Chapter IV: Part 4

He bought a small house and field, removed his books, and established himself. Since then Vaucluse has been often visited for his sake; and he who was enchanted by its loneliness and beauty, has described, in letters and verses, with fond and glowing expressions, the charm that it possessed for him. The valley is narrow, as its name testifies--shut in by high and craggy hills; the river Sorgue traverses its depth; and on one side, a vast cavern in the precipitous rock presents itself, from which the fountain flows, that is the source of the river. Within the cave, the shadows are black as night; the hills are clothed by umbrageous trees, under whose shadow the tender grass, starred by innumerable flowers, offers agreeable repose. The murmur of the torrent is perennial: that, and the song of the birds, are the only sounds heard. Such was the retreat that the poet chose. He saw none but the peasants who took care of his house and tended his little farm. The only woman near was the hard-working wife of the peasant, old and withered. No sounds of music visited his ears: he heard, instead, the carolling of the birds, and the brawling waters. Often he remained in silence from morning till night, wandering among the hills while the sun was yet low; and taking refuge, during the heat of the day, in his shady garden, which, sloping down towards the Sorgue, was terminated on one side by inaccessible rocks. At night, after performing his clerical duties (for he was canon of Lombes), he rambled among the hills; often entering, at midnight, the cavern, whose gloom, even during the day, struck the soul with awe.

The peasantry about him were poor and hard-working. His food was usually black bread; and he was so abstemious, that the servant he brought with him from Avignon quitted him, unable to endure the solitude and privations of his retreat. He was then waited on by the neighbouring cottager, a fisherman, whose life had been spent among fountains and rivers, deriving his subsistence from the rocks. "To call this man faithful," says Petrarch, "is a tame expression: he was fidelity itself." Without being able to read, he revered and cherished the books his master loved; and, all rude and illiterate, his pious regard for the poet raised him almost to the rank of a friend. His wife was yet more rustic. Her skin was burned by the sun till it resembled nothing human. She was humble, faithful, and laborious; passing her life in the fields, working under the noonday sun; while the evening was dedicated to indoor labour. She never complained, nor ever showed any mark of discontent. She slept on straw: her food was the coarsest black bread; her drink water, in which she mingled a little wine, as sour as vinegar.

It was here that Petrarch hoped to subdue his passion, and to forget Laura. "Fool that I was!" he exclaims in after-life, "not to have remembered the first schoolboy lesson--that solitude is the nurse of love!" How, with his thoughts for his sole companions, preying perpetually on his own heart, could he forget her who occupied him exclusively in courts and cities? And thus he tells, in musical and thrilling accents, how, amidst woods, and hills, and murmuring waves, her image was painted on every object, and contemplated by him till he forgot himself to stone, more dead than the living rocks among which he wandered. It is almost impossible to translate Petrarch's poetry; for his subtle and delicate thoughts, when generalised, seem common-place; and his harmony and grace, which have never been equalled, are inimitable. The only translations which retain the spirit of the original, are by lady Dacre; and we extract her version of one of the canzoni, as a specimen of his style, and as affording a vivid picture of his wild melancholy life among the solitary mountains.

"From hill to hill I roam, from thought to thought, With Love my guide; the beaten path I fly, For there in vain the tranquil life is sought: If 'mid the waste well forth a lonely rill, Or deep embosom'd a low valley lie, In its calm shade my trembling heart is still; And there, if Love so will, I smile, or weep, or fondly hope or fear, While on my varying brow, that speaks the soul, The wild emotions roll, Now dark, now bright, as shifting skies appear; That whosoe'er has proved the lover's state Would say, 'He feels the flame, nor knows his future fate.'

"On mountains high, in forests drear and wide, I find repose, and from the throng'd resort Of man turn fearfully my eyes aside; At each lone step thoughts ever new arise Of her I love, who oft with cruel sport Will mock the pangs I bear, the tears, the sighs; Yet e'en these ills I prize, Though bitter, sweet--nor would they were removed; For my heart whispers me, 'Love yet has power To grant a happier hour: Perchance, though self-despised, thou yet art loved.' E'en then my breast a passing sigh will heave, Ah! when, or how, may I a hope so wild believe?

"Where shadows of high rocking pines dark wave, I stay my footsteps; and on some rude stone, With thought intense, her beauteous face engrave: Roused from the trance, my bosom bathed I find With tears, and cry, 'Ah! whither thus alone Hast thou far wander'd? and whom left behind?' But as with fixed mind On this fair image I impassion'd rest, And, viewing her, forget awhile my ills, Love my rapt fancy fills; In its own error sweet the soul is blest, While all around so bright the visions glide; O! might the cheat endure,--I ask not aught beside.

"Her form portray'd within the lucid stream Will oft appear, or on the verdant lawn, Or glossy beech, or fleecy cloud, will gleam So lovely fair, that Leda's self might say, Her Helen sinks eclipsed, as at the dawn A star when cover'd by the solar ray: And, as o'er wilds I stray, Where the eye nought but savage nature meets, There Fancy most her brightest tints employs; But when rude truth destroys The loved illusion of those dreamed sweets, I sit me down on the cold rugged stone, Less cold, less dead than I, and think and weep alone.

