled Vitarum Virorum Illustrium
Epitome, being sketches of illustrious men from the founder of Rome down
to Fabricius.
About his poem, Africa, I shall only say for the present that he began
this Latin epic at Vaucluse, that its hero is his idolized Roman, Scipio
Africanus, that it gained him a reputation over Europe, and that he was
much pleased with it himself, but that his admiration of it in time
cooled down so much, that at last he was annoyed when it was mentioned
to him, and turned the conversation, if he could, to a different
subject. Nay, it is probable, that if it had not been for Boccaccio and
Coluccio Salutati, who, long after he had left Vaucluse, importuned him
to finish and publish it, his Africa would not have come down to
posterity.
Petrarch alludes in one of his letters to an excursion which he made in
1338, in company with a man whose rank was above his wisdom. He does not
name him, but it seems clearly to have been Humbert II. , Dauphin of the
Viennois. The Cardinal Colonna forced our poet into this pilgrimage to
Baume, famous for its adjacent cavern, where, according to the tradition
of the country, Mary Magdalen passed thirty years of repentance. In
that holy but horrible cavern, as Petrarch calls it, they remained three
days and three nights, though Petrarch sometimes gave his comrades the
slip, and indulged in rambles among the hills and forests; he composed a
short poem, however, on St. Mary Magdalen, which is as dull as the cave
itself. The Dauphin Humbert was not a bright man; but he seems to have
contracted a friendly familiarity with our poet, if we may judge by a
letter which Petrarch indited to him about this time, frankly
reproaching him with his political neutrality in the affairs of Europe.
It was supposed that the Cardinal Colonna incited him to write it. A
struggle that was now impending between France and England engaged all
Europe on one side or other. The Emperor Lewis had intimated to Humbert
that he must follow him in this war, he, the Dauphin, being
arch-seneschal of Arles and Vienne. Next year, the arch-seneschal
received an invitation from Philip of Valois to join him with his troops
at Amiens as vassal of France. The Dauphin tried to back out of the
dilemma between his two suitors by frivolous excuses to both, all the
time determining to assist neither. In 1338 he came to Avignon, and the
Pope gave him his palace at the bridge of the Sorgue for his habitation.
Here the poor craven, beset on one side by threatening letters from
Philip of Valois, and on the other by importunities from the French
party at the papal court, remained in Avignon till July, 1339, after
Petrarch had let loose upon him his epistolary eloquence.
This letter, dated April, 1339, is, according to De Sade's opinion, full
of powerful persuasion. I cannot say that it strikes me as such. After
calling Christ to witness that he writes to the Dauphin in the spirit of
friendship, he reminds him that Europe had never exhibited so mighty and
interesting a war as that which had now sprung up between the kings of
France and England, nor one that opened so vast a field of glory for the
brave. "All the princes and their people," he says, "are anxious about
its issue, especially those between the Alps and the ocean, who take
arms at the crash of the neighbouring tumult; whilst you alone go to
sleep amidst the clouds of the coming storm. To say the truth, if there
was nothing more than shame to awaken you, it ought to rouse you from
this lethargy. I had thought you," he continues, "a man desirous of
glory. You are young and in the strength of life. What, then, in the
name of God, keeps you inactive? Do you fear fatigue? Remember what
Sallust says--'Idle enjoyments were made for women, fatigue was made for
men. ' Do you fear death? Death is the last debt we owe to nature, and
man ought not to fear it; certainly he ought not to fear it more than
sleep and sluggishness. Aristotle, it is true, calls death the last of
horrible things; but, mind, he does not call it the most horrible of
things. " In this manner, our poet goes on moralizing on the blessings of
an early death, and the great advantage that it would have afforded to
some excellent Roman heroes if they had met with it sooner. The only
thing like a sensible argument that he urges is, that Humbert could not
expect to save himself even by neutrality, but must ultimately become
the prey of the victor, and be punished like the Alban Metius, whom
Tullus Hostilius caused to be torn asunder by horses that pulled his
limbs in different directions. The pedantic epistle had no effect on
Humbert.
Meanwhile, Italy had no repose more than the rest of Europe, but its
troubles gave a happy occasion to Petrarch to see once more his friend,
Guglielmo Pastrengo, who, in 1338, came to Avignon, from Mastino della
Scala, lord of Verona.
The moment Petrarch heard of his friend's arrival he left his hermitage
to welcome him; but scarcely had he reached the fatal city when he saw
the danger of so near an approach to the woman he so madly loved, and
was aware that he had no escape from the eyes of Laura but by flight. He
returned, therefore, all of a sudden to Vaucluse, without waiting for a
sight of Pastrengo. Shortly after he had quitted the house of Laelius,
where he usually lodged when he went to Avignon, Guglielmo, expecting to
find him there, knocked at the door, but no one opened it--called out,
but no one answered him. He therefore wrote him a little billet, saying,
"My dear Petrarch, where have you hid yourself, and whither have you
vanished? What is the meaning of all this? " The poet received this note
at Vaucluse, and sent an explanation of his flight, sincere indeed as to
good feelings, but prolix as usual in the expression of them. Pastrengo
sent him a kind reply, and soon afterwards did him the still greater
favour of visiting him at Vaucluse, and helping him to cultivate his
garden.
Petrarch's flame for Laura was in reality unabated. One day he met her
in the streets of Avignon; for he had not always resolution enough to
keep out of the western Babylon. Laura cast a kind look upon him, and
said, "Petrarch, you are tired of loving me. " This incident produced one
of the finest sonnets, beginning--
_Io non fut d' amar voi lassato unquanco. _
Tired, did you say, of loving you? Oh, no!
I ne'er shall tire of the unwearying flame.
But I am weary, kind and cruel dame,
With tears that uselessly and ceaseless flow,
Scorning myself, and scorn'd by you. I long
For death: but let no gravestone hold in view
Our names conjoin'd: nor tell my passion strong
Upon the dust that glow'd through life for you.
And yet this heart of amorous faith demands,
Deserves, a better boon; but cruel, hard
As is my fortune, I will bless Love's bands
For ever, if you give me this reward.
In 1339, he composed among other sonnets, those three, the lxii.
never made me feel that he was my superior in station. He was like a
father or an indulgent brother; and I lived in his house as if it had
been my own. " At a subsequent period, we find him on somewhat cooler
terms with John Colonna, and complaining that his domestic dependence
had, by length of time, become wearisome to him. But great allowance is
to be made for such apparent inconsistencies in human attachment. At
different times our feelings and language on any subject may be
different without being insincere. The truth seems to be that Petrarch
looked forward to the friendship of the Colonnas for promotion, which he
either received scantily, or not at all; so it is little marvellous if
he should have at last felt the tedium of patronage.
