Page:A History of Italian Literature - Garnett (1898).djvu/73

Rh those days, and devoted himself entirely to literature. The "Babylonish captivity" of the Church at Avignon, violently as he denounces it in his writings, was highly favourable to his interests, for it helped him to the patronage of Cardinal Colonna, whose brother, afterwards Bishop of Lombis, he had known intimately at the University of Bologna. It was probably from this source that he derived means to mingle with gay society and indulge in the fashionable follies of eccentric costume, which he ridicules in his later writings; for letters as yet afforded him no sure subsistence, and his scanty patrimony had been embezzled or wasted by his guardians. On April 6, 1337, occurred the most momentous event of his life, his vision of Laura in church "at the hour of prime," which made him a poet. But for this, he might never have written in the vernacular. Cicero and Virgil, his literary idols, enjoined Latin composition, to which in all probability he would have exclusively addicted himself but for the need of celebrating Laura in a language which she understood.

The question of Laura's identity will be best considered along with the poems devoted to her praise and her adorer's passion. Neither love nor society, meanwhile, kept Petrarch from letters, and his reputation waxed daily. He displayed a happy faculty for maintaining relations with the great, equally honourable to both parties, exempt alike from presumption and servility. In 1330 be spent a considerable time with Bishop Colonna at his Pyrenean diocese of Lombes, and on his return was formally enrolled as a member