Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/743

 T P E T 711 very different position. The Rime in Vita e Morte di Madonna Laura cannot become obsolete, for perfect metrical form has here been married to language of the choicest and the purest. It is true that even in the Can- zoniere, as Italians prefer to call that collection of lyrics, Petrarch is not devoid of faults belonging to his age, and affectations which have imposed themselves with disastrous effect through his authority upon the literature of Europe. He appealed in his odes and sonnets to a restricted audi ence already educated by the chivalrous love -poetry of Provence and by Italian imitations of that style. He was not careful to exclude the commonplaces of the school, nor anxious to finish a work of art wholly free from fashion able graces and from contemporary conceits. There is therefore a certain clement of artificiality in his treatment; and this, since it is easier to copy defects than excellencies, has been perpetuated with wearisome monotony by versi fiers who chose him for their model. But, after making due allowance for peculiarities, the abuse of which has brought the name of Petrarchist into contempt, we can agree with Shelley that the lyrics of the Canzoniere &quot;are as spells which unseal the inmost enchanted fountains of the delight which is the grief of love.&quot; That is to say, Petrarch in this monumental series of odes and sonnets depicted all the moods of a real passion, and presented them in a style of such lucidity, with so exquisite a command of rhythmical resources, and with humanity of emotion so simple and so true, as to render his portrait of a lover s soul applicable to all who have loved and will love for ages. If space sufficed much might be written about the peculiar position held by Petrarch between the metaphysical lyrists of Tuscany and the more realistic amorists of succeeding generations. True in this respect also to his anticipation of the coming age, he was the first Italian poet of love to free himself from allegory and mysticism. Yet he was far from approaching the analysis of emotion with the directness of a Heine or De Musset. Though we believe in the reality of Laura, we derive no clear conception either of her person or her character. She is not so much a woman as woman in the abstract ; and perhaps on this very account the poems written for her by her lover have been taken to the heart by countless lovers who came after him. The method of his art is so general izing, while his feeling is so natural, that every man can see himself reflected in the singer and his mistress shadowed forth in Laura. The same criticism might be passed on Petrarch s descriptions of nature. That he felt the beauties of nature keenly is certain, and he frequently touches them with obvious appreciation. Yet he has written nothing so characteristic of Vaucluse as to be inapplicable to any solitude where there are woods and water. The Canzoniere is therefore one long melodious monody poured from the poet s soul, with the indefinite form of a beautiful woman seated in a lovely landscape, a perpetual object of delightful contemplation. This dis engagement from local circumstance without the sacrifice of emotional sincerity is a merit in Petrarch, but it became a fault in his imitators. Lacking his intensity of passion and his admirable faculty for seizing the most evanescent shades of difference in feeling, they degenerated into- colourless and lifeless insipidities made insupportable by the frigid repetition of tropes and conceits which we are fain to pardon in the master. Petrarch did not distinguish himself by love-poetry alone in the Italian language. His odes to Giacomo Colonna, to Cola di Rienzi, and to the princes of Italy display him in another light. They exhibit the oratorical fervour, the pleader s eloquence in its most perfect lustre, which Petrarch possessed in no less measure than subjective pas sion. Modern literature has nothing nobler, nothing more harmonious in the declamatory style than these three patriotic effusions. Their spirit itself is epoch-making in the history of Europe. Up to this point Italy had scarcely begun to exist. There were Florentines and Lombards, Guelfs and Ghibellines ; but even Dante had scarcely con ceived of Italy as a nation, independent of the empire, inclusive of her several component commonwealths. To the high conception of Italian nationality, to the belief in that spiritual unity which underlay her many discords and divisions, Petrarch attained partly through his disengage ment from civic and local partisanship, partly through his large and liberal ideal of culture. It was the