For the present, however, this home was completely to Petrarch's taste.
It was the rendezvous of all strangers distinguished by their knowledge
and talents, whom the papal court attracted to Avignon, which was now
the great centre of all political negotiations.
This assemblage of the learned had a powerful influence on Petrarch's
fine imagination. He had been engaged for some time in the perusal of
Livy, and his enthusiasm for ancient Rome was heightened, if possible,
by the conversation of old Stefano Colonna, who dwelt on no subject with
so much interest as on the temples and palaces of the ancient city,
majestic even in their ruins.
During the bitter persecution raised against his family by Boniface
VIII. , Stefano Colonna had been the chief object of the Pope's
implacable resentment. Though oppressed by the most adverse
circumstances, his estates confiscated, his palaces levelled with the
ground, and himself driven into exile, the majesty of his appearance,
and the magnanimity of his character, attracted the respect of strangers
wherever he went. He had the air of a sovereign prince rather than of an
exile, and commanded more regard than monarchs in the height of their
ostentation.
In the picture of his times, Stefano makes a noble and commanding
figure. If the reader, however, happens to search into that period of
Italian history, he will find many facts to cool the romance of his
imagination respecting all the Colonna family. They were, in plain
truth, an oppressive aristocratic family. The portion of Italy which
they and their tyrannical rivals possessed was infamously governed. The
highways were rendered impassable by banditti, who were in the pay of
contesting feudal lords; and life and property were everywhere insecure.
Stefano, nevertheless, seems to have been a man formed for better times.
He improved in the school of misfortune--the serenity of his temper
remained unclouded by adversity, and his faculties unimpaired by age.
Among the illustrious strangers who came to Avignon at this time was our
countryman, Richard de Bury, then accounted the most learned man of
England. He arrived at Avignon in 1331, having been sent to the Pope by
Edward III. De Sade conceives that the object of his embassy was to
justify his sovereign before the Pontiff for having confined the
Queen-mother in the castle of Risings, and for having caused her
favourite, Roger de Mortimer, to be hanged. It was a matter of course
that so illustrious a stranger as Richard de Bury should be received
with distinction by Cardinal Colonna. Petrarch eagerly seized the
opportunity of forming his acquaintance, confident that De Bury could
give him valuable information on many points of geography and history.
They had several conversations. Petrarch tells us that he entreated the
learned Englishman to make him acquainted with the true situation of the
isle of Thule, of which the ancients speak with much uncertainty, but
which their best geographers place at the distance of some days'
navigation from the north of England. De Bury was, in all probability,
puzzled with the question, though he did not like to confess his
ignorance. He excused himself by promising to inquire into the subject
as soon as he should get back to his books in England, and to write to
him the best information he could afford. It does not appear, however,
that he performed his promise.
De Bury's stay at the court of Avignon was very short. King Edward, it
is true, sent him a second time to the Pope, two years afterwards, on
important business. The seeds of discord between France and England
began to germinate strongly, and that circumstance probably occasioned
De Bury's second mission. Unfortunately, however, Petrarch could not
avail himself of his return so as to have further interviews with the
English scholar. Petrarch wrote repeatedly to De Bury for his promised
explanations respecting Thule; but, whether our countryman had found
nothing in his library to satisfy his inquiries, or was prevented by his
public occupations, there is no appearance of his having ever answered
Petrarch's letters.
Stephano Colonna the younger had brought with him to Avignon his son
Agapito, who was destined for the church, that he might be educated
under the eyes of the Cardinal and the Bishop, who were his uncles.
These two prelates joined with their father in entreating Petrarch to
undertake the superintendence of Agapito's studies. Our poet, avaricious
of his time, and jealous of his independence, was at first reluctant to
undertake the charge; but, from his attachment to the family, at last
accepted it. De Sade tells us that Petrarch was not successful in the
young man's education; and, from a natural partiality for the hero of
his biography, lays the blame on his pupil. At the same time he
acknowledges that a man with poetry in his head and love in his heart
was not the most proper mentor in the world for a youth who was to be
educated for the church. At this time, Petrarch's passion for Laura
continued to haunt his peace with incessant violence. She had received
him at first with good-humour and affability; but it was only while he
set strict bounds to the expression of his attachment. He had not,
however, sufficient self-command to comply with these terms. His
constant assiduities, his eyes continually riveted upon her, and the
wildness of his looks, convinced her of his inordinate attachment; her
virtue took alarm; she retired whenever he approached her, and even
covered her face with a veil whilst he was present, nor would she
condescend to the slightest action or look that might seem to
countenance his passion.
Petrarch complains of these severities in many of his melancholy
sonnets. Meanwhile, if fame could have been a balm to love, he might
have been happy. His reputation as a poet was increasing, and his
compositions were read with universal approbation.
The next interesting event in our poet's life was a larger course of
travels, which he took through the north of France, through Flanders,
Brabant, and a part of Germany, subsequently to his tour in Languedoc.
Petrarch mentions that he undertook this journey about the twenty-fifth
year of his age. He was prompted to travel not only by his curiosity to
observe men and manners, by his desire of seeing monuments of antiquity,
and his hopes of discovering the MSS. of ancient authors, but also, we
may believe, by his wish, if it were possible, to escape from himself,
and to forget Laura.
From Paris Petrarch wrote as follows to Cardinal Colonna. "I have
visited Paris, the capital of the whole kingdom of France. I entered it
in the same state of mind that was felt by Apuleias when he visited
Hypata, a city of Thessaly, celebrated for its magic, of which such
wonderful things were related, looking again and again at every object,
in solicitous suspense, to know whether all that he had heard of the
far-famed place was true or false. Here I pass a great deal of time in
observation, and, as the day is too short for my curiosity, I add the
night. At last, it seems to me that, by long exploring, I have enabled
myself to distinguish between the true and the false in what is related
about Paris. But, as the subject would be too tedious for this occasion,
I shall defer entering fully into particulars till I can do so _viva
voce_. My impatience, however, impels me to sketch for you briefly a
general idea of this so celebrated city, and of the character of its
inhabitants.