"Where the huge mountain rears his brow sublime, On which no neighbouring height its shadow flings, Led by desire intense the steep I climb; And tracing in the boundless space each woe, Whose sad remembrance my torn bosom wrings. Tears, that bespeak the heart o'erfraught, will flow. While viewing all below, From me, I cry, what worlds of air divide The beauteous form, still absent and still near! Then chiding soft the tear, I whisper, low, haply she, too, has sigh'd That thou art far away; a thought so sweet Awhile my labouring soul will of its burden cheat.

"Go thou, my song, beyond that Alpine bound, Where the pure smiling heavens are most serene: There, by a murmuring stream, may I be found, Whose gentle airs around Waft grateful odours from the laurel green; Nought but my empty form roams here unblest. There dwells my heart with her who steals it from my breast."[41]

Petrarch's Italian poetry, written either to please his lady or to relieve the overflowing of his hearty bears in every line the stamp of warm and genuine, though of refined and chivalric, passion. It has been criticised as too imaginative, and defaced by conceits: of the latter there are a few, confined to a small portion of the sonnets. They will not be admired now, yet, perhaps, they are not those of the poems which came least spontaneously from the heart. Those have experienced little of the effects of passion, of love, grief, or terror, who do not know that conceits often spring naturally from such. Shakspeare knew this; and he seldom describes the outbursts of passion unaccompanied by fanciful imagery which borders on conceit. Still more false is the notion, that passion is not, in its essence, highly imaginative. Hard and dry critics, who neither feel themselves nor sympathise in the feelings of others, alone can have made this accusation: these people, whose inactive and colourless fancy naturally suggests no new combination nor fresh tint of beauty, suppose that is a cold exercise of the mind, when

"The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven."

As they with difficulty arrive at comprehending poetic creations, they believe that they were produced by dint of hard labour and deep study. The truth is the opposite of this. To the imaginative, fanciful imagery and thoughts, whose expression seems steeped in the hues of dawn, are natural and unforced: when the mind of such is calm, their conceptions resemble those of other men; but when excited by passion, when love, or patriotism, or the influence of nature, kindles the soul, it becomes natural, nay, imperative to them to embody their thoughts, and to give "a local habitation and a name" to the emotions that possess them. The remarks of critics on the overflowings of poetic minds remind one of the traveller who expressed such wonder when, on landing at Calais, he heard little children talk French.

Petrarch, on the other hand, would deceive us, or rather deceived himself, when he alludes depreciatingly to his Italian poetry. Latin was the language of learned men: he deemed it degrading to write for the people; and, fancying that the difficulty of writing Latin was an obstacle glorious to overcome, he treated with disdain any works expressed in the vulgar tongue. Yet even while he said that these compositions were puerile, he felt in his heart the contrary. He bestowed great pains on correcting them, and giving them that polished grace for which they are remarkable. Still his reason (which in this instance, as in others, is often less to be depended upon than our intuitive convictions,) assured him that he could never hold a high place among poets till he composed a Latin poem.

While living in solitude at Vaucluse, yet ambitious that the knowledge of his name should pass beyond the confines of his narrow valley, and be heard even in Italy, he meditated some great work worthy of the genius he felt within him. He at first contemplated writing a history of Rome; from Romulus to Titus; till one day the idea of an epic poem; on the subject of his favourite hero. Scipio Africanus, struck him. He instantly commenced it with all the ardour of a first conception, and continued for some time to build up cold dull Latin hexameters. It is curious to mark how ill he succeeded: but the structure and spirit of the language he used was then totally unknown; so that, while we lament the mis-spending of his time, we cannot wonder at his failure.

He passed several years thus almost cut off from society: his books were his great resource; he was never without one in his hand. He relates in a letter, how, as a playful experiment, a friend locked up his library, intending to exclude him from it for three days; but the poet's misery caused him to restore the key on the first evening:--"And I verily believe I should have become insane," Petrarch writes, "if my mind had been longer deprived of its necessary nourishment." The friend who thus played with his passion for reading, was Philip de Cabassoles, bishop of Cavaillon. Cavaillon is a pretty but insignificant town, situated on the slope of a mountain near the Durance, twelve miles distant from Avignon, and six from Vaucluse. He became intimate with Petrarch here, and they cemented a friendship which lasted his life. Sometimes Petrarch visited Cabassoles at Cabrières, where he resided; often the bishop came to the poet's cottage. They frequently passed the livelong day together in the woods, without thinking of refreshment, or whole nights among their books, when morning often dawned upon them unawares. After two years' residence in this seclusion, Petrarch continued so pleased with it, that he wrote to Giacomo Colonna, who had endeavoured, by promises of preferment and advantage, to entice him from it, imploring him to let him remain in a position so congenial to his disposition. "You know," he says, "how false and vain are the enticements of a court; and that the men most in favour there are the fools and rogues who attain dignities and places through adulation and simony. Why, then, should you, a man of honour, desire that I should return to a court? And even if it were possible that I should obtain any thing from the munificence of the pope, the detestable vices of the court are horrible to me. When I quitted the papal residence, know that I sang the psalm 'In exitu Israel ex Ægypto.' I enjoy, in the delightful solitude of Vaucluse, a sweet and imperturbable tranquillity, and the placid and blameless leisure of study. Any spare time I may have I go to Cabrières to amuse myself. Ah! if you were permitted to take up your abode in this valley, you would assuredly be disgusted, not only with the pope and cardinals, but the whole world. I am firmly resolved never to behold the court again."

