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 364 PETRARCH Disgusted with Avignon, which he called the western Babylon, he fixed his abode in 1337 in the valley of Vaucluse. In 1340 both the senate of Rome and the university of Paris des- ignated him as poet laureate, and after an ex- amination by King Robert of Naples, he was crowned at the capitol in Rome, April 8, 1341. In 1342 he was sent by the Romans to Avi- gnon, jointly with Rienzi, on a fruitless mission to induce Clement VI. to return to Rome. In 1343 the pope sent him on a mission to Naples. He next spent some time at the court of Par- ma, returning to Avignon in 1347, where he saw Laura for the last time. He set out for Italy with strong hopes of Rienzi's abiding suc- cess, but at Parma received the news of his overthrow (Dec. 15, 1347). He now alternate- ly resided at Padua, where Jacopo Carrara pro- cured him a canonry, and at Parma, where the pope made him an archdeacon, and visited many Italian cities. His Florentine citizenship and property were restored to him in 1351, and he was invited to assume the direction of the pro- jected university, but declined to settle in Flor- ence. At Venice he became acquainted with the doge Andrea Dandolo, and repeatedly at- tempted to restore peace between that republic and Genoa. He was once more at Vaucluse and Avignon in 1351-'2, and in 1353 began his connection with the Visconti in Milan, who sent him on diplomatic missions to Venice (1354), to Charles IV. of Germany at Prague (1356), and to Paris (1360). He resided in Venice and its vicinity from 1361 to 1370, when he pro- posed to visit the pope at Rome, but was taken ill at Ferrara and withdrew to the village of Arqua in company with his natural daughter and her husband, Francesco da Brossano. De- spite his infirmities, he finished in the last year of his life a Latin translation of Boccaccio's story Griseldis, and sent it to the latter about ten days before his death. He was buried in the parish church of Arqua. Petrarch's erudi- tion was immense. His principal Latin works, De Vera Sapientia, De Remediis utriusque For- tunm, De Vita Solitaria, andDe Contemptu Mun- di, combined Platonic ideas with the doctrines of Seneca, and were regarded as the first pro- test against the subtleties of the age and as the forerunners of modern philosophy. Among the many important manuscripts which he brought to light are Quintilian's "Institutes," Cicero's "Familiar Letters," and the "Epistles to Atti- cus." His Africa, an epic, and other Latin poems, though faulty in many respects, were superior to most preceding works of the kind. By pro- moting the revival of classical learning he ren- dered immortal service to the intellectual pro- gress of mankind, and the Italian language is indebted to him for great improvements. He was equally illustrious as the opponent of ec- clesiastical corruption and as the poetical and political champion of Italian unity. In Italian lyrical poetry he is without a rival. His prin- cipal work, n canzoniere, or Rime di Petrar- ca, consists of more than 300 sonnets, about PETREL 50 canzoni or odes after the model of the trou- badour songs (including three dedicated to the eyes of Laura, called by the Italians the three sister graces), and three short poems in terza rima (Trionfo d'amore, Trionfo della morte, and Trionfo della fama). His Latin wri- tings appeared at Basel in 1496, and a more complete edition in 1581. A new and revised edition of his De Rebus Familiaribus et Varia has been published by Fracasetti (3 vols., Flor- ence, 1859-'63). His Italian poetry, first print- ed at Venice in 1470, has passed through hun- dreds of editions, the best being by Marsand (2 vols., Padua, 1819-'20). Marsand collected a library of 900 volumes relating to Petrarch's life, a catalogue of which appeared at Milan in 1826 ; in 1829 it was purchased by Charles X. for the Louvre. A portion of his inedited writings was published by " A. H." in Trieste in 1874. Besides the early commentaries on Petrarch, many have been written in modern times, including those of Tassoni, Muratori, Biagioli, and Leopardi. Still greater is the number of biographies, of which the most im- portant are those by De Sade (French, 3 vols., Amsterdam, 1764-'7; abridged English trans- lation by Mrs. Dobson, 2 vols., London, 1775) ; Baldelli (Italian, Florence, 1797 ; 2d ed., 1837) ; Thomas Campbell, " Life of Petrarch " (2 vols., 1841) ; Alfred Mezieres, Petrarque, etude apres de nouveaux documents (Paris, 1867) ; Ludwig Geiger, Petrarlca (Leipsic, 1874), the most ana- lytical of all ; and a multiplicity of poetical and prose writings relating to his life, genius, and relations with Laura, published in 1874 in va- rious places on the anniversary of his death. English translations of his Italian poetry have appeared from time to time in the present cen- tury, and a complete edition by various authors was published in 1860. The most recent spe- cimen versions are contained in "The Sonnet: its Origin, Structure, and Place in Poetry," by Charles Tomlinson (London, 1874). PETREL, the common name of the web- footed oceanic birds constituting the subfamily procellarince, characterized by tubular nostrils, placed on the basal portion of the culmen and opened in front ; the beak as long as the head, straight, more or less compressed, grooved as if composed of several pieces, with the tip strong, arched, suddenly hooked, and acute. The best known genera are procellaria (Linn.), the petrels proper, and thalassidroma (Vigors), the stormy petrels. The general form of the body is like that of the gulls, but the feet have a very rudimentary hind toe, and the beak is very different, the apical being distinctly sepa- rated from the basal portion ; the habits als<r are like those of the gulls, but more oceanic, as they pass most of their lives in skimming over the surface of the waves ; they rarely visit the shore except for breeding, and then select rocky shores, depositing their eggs on the bare rock. They have a habit of running with closed wings upon the surface of the waves. The flight is rapid, powerful, and con-