"Paris, though always inferior to its fame, and much indebted to the
lies of its own people, is undoubtedly a great city. To be sure I never
saw a dirtier place, except Avignon. At the same time, its population
contains the most learned of men, and it is like a great basket in which
are collected the rarest fruits of every country. From the time that its
university was founded, as they say by Alcuin, the teacher of
Charlemagne, there has not been, to my knowledge, a single Parisian of
any fame. The great luminaries of the university were all strangers;
and, if the love of my country does not deceive me, they were chiefly
Italians, such as Pietro Lombardo, Tomaso d'Aquino, Bonaventura, and
many others.
"The character of the Parisians is very singular. There was a time when,
from the ferocity of their manners, the French were reckoned barbarians.
At present the case is wholly changed. A gay disposition, love of
society, ease, and playfulness in conversation now characterize them.
They seek every opportunity of distinguishing themselves; and make war
against all cares with joking, laughing, singing, eating, and drinking.
Prone, however, as they are to pleasure, they are not heroic in
adversity. The French love their country and their countrymen; they
censure with rigour the faults of other nations, but spread a
proportionably thick veil over their own defects. "
From Paris, Petrarch proceeded to Ghent, of which only he makes mention
to the Cardinal, without noticing any of the towns that lie between. It
is curious to find our poet out of humour with Flanders on account of
the high price of wine, which was not an indigenous article. In the
latter part of his life, Petrarch was certainly one of the most
abstemious of men; but, at this period, it would seem that he drank good
liquor enough to be concerned about its price.
From Ghent he passed on to Liege. "This city is distinguished," he says,
"by the riches and the number of its clergy. As I had heard that
excellent MSS. might be found there, I stopped in the place for some
time. But is it not singular that in so considerable a place I had
difficulty to procure ink enough to copy two orations of Cicero's, and
the little that I could obtain was as yellow as saffron? "
Petrarch was received at most of the places he visited, and more
particularly at Cologne, with marks of great respect; and he was
agreeably surprised to find that his reputation had acquired him the
partiality and acquaintance of several inhabitants. He was conducted by
his new friends to the banks of the Rhine, where the inhabitants were
engaged in the performance of a superstitious annual ceremony, which,
for its singularity, deserves to be recorded.
"The banks of the river were crowded with a considerable number of
women, their persons comely, and their dress elegant. This great
concourse of people seemed to create no confusion. A number of these
women, with cheerful countenances, crowned with flowers, bathed their
hands and arms in the stream, and uttered, at the same time, some
harmonious expressions in a language which I did not understand. I
inquired into the cause of this ceremony, and was informed that it arose
from a tradition among the people, and particularly among the women,
that the impending calamities of the year were carried away by this
ablution, and that blessings succeeded in their place. Hence this
ceremony is annually renewed, and the ablution performed with
unremitting diligence. "
The ceremony being finished, Petrarch smiled at their superstition, and
exclaimed, "O happy inhabitants of the Rhine, whose waters wash out your
miseries, whilst neither the Po nor the Tiber can wash out ours! You
transmit your evils to the Britons by means of this river, whilst we
send off ours to the Illyrians and the Africans. It seems that our
rivers have a slower course. "
Petrarch shortened his excursion that he might return the sooner to
Avignon, where the Bishop of Lombes had promised to await his return,
and take him to Rome.
When he arrived at Lyons, however, he was informed that the Bishop had
departed from Avignon for Rome. In the first paroxysm of his
disappointment he wrote a letter to his friend, which portrays strongly
affectionate feelings, but at the same time an irascible temper. When he
came to Avignon, the Cardinal Colonna relieved him from his irritation
by acquainting him with the real cause of his brother's departure. The
flames of civil dissension had been kindled at Rome between the rival
families of Colonna and Orsini. The latter had made great preparations
to carry on the war with vigour. In this crisis of affairs, James
Colonna had been summoned to Rome to support the interests of his
family, and, by his courage and influence, to procure them the succour
which they so much required.
Petrarch continued to reside at Avignon for several years after
returning from his travels in France and Flanders. It does not appear
from his sonnets, during those years, either that his passion for Laura
had abated, or that she had given him any more encouragement than
heretofore. But in the year 1334, an accident renewed the utmost
tenderness of his affections. A terrible affliction visited the city of
Avignon. The heat and the drought were so excessive that almost the
whole of the common people went about naked to the waist, and, with
frenzy and miserable cries, implored Heaven to put an end to their
calamities. Persons of both sexes and of all ages had their bodies
covered with scales, and changed their skins like serpents.
Laura's constitution was too delicate to resist this infectious malady,
and her illness greatly alarmed Petrarch. One day he asked her
physician how she was, and was told by him that her condition was very
dangerous: on that occasion he composed the following sonnet:[E]--
This lovely spirit, if ordain'd to leave
Its mortal tenement before its time,
Heaven's fairest habitation shall receive
And welcome her to breathe its sweetest clime.
If she establish her abode between
Mars and the planet-star of Beauty's queen,
The sun will be obscured, so dense a cloud
Of spirits from adjacent stars will crowd
To gaze upon her beauty infinite.
Say that she fixes on a lower sphere,
Beneath the glorious sun, her beauty soon
Will dim the splendour of inferior stars--
Of Mars, of Venus, Mercury, and the Moon.
She'll choose not Mars, but higher place than Mars;
She will eclipse all planetary light,
And Jupiter himself will seem less bright.
I trust that I have enough to say in favour of Petrarch to satisfy his
rational admirers; but I quote this sonnet as an example of the worst
style of Petrarch's poetry. I make the English reader welcome to rate my
power of translating it at the very lowest estimation. He cannot go much
further down than myself in the scale of valuation, especially if he has
Italian enough to know that the exquisite mechanical harmony of
Petrarch's style is beyond my reach. It has been alleged that this
sonnet shows how much the mind of Petrarch had been influenced by his
Platonic studies; but if Plato had written poetry he would never have
been so extravagant.
Petrarch, on his return from Germany, had found the old Pope, John
XXII. , intent on two speculations, to both of which he lent his
enthusiastic aid. One of them was a futile attempt to renew the
crusades, from which Europe had reposed for a hundred years. The other
was the transfer of the holy seat to Rome. The execution of this plan,
for which Petrarch sighed as if it were to bring about the millennium,
and which was not accomplished by another Pope without embroiling him
with his Cardinals, was nevertheless more practicable than capturing
Jerusalem. We are told by several Italian writers that the aged Pontiff,
moved by repeated entreaties from the Romans, as well as by the remorse
of his conscience, thought seriously of effecting this restoration; but
the sincerity of his intentions is made questionable by the fact that he
never fixed himself at Rome. He wrote, it is true, to Rome in 1333,
ordering his palaces and gardens to be repaired; but the troubles which
continued to agitate the city were alleged by him as too alarming for
his safety there, and he repaired to Bologna to wait for quieter times.