In this letter, however, he but half expresses the cause of his hatred to Avignon; for he does not allude to Laura, while it was the memory of her that not only made him fly the city in which she lived, but tremble at the mere thought of how near he still was. And while he describes the heavenly tranquillity of his seclusion, and the beauty that adorned it, he exclaims, "But the vicinity of Avignon poisons all." So deep was his fear of reviving his passion by seeing its object, that he never even visited that city for a few days. On one occasion, hearing that his friend, William da Pastrengo, had arrived there, he repaired thither instantly to see him: but, on his arrival within the precincts of the fatal walls, he felt his chains fall so heavily around him, that, resolved to cast them off at once, without tarrying an hour, without seeing his friend, the same night he returned to Vaucluse, and then wrote to excuse himself; alleging, as his motive, his desire to escape from the net of passion that enveloped him in that town. At the same time, with the contradictory impulses of a lover, he entreated the painter, Simon Memmi, a pupil of Giotto, just arrived in Provence, and in high esteem with the pope and cardinals, to execute for him a small portrait of Laura.[42] Simon consented; and was so pleased with the model thus presented him, that he frequently afterwards introduced her face into his pictures of saints and angels. Petrarch repaid his friend's complaisance by two sonnets of praise and commendation.

In the imaginary conversations which Petrarch pictures himself to have held with St. Augustin, the saint tells him that he is bound by two adamantine chains--love and glory. To free himself from the first of these he had retreated to Vaucluse, and found the attempt vain. The second passion of his soul became even more strong, allying itself to the first, for he wished Laura's lover to be renowned. This was also more successful, as, beside the honour in which he was held by all who knew him, it proved that his name was heard in distant countries, and his merit acknowledged. [Sidenote: 1340. Ætat. 36.] He had before entertained a vague wish for the laurel crown of poetry; but it was beyond his hopes, when, on the same day, the 24th of August, 1340, while at Vaucluse, he received letters from the Roman senate, and from the chancellor of the university of Paris, inviting him to receive it. Hesitating to which city to yield the preference, he wrote to ask the advice of cardinal Colonna; and, counselled by him, as well as following his own predilection, decided in favour of Rome.

Another circumstance influenced Petrarch in this choice. Not long before, his friend Dionisio Robertis had visited him at Vaucluse on his way to the court of Robert king of Naples. From him Petrarch heard of the literary tastes and liberal disposition of this amiable monarch. He had already meditated a visit to him, and letters had been interchanged between them. The circumstance of his coronation gave him a fair excuse for paying him a visit. In the ardour of an age scarcely yet mature; he believed himself worthy of the honour conferred on him; but he tells us that he felt ashamed of relying only on his own testimony and that of the persons who invited him. Perhaps the desire of display, and of proving to the world that he was no illiterate pretender, was the stronger motive. However this might be; he made choice of the king of Naples; more illustrious in his eyes for his learning than his crown, to examine his claim to distinction, and be the judge of his deserts.[43]

[Sidenote: 1341. Ætat. 37.]

He lost no time in repairing to the court of king Robert, who received him with a warmth of friendship that excited his deepest gratitude. Hearing the object of the poet's visit, he expressed great delight, and considered the choice made of him, among all mortals, to be the judge of his merits, as glorious to himself. During the many conversations they held together, Petrarch showed the monarch the commencement of his poem on Africa. Robert, highly delighted, begged that it might be dedicated to him: the poet gladly assented, and kept his promise, though the king died before it could be fulfilled. The examination of his acquirements lasted three days, after which the king declared him worthy of the laurel, and sent an ambassador to be present on his part when the crown was conferred. [Sidenote: April 17. 1341.] Petrarch repaired to Rome for the ceremony, and was crowned in the capitol with great solemnity, in presence of all the nobles and high-born ladies of the city. "I then," writes Petrarch, "thought myself worthy of the honour: love and enthusiasm bore me on. But the laurel did not increase my knowledge, while it gave birth to envy in the hearts of many."[44]

Leaving Rome soon after his coronation, Petrarch intended to return to Avignon, but passing t through Parma he was detained by his friend Azzo Correggio, who ruled the city, governing it with incomparable wisdom and moderation. The friendship between Azzo and Petrarch had commenced at Avignon, where, for the first and only time, Petrarch had been induced to take on himself the office of a barrister, and pleaded the cause of the Correggii against their enemies the Rossi before the pope, and succeeded in obtaining a decision in their favour. This, as is mentioned, is the only occasion on which Petrarch played the advocate; and he boasts of having gained the cause for his clients without using towards their adversaries the language of derision and sarcasm.

