Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/851

 PETRARCH

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PETRARCH

wandering, and in 1333 he made a journey through northern Frame and through Germany, record- ing his observations and experiences in his letters. Back at Avignon for a while, and now invested with a canonical benefice, he set forth for Italy, in 1336, in the company of some members of the Colonna family, with which he hafl been closely allied for some time past, and in January, 1337, he entered Rome for the first time. By the end of the year he a])]iears to have settled in Vaucluse, and there he found the poiicv and the inspiration that pro- duced so man>- 1 if his 1 icst lyrics. Accepting an invitation to go to Rome on Easter Sunday, 1341, he waspubHcly crowned as poet and historian in the Capitol. For a number of years he wandered about from one Italian city to another, seeking the codires that pre- served tile pricrlcss litcra,i-y worksof until luily tin ■certainly discovered worUsot ( 'ircni and parts of the " Inr-titulioms" of Quintilian), ami (iccasiuu- ally occupying cleiical posts. He formed a friendship with Cola di Rienzi, and in 1347 saluted him in verse as the restorer of the order of the an- cient Roman Republic. A friendship of greater impor- tance was that wliieh he now contracted with Boc- caccio, who, like himself, desired to promote human- istic studies and researches. Refusing an offer to as- sume the rectorshij) of the Florentine .Studio (or Uni- versity) just established, he resumed his peregrina- tions, spending a good part of the timi it A'piiifi in( accompanied there for a while by Boc- caccio and by Leo Pilatus, from whom both he and Boc- caccio had hoped to gain some direct knowledge of Greek and its literature. The transfer of the pontifical Court back t o Rome in 1367 filled him with un- bounded joy.

As a scholar, Pe- trarch possessed encyclopedic knowl- edge, and much of this he has set down in his Latin works, which constitute the larger part of his pro- duction in both prose and verse. They in- clude the "Africa"'

Fr.\ncesco Petrarch

Painting by Andrea del Castagno

Convent of Sant' .-\poIlonia, Florence

"De vita solitaria"; the ''De ocio religio.soruni ", praising monastic life, etc.; some "Psalmi pu>niten- tiales" and some prayers; a number of historical and geographical works, among which figure the "Rerum memorandarum libri qiiattuor" and the "De viris illustribus", treating of illustrious men from Romulu.s down to Titus; some invectives (especially the " In- vectiva in Galium", assailing the French); a few orations; and finally his very many let- ters, which cover the whole course of his life from 132.5 to the end, and one of the most interesting of which is the "Epistola ad posteros", writ- ten after 1370, and furnishing an autobiography of consider- able importance. A Latin comedy, "Philologia", has not yet been discovered.

In spite of the magnitude of Petraroh'scompositionin Latin and the stress which he put upon it himself, his abiding fame is based upon his Italian verse, and this fiirnis two nota- ble coni]>il:iti(iiis, the "Trionfi" and the "("anzonicre ". The "Trionii ".written in /erzarnna, and making large use of the vision aheady put to so good stead by Dante, is allegorical and moral in its nature. In the " Trionfi " we have a triumphal procession in which there take part six leading allegorical figures: Love, Chastity, Death, Fame, Time, and Divinity, Chastity triumphs over its predecessor, and finally Divinity triumphs over them all and remains supreme, as the symbol of peace, eternal life, and the everlasting union of thepiift with his belo\ed Laura. The "Canzoniere", the poet's master- ])iece, and one of the imperishable monu- ments of the world's literature, was first jiut into shape by the aiithor and made known by him under tlie title of "Rerum vulgarium frag- uienta". It consists of sonnets (and these arc the more niuner- ous) of C(iii:nni, of !<(.ttiiiL',oiba!lute, and of madrigals. The love motive prevails ill the majority of llicse, but poUtical
 * iii(l patriotic feeling

regulates some of the most famous of t hem, and still others are infused with moral and other

in hexameters, dealing with the Second Punic war arid sentiments. Some lyrics bearing apparent relations

especially with the adventures of Soipio Africanus, in to the "Canzoniere", but excluded by the port from

pseudo-epic fashion and in a way which hardly elicits its final make-up, have been j)ublishccl under the

our admiration, although the author deemed it his title of "Extravaganti". In the strictly amorous

greatest work; the "Carmen bucoHcum" made up of part of the "Canzoniere", Petrarch sings of his lady twelve eclogues; the "Epistola; metricae" in three living and dead, and, reviving in his psychological books of hexameters, interesting for the autobiograph- manner the methods of the earlier dnlce slil nuovo ical matter which they contain; several moral trea- School, particularly reflects the spirit of Cino da tises, such as the "De contemptu mundi", which con- Pistoia. But all is not imitation on the part of his sists of three dialogues between the author and St. Muse; his inner man is expressed in even greater de- Augustine, both of them in the presence of Truth; the gree than the literary formahsm which he owed to his