On both of the above subjects, namely, the insane crusades and the more
feasible restoration of the papal court to Rome, Petrarch wrote with
devoted zeal; they are both alluded to in his twenty-second sonnet.
The death of John XXII. left the Cardinals divided into two great
factions. The first was that of the French, at the head of which stood
Cardinal Taillerand, son of the beautiful Brunissende de Foix, whose
charms were supposed to have detained Pope Clement V. in France. The
Italian Cardinals, who formed the opposite faction, had for their chief
the Cardinal Colonna. The French party, being the more numerous, were,
in some sort, masters of the election; they offered the tiara to
Cardinal de Commenges, on condition that he would promise not to
transfer the papal court to Rome. That prelate showed himself worthy of
the dignity, by refusing to accept it on such terms.
To the surprise of the world, the choice of the conclave fell at last on
James Founder, said to be the son of a baker at Savordun, who had been
bred as a monk of Citeaux, and always wore the dress of the order. Hence
he was called the White Cardinal. He was wholly unlike his portly
predecessor John in figure and address, being small in stature, pale in
complexion, and weak in voice. He expressed his own astonishment at the
honour conferred on him, saying that they had elected an ass. If we may
believe Petrarch, he did himself no injustice in likening himself to
that quadruped; but our poet was somewhat harsh in his judgment of this
Pontiff. He took the name of Benedict XII.
Shortly after his exaltation, Benedict received ambassadors from Rome,
earnestly imploring him to bring back the sacred seat to their city; and
Petrarch thought he could not serve the embassy better than by
publishing a poem in Latin verse, exhibiting Rome in the character of a
desolate matron imploring her husband to return to her. Benedict
applauded the author of the epistle, but declined complying with its
prayer. Instead of revisiting Italy, his Holiness ordered a magnificent
and costly palace to be constructed for him at Avignon. Hitherto, it
would seem that the Popes had lived in hired houses. In imitation of
their Pontiff, the Cardinals set about building superb mansions, to the
unbounded indignation of Petrarch, who saw in these new habitations not
only a graceless and unchristian spirit of luxury, but a sure indication
that their owners had no thoughts of removing to Rome.
In the January of the following year, Pope Benedict presented our poet
with the canonicate of Lombes, with the expectancy of the first prebend
which should become vacant. This preferment Petrarch is supposed to have
owed to the influence of Cardinal Colonna.
The troubles which at this time agitated Italy drew to Avignon, in the
year 1335, a personage who holds a pre-eminent interest in the life of
Petrarch, namely, Azzo da Correggio, who was sent thither by the
Scaligeri of Parma. The State of Parma had belonged originally to the
popes; but two powerful families, the Rossis and the Correggios, had
profited by the quarrels between the church and the empire to usurp the
government, and during five-and-twenty years, Gilberto Correggio and
Rolando Rossi alternately lost and won the sovereignty, till, at last,
the confederate princes took the city, and conferred the government of
it on Guido Correggio, the greatest enemy of the Rossis.
Gilbert Correggio left at his death a widow, the sister of Cane de la
Scala, and four sons, Guido, Simone, Azzo, and Giovanni. It is only with
Azzo that we are particularly concerned in the history of Petrarch.
Azzo was born in the year 1303, being thus a year older than our poet.
Originally intended for the church, he preferred the sword to the
crozier, and became a distinguished soldier. He married the daughter of
Luigi Gonzagua, lord of Mantua. He was a man of bold original spirit,
and so indefatigable that he acquired the name of Iron-foot. Nor was his
energy merely physical; he read much, and forgot nothing--his memory was
a library. Azzo's character, to be sure, even with allowance for
turbulent times, is not invulnerable at all points to a rigid scrutiny;
and, notwithstanding all the praises of Petrarch, who dedicated to him
his Treatise on a Solitary Life in 1366, his political career contained
some acts of perfidy. But we must inure ourselves, in the biography of
Petrarch, to his over-estimation of favourites in the article of morals.
It was not long ere Petrarch was called upon to give a substantial proof
of his regard for Azzo. After the seizure of Parma by the confederate
princes, Marsilio di Rossi, brother of Rolando, went to Paris to demand
assistance from the French king. The King of Bohemia had given over the
government of Parma to him and his brothers, and the Rossi now saw it
with grief assigned to his enemies, the Correggios. Marsilio could
obtain no succour from the French, who were now busy in preparing for
war with the English; so he carried to the Pope at Avignon his
complaints against the alleged injustice of the lords of Verona and the
Correggios in breaking an express treaty which they had made with the
house of Rossi.
Azzo had the threefold task of defending, before the Pope's tribunal,
the lords of Verona, whose envoy he was; the rights of his family, which
were attacked; and his own personal character, which was charged with
some grave objections. Revering the eloquence and influence of Petrarch,
he importuned him to be his public defender. Our poet, as we have seen,
had studied the law, but had never followed the profession. "It is not
my vocation," he says, in his preface to his Familiar Epistles, "to
undertake the defence of others. I detest the bar; I love retirement; I
despise money; and, if I tried to let out my tongue for hire, my nature
would revolt at the attempt. "
But what Petrarch would not undertake either from taste or motives of
interest, he undertook at the call of friendship. He pleaded the cause
of Azzo before the Pope and Cardinals; it was a finely-interesting
cause, that afforded a vast field for his eloquence. He brought off his
client triumphantly; and the Rossis were defeated in their demand.
At the same time, it is a proud trait in Petrarch's character that he
showed himself on this occasion not only an orator and a lawyer, but a
perfect gentleman. In the midst of all his zealous pleading, he stooped
neither to satire nor personality against the opposing party. He could
say, with all the boldness of truth, in a letter to Ugolino di Rossi,
the Bishop of Parma, "I pleaded against your house for Azzo Correggio,
but you were present at the pleading; do me justice, and confess that I
carefully avoided not only attacks on your family and reputation, but
even those railleries in which advocates so much delight. "
On this occasion, Azzo had brought to Avignon, as his colleague in the
lawsuit, Guglielmo da Pastrengo, who exercised the office of judge and
notary at Verona. He was a man of deep knowledge in the law; versed,
besides, in every branch of elegant learning, he was a poet into the
bargain. In Petrarch's many books of epistles, there are few letters
addressed by him to this personage; but it is certain that they
contracted a friendship at this period which endured for life.