Petrarch, meanwhile, remembering the honour he had received, was solicitous not to appear unworthy of it; and, on a day, wandering among the hills and crossing the river Ensa, he entered the wood of Selva Piana: struck by the beauty of the place, he turned his thoughts to his neglected poem of Africa; and, excited by an enthusiasm for his subject which had long been dormant, he composed that day, and on each following one, some verses. On returning to Parma he sought and found a tranquil and fit dwelling: buying the house that thus pleased him, he fixed himself at Parma, and continued to occupy himself with his poem with so much ardour, that he brought it to a conclusion with a speed that excited his own surprise.[45]

At this time Petrarch suffered the first of those losses which afterwards cast such gloomy shadows over his life, in the death, first of Thomas of Messina, and then of a dearer friend, Giacomo Colonna. Tommaso Caloria of Messina had studied with Petrarch at Bologna, and many of his letters are addressed to him. There existed a strict friendship between them, both loving and cultivating literature. His early death deeply affected the warm-hearted poet. The impression he received was so melancholy and bitter, that he desired to die also; and a fever, the consequence of his grief, made him imagine that in reality his end was approaching. To add to his disquietude, he heard of the illness of Giacomo Colonna. The bishop was at that time residing at Lombes, apart from all his family, and Petrarch was about to join him to fulfil his duties as canon. At this time he one night dreamt that he saw Giacomo Colonna, in his garden at Parma, crossing the rivulet that traversed it. He went to meet him, asking him, with surprise, whence he came? whither he was going in such haste? and wherefore unattended? The bishop replied, smiling, "Do you not remember when you visited the Garonne with me, how you disliked the thunder-storms of the Pyrenees? They now annoy me also, and I am returning to Rome." So saying he hastened on, repelling with his hand Petrarch, who was about to follow him, saying, "Remain, you must not now accompany me." As he spoke, his countenance changed, and it was overspread with the hues of death. Nearly a month after, Petrarch heard that the bishop had died during the night on which this dream had occurred. The poet was a faithful and believing son of the church of Rome, but he was not superstitious, and saw nothing supernatural in this affecting coincidence. The loss of his friend and patron grieved him deeply, and his mourning was renewed soon after by the death of Dionisio Robertis. These reiterated losses made so profound an impression, that he trembled and turned pale on receiving any letter, and feared at each instant to hear of some new disaster.

Satisfied with the tranquillity which he enjoyed at Parma, he resisted the frequent and earnest solicitations of his friends at Avignon to return among them. He did not forget Laura. Her image often occupied him. It was here we may believe that he wrote the canzone before quoted, and many sonnets, which showed with what lively and earnest thoughts he cherished the passion which had so long reigned over him. He could not write letters; but as it is a lover's dearest solace to make his mistress aware that his attachment survives time and absence, Petrarch, we may easily suppose, was glad, by the medium of his heartfelt poetry, to communicate with her who, he hoped, prized his affection, even if she did not silently return it. Still love, while far from her, did not so pertinaciously and cruelly torment, and he was unwilling to trust himself within the influence of her presence. It required a powerful motive to induce him to pass the Alps; but this occurred after no long period of time. Italy, and especially Rome, was torn by domestic faction and the lawlessness of the nobles. Petrarch saw in the secession of the popes to Avignon the cause of these disasters. His patriotic spirit kindled with indignation, that the head of the church and the world should desert the queen of cities, and inhabit an insignificant province. He had often exerted all his eloquence to induce successive popes to return to the palaces and temples of Italy. Pope Benedict XII. died at this time, and Clement VI. was elected to fill the papal chair. One of the first incidents of his reign was the arrival of an embassy from Rome, soliciting the restoration of the papal residence. Petrarch, having been already made citizen of that city, was chosen one of the deputies.[46] [Sidenote: 1342. Ætat. 38.] He and Rienzi (who afterwards played so celebrated a part) addressed the pope. Their representations were of no avail; but Clement rewarded the poet by naming him prior of Migliarino in the diocese of Pisa.

Petrarch remained at Avignon. The sight of Laura gave fresh energy to a passion which had survived the lapse of fifteen years. She was no longer the blooming girl who had first charmed him. The cares of life had dimmed her beauty. She was the mother of many children, and had been afflicted at various times by illnesses. Her home was not happy. Her husband, without loving or appreciating her, was ill-tempered and jealous. Petrarch acknowledged that if her personal charms had been her sole attraction he had already ceased to love her. But his passion was nourished by sympathy and esteem; and above all, by that mysterious tyranny of love, which, while it exists, the mind of man seems to have no power of resisting, though in feebler minds it sometimes vanishes like a dream. Petrarch was also changed in personal appearance. His hair was sprinkled with grey, and lines of care and sorrow trenched his face. On both sides the tenderness of affection began to replace, in him the violence of passion, in her the coyness and severity she had found necessary to check his pursuit. The jealousy of her husband opposed obstacles to their seeing each other.[47] They met as they could in public walks and assemblies. Laura sang to him, and a soothing familiarity grew up between them as her fears became allayed, and he looked forward to the time when they might sit together and converse without dread. He had a confidant in a Florentine poet, Sennucio del Bene, attached to the service of cardinal Colonna, to whom many of his sonnets are addressed, now asking him for advice, now relating the slight but valued incidents of a lover's life.

