Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/377

 PETEA PETRARCH 363 facade are two pilasters which support a second pediment, the central block of which has a cylindrical form and bears the urn. This pedi- ment, being divided into three portions, pre- sents nine faces of rocks. The edifice has gen- erally been held to be a tomb or temple, but E. H. Palmer concludes from the female figures sculptured into the nine faces of the pediment, which he takes to represent the nine muses, that it was the muswum or philharmonic in- stitution of Petra. There are several tombs which present very elegantly constructed fronts. One of them contains a number of graves or loculi, cut in the floor, and placed so as to make the most of the room ; and the wall to the left of the entrance bears some rude repre- sentations of sepulchral monuments, with two Nabathean inscriptions underneath. Further on are some arched terraces of brick adjoining excavations below ; and above them is a tem- ple, also excavated, and with an elaborately Corinthian Tomb at Petra. carved front, which was at one time used as a Christian church. The tombs are so numerous that Fergusson has called it "the petrified city of the dead ;" but it is probable that many of these excavations spoken of as tombs were temples, altars, and convents. Other inter- esting remains are the Deir, a huge temple hewn in the rock, and a theatre, likewise exca- vated, with 33 rows of seats, 120 ft. in diame- ter, and capable of accommodating from 3,000 to 4,000 spectators. The city is supposed to be the same as the Sela of the Old Testament, both names signifying rock. For the ancient history of Petra, see EDOM, and HORITES. After its capture by the Mohammedans it disappears altogether from history, and it remained un- visited and forgotten, at least after the begin- ning of the 13th century, until its discovery by Burckhardt in 1812. It was visited by Irby, Mangles, Banks, and Leigh in 1818 ; sub- sequently by Laborde and Linant, Robinson, Stevens, and others ; in 1864 by the duke de Luynes, with Lieut. Yignes and Lartet; and in 1870 by Prof. E. H. Palmer and Tyrwhitt Drake. See Laborde and Linant, Voyage de V Arable Petree (Paris, 1830; English ed., Lon- don, 1838), and the works cited in the article EDOM. PETRARCH (It. PETEAECA or PETEAECHA), Francesco, an Italian poet, born in Arezzo, July 20, 1304, died at Arqua, near Padua, July 18, 1374. His father, Pietro or Petracco (whence the surname of the son), a notary at Florence, was exiled like Dante by the Neri ; but his wife, a member of the distinguished Castegiani family, was allowed in the year following Pe- trarch's birth to return to the vicinity of Flor- ence, whence in 1312 she went to Pisa, joined her husband at Avignon in 1313, and in 1315 moved to Carpentras, where Petrarch received the rudiments of education. Against his wish- es he was made to study law at Montpellier (1319-'23)andBologna (1323-' 6), but devoted most of his time to the classics and poetry. During the latter pe- riod he lost both of his parents and most of his patrimony, and he and his brother subsequent* ly qualified themselves for ecclesiastical pre- ferments. His favorite authors were Cicero, Seneca, Livy, and Vir- gil; he assiduously col- lected and transcribed precious Latin manu- scripts, and at a later period studied Greek, especially Plato. In 1327 (April 6) he first beheld Laura, the ob- ject of his lifelong ad- miration and love, at the church of St. Clara, Avignon. His friend Boccaccio regarded her as an imaginary be- ing. Others denied, not her existence, but her being married. Nothing positive was known about her until the 18th century, when the abbe de Sade, a French biographer of Pe- trarch, identified her as the daughter of a Provencal nobleman, Audibert de Noves, the wife of Hugues de Sade, and the mother of numerous children, who died of the plague in her 40th year, April 6, 1348, the date given by Petrarch. De Sade's assertions, however, are not generally accepted, and the poet himself throws no light upon Laura's history. He pic- tares her as a lady of ideal beauty of person and mind, who cherished his homage without requiting his love. He in vain attempted to stifle his passion by the excitement of travels in France, Flanders, Germany, and Italy, and of public affairs, and by an illicit connection with another woman, who bore him several children.