Petrarch. Francesco Petrarca, one of the earliest and greatest of modern lyric poets, was the son of a Florentine notary, Petracco (diminutive of Peter) di Messer Parenzo, the name of Francesco Petrarca by which the poet is known being the Latinised form of Francesco di Petracco—viz. Francis of Peter. Petrarch's father was exiled from Florence (1302) along with Dante during the struggles between the two factions of the Bianchi and Neri, when the latter party obtained the upper-hand. He took refuge with his family in Arezzo, where, on the 20th July 1304, Francesco was born.
The poet's infancy was passed in Tuscany until 1312, when his father determined to go to Avignon, whither the papal court had lately been transferred. There and in the neighbouring small town of Carpentras Petrarch's studies began, and were continued later at Montpellier and Bologna. His father intended him to enter the legal profession; but instead of jurisprudence he devoted himself with enthusiasm to the study of the classics, his favourite authors, on whose style he afterwards strove to model his own, being Cicero and Virgil. It was only later in life that he tried to learn Greek, in which he never attained to any proficiency. After his father's death, whom his mother did not long survive, Petrarch returned to Avignon (1326). As was the custom of the time, more especially at the papal court, he and that brother Gherardo, being without means, became ecclesiastics; but Francesco never took holy orders. His chief source of income became the small benefices conferred on him by his many powerful patrons; but in after-life he refused higher preferment, declining even the much-coveted post of papal secretary, rather than compromise his independence. Petrarch is reported to have been a handsome young man of winning manners, fond of rich clothing and all the refinements of court-life. It was at this period of his life that he first saw Laura, the lady whose name he was to immortalise in his lyrics, and who inspired him with a passion which has become proverbial for its constancy and purity. The meeting took place on April 6, 1327, in the church of St Clara at Avignon. This date, as well as that of Laura's death on the same day in the year 1348, stands recorded by Petrarch's own hand on the fly-leaf of his Virgil, now amongst the treasures of the Ambrosian Library at Milan. The identity of Laura has been a subject of much discussion, the most generally accepted hypothesis is that of the Abbé de Sade, who identified the poet's love, on somewhat slender evidence, with a member of his own family, Laure de Noves, married in 1325 to a Hugo de Sade; she became the mother of eleven children, and died in April 1348. It was also at this time that Petrarch's friendship began with the powerful Roman family of the Colomnas, and especially with Jacopo Colonna, Bishop of Lombez.
The dawn of the new birth of letters and art which was to illumine the following century was already altering the status of the poet and artist, and as the fame of Petrarch's learning and genius grew his position became one of unprecedented consideration. His presence at their courts was competed for by the most powerful sovereigns of the day, and such was the exceptional position he enjoyed that he has said of himself that princes had lived with him, not he with princes. His chief patrons were Pope Clement VI., the Emperor Charles IV., King Robert of Naples, the Viscontis of Milan, Jacopo da Carrara, Lord of Padua, Azzo da Correggio, Lord of Parma; in Venice the senate bestowed a palace on him in return for his promise to leave that town his library; Florence offered him the restoration of the confiscated possessions of his family if he would reside there, and in Arezzo the house where he was born was held as a sanctuary. When wearied by court-life he sought retirement and quiet in his country-house at Vaucluse, near Avignon. He travelled repeatedly in France, Germany, and Flanders, wherever he went searching diligently for manuscripts to enrich his collection. He made some valuable bibliographical discoveries, finding in Liège two new orations of Cicero, in Verona a collection of letters of the same writer, and in Florence a then unknown Institution of Quintilian's. In the cosmopolitan society of the papal court Petrarch became acquainted with learned men of all countries, whom he interested in his unwearied search for valuable manuscripts. The example given by Petrarch in his loving preservation of books probably gave the first incentive to the collection of manuscripts which bore such rich fruits in the following century. But the most glorious moment of Petrarch's honoured career was when, invited by the senate of Rome on Easter Sunday, 1341, he ascended the capitol clad in the robes of his friend and ardent admirer, Robert of Anjou, king of Naples, and there, after delivering an oration on poetry and the significance of the laurel, he was crowned poet-laureate amid the acclamations of thousands. After this pagan ceremony he went to leave his crown on the altar of St Peter's. In 1353, after the death of his beloved Laura and his friend Cardinal Colonna, he left Avignon for ever, disgusted with the corruption and vice of the papal court. The remaining years of his brilliant life were passed in various towns of Northern Italy, and in the retirement of a country-house at Arquà, near Padua, the only one of his many habitations still in existence. There, tenderly cared for by his natural daughter, Francesca, and her husband, and occupied to the last in his favourite studies, he quietly ended his life, 18th July 1374.