He had another confidant into whose ear to pour the history of his heart. This was the public. In those days, when books were rare, reading was a luxury reserved for a few, and it was chiefly by oral communication that a poet's contemporaries became acquainted with his productions; and there was a class of men, not poets themselves, who chiefly subsisted by repeating the productions of others:--"men," writes Petrarch, "of no genius, but endowed with memory and industry. Unable to compose themselves, they recite the verses of others at the tables of the great, and receive gifts in return. They are chiefly solicitous to please their audience by novelty. How often have they importuned me with entreaties for my yet unfinished poems! Often I refused. Sometimes, moved by the poverty or worth of my applicants, I yield to their desires. The loss is small to me, the gain to them is great. Many have visited me, poor and naked, who, having obtained what they asked, returned, loaded with presents, and dressed in silk, to thank me." These were the booksellers of the middle ages. It was thus that the Italian poetry of Petrarch became known; and he, finding that it was often disfigured in repetition, took pains at last to collect and revise it. He performed the latter task with much care; and afterwards said, that though he saw a thousand faults in his other works, he had brought his Italian poetry to as great a degree of perfection as he was capable of bestowing.

He applied himself to Greek at this time under Bernardo Barlaam, a Calabrian by birth, but educated at Constantinople. He had come to Avignon as ambassador from the Greek emperor Andronicus, for the purpose of reconciling the Greek and Roman churches. They read several of the Dialogues of Plato together. The hook entitled "The Secret of Francesco Petrarca" was written at this period. This work is in the form of dialogues with St. Augustin. Petrarch, assisted by the questions and remarks of the saint, examines the state of his mind, laying bare every secret of his soul, its weaknesses and its fears, with the utmost ingenuousness. He relates the struggles of his passion for Laura, and accuses himself of that love of glory which was the spur of so many of his actions. He speaks of the constitutional melancholy of his disposition, which often rendered him gloomy and almost despairing; and he is hid by the saint to seek a remedy for his sorrows, and make atonement for his faults, by dedicating hereafter all his faculties to God.

His literary pursuits were interrupted by a public duty. His friend Robert, king of Naples, died, and was succeeded by his daughter Giovanna, married to Andrea, prince of Hungary. [Sidenote: 1343. Ætat. 39.] The greatest dissension reigned between the royal pair; besides which, the young queen was not of an age to govern, and the pope had pretensions to supremacy during her minority. Petrarch was sent as ambassador to establish the papal claim; and he was commissioned, also, by cardinal Colonna, to obtain the release of some prisoners of rank unjustly detained at Naples.

During this mission he became attached to the party of queen Giovanna, who inherited her father's love of letters; so that afterwards, when her husband was murdered, he believed her to be innocent of all share in the crime. He was displeased, however, with the court and the gladiatorial exhibitions in fashion there. Having obtained the liberty of the prisoners, and brought his mission from the pope to a successful conclusion, he returned to Parma. This part of Italy was in a state of dreadful disturbance, arising from the wars carried on by the various lords of Parma, Verona, Ferrara, Bologna, and Padua. Petrarch, besieged, as it were, in the first-named town, was obliged to remain. He had still the house he had bought, and the books he had collected and left in Italy. He loved his cisalpine Parnassus, as he named his Italian home, in contradistinction to his transalpine Parnassus at Vaucluse; and, occupying himself with his poem of Africa, he was content to prolong his stay in his native country. [Sidenote: 1345. Ætat. 41.] At length the roads became safe, and he returned to Avignon.

And now an event occurred which electrified Italy, and filled the papal court with astonishment and disquietude. Nicola di Rienzi, inspired by a desire to free his townsmen from the cruel tyranny of the nobles, with wonderful promptitude and energy, seized upon the government of Rome, assumed the name of tribune, and reduced all the men of rank, with Stefano Colonna at their head, to make public submission to his power. The change he produced in the state of the country was miraculous. Before, travellers scarcely ventured, though armed and in bodies, to traverse the various states: under him the roads became secure; and his emissaries, bearing merely a white wand in their hands, passed unmolested from one end of Italy to the other. Order and plenty reigned through the land. The pope and cardinals were filled with alarm; while Petrarch hailed with glowing enthusiasm the restoration of peace and empire to his beloved country. He wrote the tribune letters full of encouragement and praise. His heart swelled with delight at the prospect of the renewed glories of Rome; and such was his blind exultation, that he scarcely mourned the death of several of the most distinguished members of the Colonna family, who fell in the straggle between the nobles and Rienzi.

He desired to return to Italy to enjoy the triumph of liberty and law over oppression and licence. More and more he hated Avignon. Pope Clement VI. was a man of refinement, and a munificent prince: but he was luxurious and dissolute; so that the vices of the court, which filled the poet with immeasurable abhorrence, increased during his reign. He had offered Petrarch the dignity of bishop, and the honourable and influential post of apostolic secretary; but the poet declined to accept the proferred rank. Love of independence was strong in his heart; and he desired no wealth beyond competence, which was secured to him by the preferment he already enjoyed. He was at this time archdeacon of Parma, as well as canon of various cathedrals. He obtained with difficulty the consent of his friends to abandon Avignon for Italy. Cardinal Colonna reproached him bitterly for deserting him; and Laura saw him depart with regret. When he went to take leave of her, he found her (as he describes in several of his sonnets) surrounded by a circle of ladies. Her mien was dejected; a cloud overcast her face, whose expression seemed to say, "Who takes my faithful friend from me?" Petrarch was struck to the heart by a sad presentiment: the emotion was mutual; they both seemed to feel that they should never meet again.