All this time the Bishop of Lombes still continued at Rome; and, from
time to time, solicited his friend Petrarch to join him. "Petrarch would
have gladly joined him," says De Sade; "but he was detained at Avignon
by his attachment to John Colonna and his love of Laura:" a whimsical
junction of detaining causes, in which the fascination of the Cardinal
may easily be supposed to have been weaker than that of Laura. In
writing to our poet, at Avignon, the Bishop rallied Petrarch on the
imaginary existence of the object of his passion. Some stupid readers of
the Bishop's letter, in subsequent times, took it into their heads that
there was a literal proof in the prelate's jesting epistle of our poet's
passion for Laura being a phantom and a fiction. But, possible as it may
be, that the Bishop in reality suspected him to exaggerate the flame of
his devotion for the two great objects of his idolatry, Laura and St.
Augustine, he writes in a vein of pleasantry that need not be taken for
grave accusation. "You are befooling us all, my dear Petrarch," says the
prelate; "and it is wonderful that at so tender an age (Petrarch's
tender age was at this time thirty-one) you can deceive the world with
so much art and success. And, not content with deceiving the world, you
would fain deceive Heaven itself. You make a semblance of loving St.
Augustine and his works; but, in your heart, you love the poets and the
philosophers. Your Laura is a phantom created by your imagination for
the exercise of your poetry. Your verse, your love, your sighs, are all
a fiction; or, if there is anything real in your passion, it is not for
the lady Laura, but for the laurel--_that is_, the crown of poets. I
have been your dupe for some time, and, whilst you showed a strong
desire to visit Rome, I hoped to welcome you there. But my eyes are now
opened to all your rogueries, which nevertheless, will not prevent me
from loving you. "
Petrarch, in his answer to the Bishop,[F] says, "My father, if I love
the poets, I only follow, in this respect, the example of St. Augustine.
I take the sainted father himself to witness the sincerity of my
attachment to him. He is now in a place where he can neither deceive nor
be deceived. I flatter myself that he pities my errors, especially when
he recalls his own. " St. Augustine had been somewhat profligate in his
younger days.
"As to Laura," continues the poet, "would to Heaven that she were only
an imaginary personage, and my passion for her only a pastime! Alas! it
is a madness which it would be difficult and painful to feign for any
length of time; and what an extravagance it would be to affect such a
passion! One may counterfeit illness by action, by voice, and by manner,
but no one in health can give himself the true air and complexion of
disease. How often have you yourself been witness of my paleness and my
sufferings! I know very well that you speak only in irony: it is your
favourite figure of speech, but I hope that time will cicatrize these
wounds of my spirit, and that Augustine, whom I pretend to love, will
furnish me with a defence against a Laura who does not exist. "
Years had now elapsed since Petrarch had conceived his passion for
Laura; and it was obviously doomed to be a source of hopeless torment to
him as long as he should continue near her; for she could breathe no
more encouragement on his love than what was barely sufficient to keep
it alive; and, if she had bestowed more favour on him, the consequences
might have been ultimately most tragic to both of them. His own
reflections, and the advice of his friends, suggested that absence and
change of objects were the only means likely to lessen his misery; he
determined, therefore, to travel once more, and set out for Rome in
1335.
The wish to assuage his passion, by means of absence, was his principal
motive for going again upon his travels; but, before he could wind up
his resolution to depart, the state of his mind bordered on distraction.
One day he observed a country girl washing the veil of Laura; a sudden
trembling seized him--and, though the heat of the weather was intense,
he grew cold and shivered. For some time he was incapable of applying to
study or business.
His soul, he said, was like a field of battle, where
his passion and reason held continual conflict. In his calmer moments,
many agreeable motives for travelling suggested themselves to his mind.
He had a strong desire to visit Rome, where he was sure of finding the
kindest welcome from the Bishop of Lombes. He was to pass through Paris
also; and there he had left some valued friends, to whom he had promised
that he would return. At the head of those friends were Dionisio dal
Borgo San Sepolcro and Roberto Bardi, a Florentine, whom the Pope had
lately made chancellor of the Church of Paris, and given him the
canonship of Notre Dame. Dionisio dal Borgo was a native of Tuscany, and
one of the Roberti family. His name in literature was so considerable
that Filippo Villani thought it worth while to write his life. Petrarch
wrote his funeral eulogy, and alludes to Dionisio's power of reading
futurity by the stars. But Petrarch had not a grain of faith in
astrology; on the contrary, he has himself recorded that he derided it.
After having obtained, with some difficulty, the permission of Cardinal
Colonna, he took leave of his friends at Avignon, and set out for
Marseilles. Embarking there in a ship that was setting sail for Civita
Vecchia, he concealed his name, and gave himself out for a pilgrim going
to worship at Rome. Great was his joy when, from the deck, he could
discover the coast of his beloved Italy. It was a joy, nevertheless,
chastened by one indomitable recollection--that of the idol he had left
behind. On his landing he perceived a laurel tree; its name seemed to
typify her who dwelt for ever in his heart: he flew to embrace it; but
in his transports overlooked a brook that was between them, into which
he fell--and the accident caused him to swoon. Always occupied with
Laura, he says, "On those shores washed by the Tyrrhene sea, I beheld
that stately laurel which always warms my imagination, and, through my
impatience, fell breathless into the intervening stream. I was alone,
and in the woods, yet I blushed at my own heedlessness; for, to the
reflecting mind, no witness is necessary to excite the emotion of
shame. "
It was not easy for Petrarch to pass from the coast of Tuscany to Rome;
for war between the Ursini and Colonna houses had been renewed with more
fury than ever, and filled all the surrounding country with armed men.
As he had no escort, he took refuge in the castle of Capranica, where he
was hospitably received by Orso, Count of Anguillara, who had married
Agnes Colonna, sister of the Cardinal and the Bishop. In his letter to
the latter, Petrarch luxuriates in describing the romantic and rich
landscape of Capranica, a country believed by the ancients to have been
the first that was cultivated under the reign of Saturn. He draws,
however, a frightful contrast to its rural picture in the horrors of war
which here prevailed. "Peace," he says, "is the only charm which I could
not find in this beautiful region. The shepherd, instead of guarding
against wolves, goes armed into the woods to defend himself against men.