function of the Eenaissance to bring all parts of the Italian peninsula into an intellectual harmony by means of common enthu siasm for arts and letters. But it remained for the present century to witness the political consolidation of the Italian people under a single government. The materials for a life of Petrarch are afforded in abundance by his letters, collected and prepared for publication under his own eyes. These are divided into Familiar Correspondence, Correspond ence in Old Age, Divers Letters, and Letters without a Title ; to which may be added the curious autobiographical fragment entitled the Epistle, to Posterity. Next in importance rank the epistles and eclogues in Latin verse, the Italian poems, and the rhetorical addresses to popes, emperors, Cola di Pdeiizi, and some great men of antiquity. For the comprehension of his character the treatise De Contemptu Mundi, addressed to St Augustine and styled his Secret, is invaluable. Without attempting a complete list of Petrarch s works, it may be well to illustrate the extent of his eru dition and his activity as a writer by a brief enumeration of the most important. In the section belonging to moral philosophy we find De Remcdiis Utriusque Fortunse, a treatise on human happi ness and unhappiness ; De Vita Solitaria, a panegyric of solitude ; De Otio Ecligiosorum, a similar essay on monastic life, inspired by a visit to his brother Gherardo in his convent near Marseilles. On historical subjects the most considerable are Rcrum Memorandarum Libri, a miscellany from a student s commonplace-book, and DC Viris illustribus, an epitome of the biographies of Roman worthies. Three polemical works require mention : Contra cujusdam anonymi Galli calumnias Apologia, Contra Mcdicum qucndam Invectivarum Libri, and DC siii ipsius et multorum Ignorantia, controversial and sarcastic compositions, which grew out of Petrarch s quarrels with the physicians of Avignon and the Averroists of Padua. In this connexion it might also be well to mention the remarkable satires on the papal court, included in the Epistolse sine Titulo. Five public orations have been preserved, the most weighty of which, in explanation of Petrarch s conception of literature, is the speech delivered on the Capitol upon the occasion of his coronation. Among his Latin poems Africa, an epic on Scipio Africanus, takes the first place. Twelve Eclogues and three books of Epistles in verse close the list. In Italian we possess the Canzoniere, which includes odes and sonnets written for Laura during her lifetime, those written for her after her death, and a miscellaneous section containing the three patriotic odes and three famous poetical invectives against the papal court. Besides these lyrical composi tions are the semi-epical or allegorical Trionfi, Triumphs of Love, Chastity, Death, Fame, Time, and Divinity, written in terza rima of smooth and limpid quality. Though these Triumphs, as a whole, are deficient in poetic inspiration, the second canto of the Trionfo della Morte, in which Petrarch describes a vision of his dead love Laura, is justly famous for reserved passion and pathos tempered to a tranquil harmony. The complete bibliography of Petrarch forms a considerable volume. Such a work was attempted by Domenico Rossetti (Trieste, 1828). It will be enough here to mention the Basel edition of 1581, in folio, as the basis for all subsequent editions of his collected works. Two editions of the Canzoniere deserve especial notice, that of Marsand (Padua, 1820) and that of Leopardi in Le Monnier s col lection. Nor must Fracassetti s Italian version of the Letters (published in 5 vols. by Le Monnier) be neglected. De Sade s Life of the poet (Amsterdam, 1704-67) marks an epoch in the history of his numerous biographies ; but this is in many important points untrustworthy, and it has been superseded by Gustav Koerting s exhaustive volume on Petrarca s Leben und Werke (Leipsic, 1878). Georg Voigt s Wiederbelebung dcs dassischen Altertliums (Berlin, 1850) contains a well-digested estimate of Petrarch s relation to the revival of learn ing. Meziere s Petrarque (1868) is a monograph of merit. English readers may be referred to a little book on Petrarch by Henry Reeve, and to vols. ii. and iv. of Symonds s Renaissance in Italy. (J. A. S.) PETREL, the name applied in a general way to a group of Birds (of which more than 100 species are recognized) from the habit which some of them possess of apparently walking on the surface of the water as the apostle St Peter (of whose name the word is a diminutive form) is recorded (Matt. xiv. 29) to have done. For a long while the Petrels were ranked as a Family, under the name of Procell-