Page:Petrach, the first modern scholar and man of letters.djvu/19

 ILLUSTRATIONS

Through the kindness of M. de Nolhac, and with the generous permission of the École des hautes Études at Paris, the editors have been enabled to reproduce three plates of unusual historical interest.

I. with the inscription, Transalpina, soliludo mea jocundissima—my delightsome Transalpine retreat which appears on the front cover of this volume, was discovered by M. de Nolhac in Petrarch's own copy of Pliny's Natural History. A reference in the book to the Fountain of the Sorgue suggested to its owner the idea of recalling by a few strokes of the quill his memories of a spot where he had spent so many years. This sketch, his only essay at pictorial reproduction which has come down to us, is an interesting illustration of the versatility of self-expression which distinguished him from his predecessors and contemporaries.

II.—, which forms the frontispiece, is taken from a manuscript in the National Library at Paris, and its history has been carefully traced by M. de Nolhac (op. cit., pp. 376 sqq.). It adorns the first page of a copy of Petrarch's own work, The Lives of Illustrious Men, which was transcribed with unusual care for his last ix