The labourer, in a coat of mail, uses a lance instead of a goad, to
drive his cattle. The fowler covers himself with a shield as he draws
his nets; the fisherman carries a sword whilst he hooks his fish; and
the native draws water from the well in an old rusty casque, instead of
a pail. In a word, arms are used here as tools and implements for all
the labours of the field, and all the wants of men. In the night are
heard dreadful howlings round the walls of towns, and and in the day
terrible voices crying incessantly to arms. What music is this compared
with those soft and harmonious sounds which. I drew from my lute at
Avignon! "
On his arrival at Capranica, Petrarch despatched a courier to the Bishop
of Lombes, informing him where he was, and of his inability to get to
Rome, all roads to it being beset by the enemy. The Bishop expressed
great joy at his friend's arrival in Italy, and went to meet him at
Capranica, with Stefano Colonna, his brother, senator of Rome. They had
with them only a troop of one hundred horsemen; and, considering that
the enemy kept possession of the country with five hundred men, it is
wonderful that they met with no difficulties on their route; but the
reputation of the Colonnas had struck terror into the hostile camp. They
entered Rome without having had a single skirmish with the enemy.
Stefano Colonna, in his quality of senator, occupied the Capitol, where
he assigned apartments to Petrarch; and the poet was lodged on that
famous hill which Scipio, Metellus, and Pompey, had ascended in triumph.
Petrarch was received and treated by the Colonnas Like a child of their
family. The venerable old Stefano, who had known him at Avignon, loaded
our poet with kindness. But, of all the family, it would seem that
Petrarch delighted most in the conversation of Giovanni da S. Vito, a
younger brother of the aged Stefano, and uncle of the Cardinal and
Bishop. Their tastes were congenial. Giovanni had made a particular
study of the antiquities of Rome; he was, therefore, a most welcome
cicerone to our poet, being, perhaps, the only Roman then alive, who
understood the subject deeply, if we except Cola di Rienzo, of whom we
shall soon have occasion to speak.
In company with Giovanni, Petrarch inspected the relics of the "eternal
city:" the former was more versed than his companion in ancient history,
but the other surpassed him in acquaintance with modern times, as well
as with the objects of antiquity that stood immediately before them.
What an interesting object is Petrarch contemplating the ruins of Rome!
He wrote to the Cardinal Colonna as follows:--"I gave you so long an
account of Capranica that you may naturally expect a still longer
description of Rome. My materials for this subject are, indeed,
inexhaustible; but they will serve for some future opportunity. At
present, I am so wonder-struck by so many great objects that I know not
where to begin. One circumstance, however, I cannot omit, which has
turned out contrary to your surmises. You represented to me that Rome
was a city in ruins, and that it would not come up to the imagination I
had formed of it; but this has not happened--on the contrary, my most
sanguine expectations have been surpassed. Rome is greater, and her
remains are more awful, than my imagination had conceived. It is not
matter of wonder that she acquired universal dominion. I am only
surprised that it was so late before she came to it. "
In the midst of his meditations among the relics of Rome, Petrarch was
struck by the ignorance about their forefathers, with which the natives
looked on those monuments. The veneration which they had for them was
vague and uninformed. "It is lamentable," he says, "that nowhere in the
world is Rome less known than at Rome. "
It is not exactly known in what month Petrarch left the Roman capital;
but, between his departure from that city, and his return to the banks
of the Rhone, he took an extensive tour over Europe. He made a voyage
along its southern coasts, passed the straits of Gibraltar, and sailed
as far northward as the British shores. During his wanderings, he wrote
a letter to Tommaso da Messina, containing a long geographical
dissertation on the island of Thule.
Petrarch approached the British shores; why were they not fated to have
the honour of receiving him? Ah! but who was there, then, in England
that was capable of receiving him? Chaucer was but a child. We had the
names of some learned men, but our language had no literature. Time
works wonders in a few centuries; and England, _now_ proud of her
Shakespeare and her Verulam, looks not with envy on the glory of any
earthly nation. During his excitement by these travels, a singular
change took place in our poet's habitual feelings. He recovered his
health and spirits; he could bear to think of Laura with equanimity, and
his countenance resumed the cheerfulness that was natural to a man in
the strength of his age. Nay, he became so sanguine in his belief that
he had overcome his passion as to jest at his past sufferings; and, in
this gay state of mind, he came back to Avignon. This was the crowning
misfortune of his life. He saw Laura once more; he was enthralled anew;
and he might now laugh in agony at his late self-congratulations on his
delivery from her enchantment. With all the pity that we bestow on
unfortunate love, and with all the respect that we owe to its constancy,
still we cannot look but with a regret amounting to impatience on a man
returning to the spot that was to rekindle his passion as recklessly as
a moth to the candle, and binding himself over for life to an affection
that was worse than hopeless, inasmuch as its success would bring more
misery than its failure. It is said that Petrarch, if it had not been
for this passion, would not have been the poet that he was. Not,
perhaps, so good an amatory poet; but I firmly believe that he would
have been a more various and masculine, and, upon the whole, _a greater
poet_, if he had never been bewitched by Laura. However, _he did_ return
to take possession of his canonicate at Lombes, and to lose possession
of his peace of mind.
In the April of the following year, 1336, he made an excursion, in
company with his brother Gherardo, to the top of Mount Ventoux, in the
neighbourhood of Avignon; a full description of which he sent in a
letter to Dionisio dal Borgo a San Sepolcro; but there is nothing
peculiarly interesting in this occurrence.
A more important event in his life took place during the following year,
1337--namely, that he had a son born to him, whom he christened by the
name of John, and to whom he acknowledged his relationship of paternity.
With all his philosophy and platonic raptures about Laura, Petrarch was
still subject to the passions of ordinary men, and had a mistress at
Avignon who was kinder to him than Laura. Her name and history have been
consigned to inscrutable obscurity: the same woman afterwards bore him a
daughter, whose name was Francesca, and who proved a great solace to him
in his old age. His biographers extol the magnanimity of Laura for
displaying no anger at our poet for what they choose to call this
discovery of his infidelity to her; but, as we have no reason to suppose
that Laura ever bestowed one favour on Petrarch beyond a pleasant look,
it is difficult to perceive her right to command his unspotted faith. At
all events, she would have done no good to her own reputation if she had
stormed at the lapse of her lover's virtue.
In a small city like Avignon, the scandal of his intrigue would
naturally be a matter of regret to his friends and of triumph to his
enemies. Petrarch felt his situation, and, unable to calm his mind
either by the advice of his friend Dionisio dal Borgo, or by the perusal
of his favourite author, St. Augustine, he resolved to seek a rural
retreat, where he might at least hide his tears and his mortification.
Unhappily he chose a spot not far enough from Laura--namely, Vaucluse,
which is fifteen Italian, or about fourteen English, miles from Avignon.