Yet, restless and discontented, he would not stay. He had no ties of home. His brother Gerard had taken vows, and become a Carthusian monk: he invited Petrarch to follow his example; but the poet's love of independence prevented this, as well as every other servitude. Belonging to the Romish church, he could not marry; and though he had two children he was not attached to their mother, of whom nothing more is known except the declaration, in the letters of legitimacy obtained afterwards for her son, that she was not a married woman. Of these two children the daughter was yet an infant. The boy, now ten years of age, he had placed at Verona, under the care of Rinaldo da Villafranca.

[Sidenote: 1347. Ætat. 43.]

Leaving Avignon, Petrarch passed through Genoa, where he heard of the follies and downfall of Rienzi; instead, therefore, of proceeding to Rome, he repaired to his house at Parma.

[Sidenote: 1348. Ætat. 44.]

The fatal year now began which cast mourning and gloom over the rest of his life. It was a year fatal to the whole world. The plague, which had been extending its ravages over Asia, entered Europe. As if for an omen of the greater calamity, a disastrous earthquake occurred on the 25th of January. Petrarch was timid: he feared thunder--he dreaded the sea; and the alarming concussion of nature that shook Italy filled him with terror. The plague then extended its inroads to increase his alarm. It spread its mortal ravages far and wide: nearly one half of the population of the world became its prey. Petrarch saw thousands die around him, and he trembled for his friends: he heard that it was at Avignon, and his friend Sennucio del Bene had fallen its victim. A thousand sad presentiments haunted his mind. He recollected the altered countenance of Laura when he last saw her; he dreamed of her as dead; her pale image hovered near his couch, bidding him never expect to see her more. At last, the fatal truth reached him: he received intelligence of her death on the 19th of May. By a singular coincidence, she died on the anniversary of the day when he first saw her. She was taken ill on the 3d of April, and languished but three days. As soon as the symptoms of the plague declared themselves, she prepared to die: she made her will, which is dated on the 3d of April[48], and received the sacraments of the church. On the 6th she died, surrounded to the last by her friends and the noble ladies of Avignon, who braved the danger of infection to attend on one so lovely and so beloved. On the evening of the same day on which she died, she was interred in the chapel of the Cross which her husband had lately built in the church of the Minor Friars at Avignon. With her was buried a leaden box, fastened with wire, which enclosed a medal and a sealed parchment, on which was inscribed an Italian sonnet. If the sonnet were the composition of Petrarch, as the sense of it would intimate, although its want of merit renders it doubtful, this box must have been placed in the grave at a subsequent period.

The sensitive heart of Petrarch had often dwelt on the possibility of Laura's death. Although she was only three years his junior, he comforted himself by the reflection that as he had entered life first so he should be the first to quit it.[49] This fond hope was disapappointed: he lost her who, for more than twenty years, had continually been the object of all his thoughts: he lost her at a period when he began to hope that, while time diminished the violence of his passion, it might draw them nearer as friends. The sole melancholy consolation now afforded him was derived from the contemplation of the past. That at each hour of the day her memory might be more vividly present to his thoughts, he fixed to the binding of his copy of Virgil a record of her death, written in Latin, of which the following is a translation:--

"Laura, illustrious through her own virtues, and long celebrated by my verses, first appeared to me in my youth, in the year of our Lord 1327, on the sixth day of April, in the church of Ste. Claire, at Avignon, at the ninth hour[50] of the morning. And in the same city, during the same month of April, on the same day of the month, and at the same early hour, but in the year 1348, this light was withdrawn from the world; while I, alas! ignorant of my fate, chanced to be at Verona. The unhappy intelligence reached me through the letters of my friend Louis, at Parma, in the same year, on the morning of the nineteenth of May. Her chaste and beautiful body was deposited, on the evening of her death in the church of the Minor Friars at Avignon.[51] Her soul, as Seneca says of Africanus, I believe to have returned to the heaven whence it came. To mingle some sweetness with the bitter memory of this miserable event, I have selected this place to record it, which often meets my eyes; so that by frequent view of these words, and by due estimation of the swift passage of time, I may be reminded that nothing henceforth can please me in life, and that, my chief tie being broken, it is time that I should escape from this Babylon; and, by the grace of God, I shall find this easy, while I resolutely and boldly reflect on the vain cares of years gone by, on my futile hopes, and on their unexpected downfall."[52]

Death consecrates and deepens the sentiment with which we regard a beloved object; it is no wonder, therefore, that Petrarch, whose sensibility and warmth of feeling surpassed that of all other men, should have gone beyond himself in the poems he wrote subsequent to Laura's death. Nothing can be more tender, more instinct with the spirit of passionate melancholy, and, at the same time, more beautiful, than the sonnets and canzoni which lament her loss. It was his only consolation to recur to all the marks of affection he had ever received from her, and to believe that she regarded him with tender interest from her place of bliss in heaven. He indulged, also, in another truly catholic mode of testifying his affection, by giving large sums in charity for the sake of her soul, and causing so many masses to be said for the same purpose, that, as a priest who was his contemporary, informed his congregation, in a sermon, "they had been sufficient to withdraw her from the hands of the devil, had she been the worst woman in the world; while, on the contrary, her death was holy."[53]