Petrarch may be considered as the earliest of the great humanists of the Renaissance and the founder of modern classic culture. His passionate admiration for antiquity and the classic authors was no longer that of Dante and the earlier writers, whose erudition was incorporated with the feelings and needs of their own time and stamped with their own individuality. The more contemplative and less original mind of Petrarch lent itself rather to an entire withdrawal from and disdain for all that later times had produced, and his constant effort was to imitate as closely as possible the modes of thought and expression of the great Latin writers. He attained to a surprising purity of style in his Latin works, and the admiration which these writings excited in his contemporaries was boundless. Petrarch himself chiefly founded his claim to posthumous fame on his epic poem Africa, the hero of which is Scipio Africanus, and his historical work in prose, De Viris Illustribus, a series of biographies of classical celebrities. His other important Latin works are the eclogues and epistles in verse; and in prose the dialogues, De Contemptu Mundi and Secretum, and the treatises De Otio Religiosorum (written while visiting his brother, who had joined a Carthusian brotherhood) and De Vita Solitaria (written at Vaucluse); and particularly important for historical and biographical purposes is the numerous collection of letters divided into Familiaries, Variae, Ad Veteres Illustres, Seniles, and Sine Titulo.
Petrarch was an ardent patriot, but he had little practical influence on the political life of his time. His ideas were those of a poet, and not of a statesman. However great his merits as patriot or student, his name would be little remembered now; it is by his lyrics alone that his fame has lasted for over five centuries. His title-deeds to fame are in his Canzoniere, in the sonnets, madrigals, and songs written in Italian, almost all inspired by his unrequited passion for Laura, and in which the character of the man and the reality of a strong sentiment find their expression. The history of Petrarch's love presents few incidents; its entire interest is psychological. In these poems we see the picture of a human soul in all its contradictions, pains, and struggles. Such self-analysis was unknown in mediæval writers, and Petrarch has therefore been called the first modern man. His last work was an allegorical poem in 'terzine,' I Trionfi ('Triumphs'), also in Italian, and is of unequal merit, the only remarkable passages being those which refer to the beginning of the poet's love ('Triumph of Love') and to Laura's death ('Triumph of Death'). Few of Petrarch's lyrics treat of other subjects, but amongst these few are three of his finest efforts—one, the famous address to his country (Italia mia), in which he reproaches the Italian princes for their dissensions, and for calling to their aid the mercenary 'barbarians' who were the scourge of Italy, words repeated by Machiavelli in his Prince, a century and a half later, and in our own day in the struggle for freedom from Austria; the second (Spirito Gentil), which some commentators consider to be addressed to the young Colonna, and others to the famous Cola di Rienzi, whose wild attempt to resuscitate the ancient forms of republican government in Rome had fired Petrarch with enthusiasm; and the third (O Aspettata in Ciel Beata e Bella Anima), addressed to his friend Jacopo Colonna, to incite him to join the crusade of Philip of France against the infidels. Petrarch was in constant correspondence with his great contemporary, Giovanni Boccaccio (Lettere di Boccaccio, ed. by Corazzini, Florence, 1877), and translated into Latin his friend's tale of Patient Griselda (De Obcdientia ac Fide Uxoris). Chaucer alludes to this when he says of his Clerk's Tale :
Lerned at Padowe of a worthy clerk,
Fraunceys Petrark, the laureat poete,
Highte this clerk, whose rethorike swete
Enlumined al Itaille of poetrye.
The earliest complete edition of Petrarch's works is Francisci Petrarchæ Opera Omnia (Basel, 1554, fol.). His Italian lyrics were published as early as 1470 (Venice, 4to), and have since gone through innumerable editions with or without commentary. The most reliable is that of Marsand (Padua, 1819, 4to); his text is used by Leopardi for his important edition and commentary (Milan, 1826), often reprinted. The letters have been edited by Fracassetti, and partly translated into Italian, with a valuable commentary (Florence, 1859-63-69). See the Abbé de Sade, Mémoires de Petrarche (1764); Mezière, Petrarche (1868); Koering, Petrarchas Leben und Werke (1878); the little monograph by Henry Reeve (1878); also Gaspary, Italienische Literatur (Berlin, 1885); Bartoli, Litteratura Italiana (Florence, 1884); De Sanctis, Saggio sul Petrarca (Naples, 1869); Zumbini, Studi sul Petrarca (Naples, 1878); Voigt, Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums (Berlin; 2d ed. 1880); and Symonds, Renaissance in Italy (1875-86).