Vaucluse, or Vallis Clausa, the shut-up valley, is a most beautiful
spot, watered by the windings of the Sorgue. Along the river there are
on one side most verdant plains and meadows, here and there shadowed by
trees. On the other side are hills covered with corn and vineyards.
Where the Sorgue rises, the view terminates in the cloud-capt ridges of
the mountains Luberoux and Ventoux. This was the place which Petrarch
had visited with such delight when he was a schoolboy, and at the sight
of which he exclaimed "that he would prefer it as a residence to the
most splendid city. "
It is, indeed, one of the loveliest seclusions in the world. It
terminates in a semicircle of rocks of stupendous height, that seem to
have been hewn down perpendicularly. At the head and centre of the vast
amphitheatre, and at the foot of one of its enormous rocks, there is a
cavern of proportional size, hollowed out by the hand of nature. Its
opening is an arch sixty feet high; but it is a double cavern, there
being an interior one with an entrance thirty feet high. In the midst of
these there is an oval basin, having eighteen fathoms for its longest
diameter, and from this basin rises the copious stream which forms the
Sorgue. The surface of the fountain is black, an appearance produced by
its depth, from the darkness of the rocks, and the obscurity of the
cavern; for, on being brought to light, nothing can be clearer than its
water. Though beautiful to the eye, it is harsh to the taste, but is
excellent for tanning and dyeing; and it is said to promote the growth
of a plant which fattens oxen and is good for hens during incubation.
Strabo and Pliny the naturalist both speak of its possessing this
property.
The river Sorgue, which issues from this cavern, divides in its progress
into various branches; it waters many parts of Provence, receives
several tributary streams, and, after reuniting its branches, falls into
the Rhone near Avignon.
Resolving to fix his residence here, Petrarch bought a little cottage
and an adjoining field, and repaired to Vaucluse with no other
companions than his books. To this day the ruins of a small house are
shown at Vaucluse, which tradition says was his habitation.
If his object was to forget Laura, the composition of sonnets upon her
in this hermitage was unlikely to be an antidote to his recollections.
It would seem as if he meant to cherish rather than to get rid of his
love. But, if he nursed his passion, it was a dry-nursing; for he led a
lonely, ascetic, and, if it were not for his studies, we might say a
savage life. In one of his letters, written not long after his settling
at Vaucluse, he says, "Here I make war upon my senses, and treat them as
my enemies. My eyes, which have drawn me into a thousand difficulties,
see no longer either gold, or precious stones, or ivory, or purple; they
behold nothing save the water, the firmament, and the rocks. The only
female who comes within their sight is a swarthy old woman, dry and
parched as the Lybian deserts. My ears are no longer courted by those
harmonious instruments and voices which have so often transported my
soul: they hear nothing but the lowing of cattle, the bleating of sheep,
the warbling of birds, and the murmurs of the river.
"I keep silence from noon till night. There is no one to converse with;
for the good people, employed in spreading their nets, or tending their
vines and orchards, are no great adepts at conversation. I often content
myself with the brown bread of the fisherman, and even eat it with
pleasure. Nay, I almost prefer it to white bread. This old fisherman,
who is as hard as iron, earnestly remonstrates against my manner of
life; and assures me that I cannot long hold out. I am, on the
contrary, convinced that it is easier to accustom one's self to a plain
diet than to the luxuries of a feast. But still I have my
luxuries--figs, raisins, nuts and almonds. I am fond of the fish with
which this stream abounds, and I sometimes amuse myself with spreading
the nets. As to my dress, there is an entire change; you would take me
for a labourer or a shepherd.
"My mansion resembles that of Cato or Fabricius. My whole
house-establishment consists of myself, my old fisherman and his wife,
and a dog. My fisherman's cottage is contiguous to mine; when I want him
I call; when I no longer need him, he returns to his cottage.
"I have made two gardens that please me wonderfully. I do not think they
are to be equalled in all the world. And I must confess to you a more
than female weakness with which I am haunted. I am positively angry that
there is anything so beautiful out of Italy.
"One of these gardens is shady, formed for contemplation, and sacred to
Apollo. It overhangs the source of the river, and is terminated by
rocks, and by places accessible only to birds. The other is nearer my
cottage, of an aspect less severe, and devoted to Bacchus; and what is
extremely singular, it is in the midst of a rapid river. The approach to
it is over a bridge of rocks; and there is a natural grotto under the
rocks, which gives them the appearance of a rustic bridge. Into this
grotto the rays of the sun never penetrate. I am confident that it much
resembles the place where Cicero went to declaim. It invites to study.
Hither I retreat during the noontide hours; my mornings are engaged upon
the hills, or in the garden sacred to Apollo. Here I would most
willingly pass my days, were I not too near Avignon, and too far from
Italy. For why should I conceal this weakness of my soul? I love Italy,
and I hate Avignon. The pestilential influence of this horrid place
empoisons the pure air of Vaucluse, and will compel me to quit my
retirement. "
It is clear that he was not supremely contented in his solitude with his
self-drawn mental resources. His friends at Avignon came seldom to see
him. Travelling even short distances was difficult in those days. Even
we, in the present day, can remember when the distance of fourteen miles
presented a troublesome journey. The few guests who came, to him could
not expect very exquisite dinners, cooked by the brown old woman and her
husband the fisherman; and, though our poet had a garden consecrated to
Bacchus, he had no cellar devoted to the same deity. His few friends,
therefore, who visited him, thought their angel visits acts of charity.
If he saw his friends seldom, however, he had frequent visitants in
strangers who came to Vaucluse, as a place long celebrated for its
natural beauties, and now made illustrious by the character and
compositions of our poet. Among these there were persons distinguished
for their rank or learning, who came from the farthest parts of France
and from Italy, to see and converse with Petrarch. Some of them even
sent before them considerable presents, which, though kindly meant, were
not acceptable.
Vaucluse is in the diocese of Cavaillon, a small city about two miles
distant from our poet's retreat. Philip de Cabassoles was the bishop, a
man of high rank and noble family. His disposition, according to
Petrarch's usual praise of his friends, was highly benevolent and
humane; he was well versed in literature, and had distinguished
abilities. No sooner was the poet settled in his retirement, than he
visited the Bishop at his palace near Vaucluse. The latter gave him a
friendly reception, and returned his visits frequently. Another much
estimated, his friend since their childhood, Guido Sette, also repaired
at times to his humble mansion, and relieved his solitude in the shut-up
valley. [G]
Without some daily and constant occupation even the bright mind of
Petrarch would have rusted, like the finest steel when it is left
unscoured. But he continued his studies with an ardour that commands our
wonder and respect; and it was at Vaucluse that he either meditated or
wrote his most important compositions. Here he undertook a history of
Rome, from Romulus down to Titus Vespasian. This Herculean task he never
finished; but there remain two fragments of it, namely, four books, De
Rebus Memorandis, and another tract entitled Vitarum Virorum Illustrium
Epitome, being sketches of illustrious men from the founder of Rome down
to Fabricius.