The death of Laura, overwhelming as it was, was but a prelude to numerous others. Petrarch had lived among many dear friends; but the plague appeared, and their silent graves were soon all that remained to him of them. Cardinal Colonna died in the course of this same year. He was the last surviving son of the hero Stefano, who lived to become childless in his old age. Petrarch relates in a letter, that during his first visit to Rome, he was walking one evening with Stefano in the wide street that led from the Colonna palace to the Capitol, and they paused in an open place formed by the meeting of several streets. They both leant their elbows on an antique marble, and their conversation turned on the actual condition of the Colonna family: after other observations that fell from Stefano, he turned to Petrarch with tears in his eyes, saying, "With regard to the heir of my possessions, I desire and ought to leave them to my sons; but fate has ordered otherwise. By a reversal of the order of nature, which I deplore, it is I--decrepit old man as I am--who will inherit from all my children." As he spoke, grief seized upon his heart, and interrupted further speech. Now this singular prophecy was fulfilled; and Petrarch, in his letter of condolence, reminds the unhappy father of this scene. The old man, however, survived but a few months the last of his sons.

Petrarch, during the autumn, visited Giacomo da Carrara, lord of Padua, who had often invited him with a warmth and pertinacity, which he found it at length impossible to resist. Pie passed many months in that town, visiting occasionally Parma, Mantua, and Ferrara, being much favoured and beloved by the various lords of these cities. [Sidenote: 1350. Ætat. 46.] On occasion of the jubilee, he went to Rome in pilgrimage, to avail himself of the religious indulgences afforded on that occasion. On his way through Florence, which he visited for the first time, he saw Boccaccio, with whom he had lately entered into a correspondence. Continuing his journey, he met with a serious injury from the kick of a horse on his knee, on the road near Bolsena, which occasioned him great pain, and on his arrival at Rome confined him to his bed for some days. As soon as he was able to rise, he performed his religious duties, and, with earnest prayers and good resolutions, dedicated his future life to the practices of virtue and piety.

Returning from Rome, he passed through his native town of Arezzo. The inhabitants received him with every mark of honour: they showed him the house in which he was born, which they had never permitted to be pulled down nor altered, and attended on him during his visit with zealous affection. On his arrival at Padua he was afflicted by hearing of the death of his friend and protector Giacomo da Carrara; who, but a few days before, had been assassinated by a relative. The son of Giacomo succeeded to him, and though the difference of age prevented the same intimacy of friendship, the young lord loved and honoured Petrarch as his father had done; so that he continued to reside in the city, over which the youth ruled. Sometimes he visited Venice, to which beautiful and singular town he was much attached. The doge, Andrea Dandolo, was his friend; and he exerted his influence to put an end to the destructive war carried on between Venice and Genoa, writing forcible and eloquent letters to the doge. His endeavours were without success; but the injuries which the republics mutually inflicted and received might make them afterwards repent that they had not listened to the voice of the peace-maker.

Nor was the poet's heart wholly closed against the feelings of love; nor could the image of the dead Laura possess all the empire which had been hers, cold and reserved as she was, during her life. His sonnets give evidence that passion had spread fresh nets to ensnare him, when the new object of his admiration died, and death quenched and scattered once again the fire which he was unable to resist.[54] Again, he could think only of Laura; and, on the third anniversary of her death, exclaimed, "How sweet it had been to die three years ago!" [Sidenote: 1351. Ætat. 47.] It was on this anniversary that Boccaccio arrived at Padua, bringing the decree of the Florentine republic, which reinstated him in his paternal inheritance, together with letters inviting him to accept of a professor's chair in their new university.

Such an employment scarcely suited one, who, for the sake of freedom, had declined the highest honours of the catholic church. Petrarch testified great gratitude for the restitution of his property, but passed over their offered professorship in silence. Instead of repairing, as he had been invited, to Florence, he set out to revisit Avignon and Vaucluse. "I had resolved," he writes, "to return here no more; but my desires overcame my resolution, and, in justification of my inconstancy, I have nothing to allege but the necessity I felt for solitude. In my own country I am too well known, too much courted, too greatly praised. I am sick of adulation; and that place becomes dear to me, where I can live to myself alone, abstracted from the crowd, unannoyed by the voice of fame. Habit, which is a second nature, has rendered Vaucluse my true country." His son accompanied him on this occasion. The boy was now fourteen years of age: he was quiet and docile; but invincibly repugnant to learning, to the ne slight mortification of his father, who vainly tried, by reprehension, raillery, and sarcasm, to awaken emulation in his mind.

When Petrarch arrived at Avignon, Clement VI, was very ill, and expected to die. He asked the poet's opinion concerning his disorder; and Petrarch wrote him a letter to give him his advice with regard to the choice of a physician, entreating him to adhere to one, as affording a better prospect, where all was chance, of having his malady understood. The learned body of medical men was highly offended by this letter: they attacked the writer with acrimony; and Petrarch replied in a style of vituperation, little accordant with his usual mild manner. He was highly esteemed in the papal court, and consulted by the four cardinals, deputed to reform the government of Rome; and was again solicited to accept the place of apostolic secretary, which he again refused. "I am content," he said, in reply to his friend the cardinal Talleirand: "I desire nothing more. My health is good; labour renders me cheerful; I have every kind of book; and I have friends, whom I consider the most precious blessing of life, if they do not seek to deprive me of my liberty."

This letter was written from Vaucluse, Petrarch's heart had opened to a thousand sad and tender emotions, when he returned to the valley which had so frequently heard his laments: his sonnets on his return to Provence breathe the softest spirit of sadness and devoted love. He gladly took refuge in his former home from the vices and turbulence of Avignon. He renewed the wandering lonely life he had lived twelve years before. The old peasant still lived with his aged wife; and the poet amused himself with improvements in his garden, which an inundation of the Sorgue overwhelmed and destroyed.

On the death of Clement VI. he was succeeded by Innocent VI. He was an ignorant man; and, from Petrarch's perpetual study of Virgil (who was reputed to be an adept in the art magic), he fancied that the poet was a magician also. [Sidenote: 1352. Ætat. 48.] Petrarch was now most anxious to return to Italy, yet still lingered at Vaucluse. He made an excursion to visit the Carthusian convent, where his brother Gerard had taken the vows. Gerard had acted an admirable and heroic part during the visitation of the plague, and survived the dangers to which he fearlessly exposed himself. Petrarch was received in his monastery with respect and affection; and, in compliance with the request of the monks, wrote his treatise "On Solitary Life."

Winter advanced, and he was most anxious to cross the Alps. He visited his old friend, the bishop of Cavaillon, at Cabrières, and was entreated by him to remain "one day more." Petrarch consented with reluctance; and on that very night such storms came on, as impeded his journey for several weeks. [Sidenote: 1353. Ætat. 49.] At length he crossed the Alps, and arrived at Milan, on his way southward, not having determined in his own mind in what town he should fix his residence, wavering between Parma, Padua, Verona, and Venice. While in this state of indecision, the hospitable reception and earnest invitation of Giovanni Visconti, lord and bishop of Milan, induced him to remain in that city.

Louis of Baviere, emperor of Germany, had been deposed by pope John XXII., and each succeeding pontiff confirmed the interdict. Clement VI. raised Charles, the son of John of Luxembourg, king of Bohemia, to the imperial throne, imposing on him, at the same time, rigorous and disgraceful conditions with regard to his rights over Italy, forcing him into an engagement never to pass a single night at Rome, but enter it merely for the ceremony of his coronation. Charles and his father had visited Avignon in the year 1346, to arrange the stipulations.[55] Some time after, Petrarch wrote a long and eloquent letter to the emperor, imploring him to enter Italy, and to deliver it from the disasters that oppressed it. It is singular that two such lovers of their country, as Dante and Petrarch, should both have invited German emperors to take possession of it: but the emperor was then the representative of the sovereigns of the Western empire, and they believed that, crowned and reigning at Rome, that city would again become the capital of the world, and Germany sink into a mere province. For though Petrarch earnestly implores the emperor to enter Italy, various imprecations against the Germans are scattered through his poems.

[Sidenote: 1354. Ætat. 50.]

Charles did not answer the poet's letter immediately, but he entertained a profound admiration for him; and when he entered Italy, being at Mantua, he sent one of his esquires to Milan, to invite Petrarch to come to him. The poet immediately obeyed, though frost and snow rendered his journey slow and difficult. The emperor received him with the greatest kindness and distinction. Petrarch used the utmost freedom of speech in his exhortations to the emperor to deliver Italy. He made him a present of a collection of antique medals, among which was an admirable one of Augustus, saying to him, "These heroes ought to serve you as examples. The medals are dear to me: I would not part with them to any one but you. I know the lives and acts of the great men whom they represent: this knowledge is not enough for you; you ought to imitate them."

Petrarch's admonitions were vain. After a progress through Italy, and the ceremony of his coronation at Rome; after having made a mere traffic of his power and prerogatives, Charles hastened to repass the Alps, and returned to Germany, as a contemporary historian observes "with a full purse, but shorn of honour."

After the death of the bishop-lord Giovanni Visconti, Petrarch continued to reside at Milan under the protection of his nephew Galeazzo: he was sent by him at one time to Venice to negotiate a peace, and on another to Prague, on an embassy to the emperor Charles. [Sidenote: 1355. Ætat. 51.] Afterwards he was sent to Paris to congratulate king John on his return from his imprisonment in England: he was shocked, in travelling through France, to find that it had been laid waste by fire and sword. [Sidenote: 1360. Ætat. 56.] The invasion of the English had reduced the whole land to a frightful state of solitude; the fields were desolate, and no house was left standing, except such as were fortified. Paris presented a yet more painful spectacle; grass grew in the deserted streets; the sounds of gaiety and the silence of learning were exchanged for the tumult of soldiery and the fabrication of arms. Petrarch was well received, especially by the dauphin, Charles, who cultivated letters and loved literary men. Here, as in every other court he visited, the poet was solicited to remain; but he found the barbarism of Paris little congenial to his habits, and he hastened back to Italy.

When not employed on public affairs, Petrarch lived a life of peace and retirement at Milan. In the summer, he inhabited a country-house three miles from the city, near the Garignano, to which he gave the name of Linterno: when in the city, he dwelt in a sequestered quarter near the church of St. Ambrose. "My life," he says in a letter to the friend of his childhood, Guido Settimo, "has been uniform ever since age tamed the fervour of youth, and extinguished that fatal passion which so long tormented me; and though I often change place, my mode of spending my time is the same in all. Remember my former occupations, and you will know what my present ones are. It seems to me that you ought not only to know my acts, but even my dreams."