About his poem, Africa, I shall only say for the present that he began
this Latin epic at Vaucluse, that its hero is his idolized Roman, Scipio
Africanus, that it gained him a reputation over Europe, and that he was
much pleased with it himself, but that his admiration of it in time
cooled down so much, that at last he was annoyed when it was mentioned
to him, and turned the conversation, if he could, to a different
subject. Nay, it is probable, that if it had not been for Boccaccio and
Coluccio Salutati, who, long after he had left Vaucluse, importuned him
to finish and publish it, his Africa would not have come down to
posterity.
Petrarch alludes in one of his letters to an excursion which he made in
1338, in company with a man whose rank was above his wisdom. He does not
name him, but it seems clearly to have been Humbert II. , Dauphin of the
Viennois. The Cardinal Colonna forced our poet into this pilgrimage to
Baume, famous for its adjacent cavern, where, according to the tradition
of the country, Mary Magdalen passed thirty years of repentance. In
that holy but horrible cavern, as Petrarch calls it, they remained three
days and three nights, though Petrarch sometimes gave his comrades the
slip, and indulged in rambles among the hills and forests; he composed a
short poem, however, on St. Mary Magdalen, which is as dull as the cave
itself. The Dauphin Humbert was not a bright man; but he seems to have
contracted a friendly familiarity with our poet, if we may judge by a
letter which Petrarch indited to him about this time, frankly
reproaching him with his political neutrality in the affairs of Europe.
It was supposed that the Cardinal Colonna incited him to write it. A
struggle that was now impending between France and England engaged all
Europe on one side or other. The Emperor Lewis had intimated to Humbert
that he must follow him in this war, he, the Dauphin, being
arch-seneschal of Arles and Vienne. Next year, the arch-seneschal
received an invitation from Philip of Valois to join him with his troops
at Amiens as vassal of France. The Dauphin tried to back out of the
dilemma between his two suitors by frivolous excuses to both, all the
time determining to assist neither. In 1338 he came to Avignon, and the
Pope gave him his palace at the bridge of the Sorgue for his habitation.
Here the poor craven, beset on one side by threatening letters from
Philip of Valois, and on the other by importunities from the French
party at the papal court, remained in Avignon till July, 1339, after
Petrarch had let loose upon him his epistolary eloquence.
This letter, dated April, 1339, is, according to De Sade's opinion, full
of powerful persuasion. I cannot say that it strikes me as such. After
calling Christ to witness that he writes to the Dauphin in the spirit of
friendship, he reminds him that Europe had never exhibited so mighty and
interesting a war as that which had now sprung up between the kings of
France and England, nor one that opened so vast a field of glory for the
brave. "All the princes and their people," he says, "are anxious about
its issue, especially those between the Alps and the ocean, who take
arms at the crash of the neighbouring tumult; whilst you alone go to
sleep amidst the clouds of the coming storm. To say the truth, if there
was nothing more than shame to awaken you, it ought to rouse you from
this lethargy. I had thought you," he continues, "a man desirous of
glory. You are young and in the strength of life. What, then, in the
name of God, keeps you inactive? Do you fear fatigue? Remember what
Sallust says--'Idle enjoyments were made for women, fatigue was made for
men. ' Do you fear death? Death is the last debt we owe to nature, and
man ought not to fear it; certainly he ought not to fear it more than
sleep and sluggishness. Aristotle, it is true, calls death the last of
horrible things; but, mind, he does not call it the most horrible of
things. " In this manner, our poet goes on moralizing on the blessings of
an early death, and the great advantage that it would have afforded to
some excellent Roman heroes if they had met with it sooner. The only
thing like a sensible argument that he urges is, that Humbert could not
expect to save himself even by neutrality, but must ultimately become
the prey of the victor, and be punished like the Alban Metius, whom
Tullus Hostilius caused to be torn asunder by horses that pulled his
limbs in different directions. The pedantic epistle had no effect on
Humbert.
Meanwhile, Italy had no repose more than the rest of Europe, but its
troubles gave a happy occasion to Petrarch to see once more his friend,
Guglielmo Pastrengo, who, in 1338, came to Avignon, from Mastino della
Scala, lord of Verona.
The moment Petrarch heard of his friend's arrival he left his hermitage
to welcome him; but scarcely had he reached the fatal city when he saw
the danger of so near an approach to the woman he so madly loved, and
was aware that he had no escape from the eyes of Laura but by flight. He
returned, therefore, all of a sudden to Vaucluse, without waiting for a
sight of Pastrengo. Shortly after he had quitted the house of Laelius,
where he usually lodged when he went to Avignon, Guglielmo, expecting to
find him there, knocked at the door, but no one opened it--called out,
but no one answered him. He therefore wrote him a little billet, saying,
"My dear Petrarch, where have you hid yourself, and whither have you
vanished? What is the meaning of all this? " The poet received this note
at Vaucluse, and sent an explanation of his flight, sincere indeed as to
good feelings, but prolix as usual in the expression of them. Pastrengo
sent him a kind reply, and soon afterwards did him the still greater
favour of visiting him at Vaucluse, and helping him to cultivate his
garden.
Petrarch's flame for Laura was in reality unabated. One day he met her
in the streets of Avignon; for he had not always resolution enough to
keep out of the western Babylon. Laura cast a kind look upon him, and
said, "Petrarch, you are tired of loving me. " This incident produced one
of the finest sonnets, beginning--
_Io non fut d' amar voi lassato unquanco. _
Tired, did you say, of loving you? Oh, no!
I ne'er shall tire of the unwearying flame.
But I am weary, kind and cruel dame,
With tears that uselessly and ceaseless flow,
Scorning myself, and scorn'd by you. I long
For death: but let no gravestone hold in view
Our names conjoin'd: nor tell my passion strong
Upon the dust that glow'd through life for you.
And yet this heart of amorous faith demands,
Deserves, a better boon; but cruel, hard
As is my fortune, I will bless Love's bands
For ever, if you give me this reward.
In 1339, he composed among other sonnets, those three, the lxii.
