Petrarch's eight years in Milan td96k307w

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
PREFACE (page v)
INTRODUCTORY NOTES (page ix)
A SUMMARY OF PETRARCH'S LIFE AND WORK BEFORE COMING TO MILAN (page xvii)
CHAPTER
I. PETRARCH IN SEARCH OF A HARBOR (page 3)
II. 1353: SUMMER (page 16)
III. 1353: SEPTEMBER (page 30)
IV. 1353: OCTOBER-DECEMBER (page 39)
V. EARLY 1354 (page 50)
VI. THE MISSION TO VENICE (page 53)
VII. 1354: FROM THE RETURN FROM VENICE TO THE DEATH OF THE ARCHBISHOP (page 61)
VIII. 1354: FROM THE ADVENT OF THE EMPEROR TO THE END OF THE YEAR (page 77)
IX. 1355: FROM THE FIRST OF THE YEAR TO THE FLIGHT OF THE EMPEROR (page 88)
X. 1355: JULY-DECEMBER (page 103)
XI. 1356: JANUARY-MAY (page 117)
XII. THE MISSION TO PRAGUE (page 122)
XIII. 1356: SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER (page 125)
XIV. 1357: JANUARY-MAY (page 135)
XV. 1357: SUMMER AT GAREGNANO (page 141)
XVI. 1357: FROM MID-SEPTEMBER TO THE END OF THE YEAR (page 150)
XVII. 1358: JANUARY-JUNE (page 159)
XVIII. 1358: JULY-DECEMBER (page 170)
XIX. 1359: JANUARY-JUNE (page 177)
XX. 1359: JULY-DECEMBER (page 192)
XXI. 1360: JANUARY-JUNE (page 203)
XXII. 1360: JULY-DECEMBER (page 207)
XXIII. THE MISSION TO PARIS (page 220)
XXIV. 1361: MARCH-JUNE (page 226)
XXV. 1353-1361: ADDENDA (page 232)
XXVI. A SUMMARY OF PETRARCH'S LIFE AND WORK AFTER LEAVING MILAN (page 245)
APPENDIX: A TABULAR VIEW OF THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN PETRARCH AND NELLI, 1353-1360 (page 254)
INDEX OF PERSONS (page 259)
INDEX OF WORKS OF PETRARCH (page 263)

Citation preview

THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA PUBLICATION NO. 69

- PETRARCH’S EIGHT YEARS IN MILAN

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~PETRARCRH’S

EIGHT YEARS

IN MILAN

by

ERNEST HATCH WILKINS

| President of the Mediaeval Academy of America

N74 SORE SY Peo FZ

easy

THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS | 1958

CopyRIGHT BY

THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA 1958

Liprary oF Coneress Catatoc Carp NuMBER 58-13250

Printed at Crimson Printing Company Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Preface This book is an intimate biography of Petrarch for the long period of his residence in Milan. His main activities in this period, as indeed throughout his life, were his humanistic studies, his writing, and his incessant endeavor to perfect what he had already written: these activities, within this period, in-

cluded the bringing of Homer into the realm of humanistic scholarship, the writing of the really great treatise De remediis utriusque fortune and of such lesser things as a guidebook for a voyage down the western Italian coast and eastward to the Holy

Land, and revisions of Italian poems made on pages, still extant, that bear autograph notations of so personal a character that one seems to have been standing beside him when he made

them. But in addition to carrying on these activities he now engaged, more than at any earlier or later time, in public affairs, serving as a representative of the Visconti in missions to Venice, to Prague, and to Paris; he dealt with all sorts and conditions of men, from the Emperor to a minstrel; he main_ tained an amazingly extensive correspondence; he entertained Boccaccio and other guests; he busied himself hopefully with planting, preferably the planting of laurel trees; and he knew many joys and many sorrows. The attempt has been made to utilize all existing evidence as to his outer and inner experiences in this period, and to present them as exactly as possible in the order in which they entered

into his life. Tidings of events that meant much to him are recorded, for instance, not as of the times when those events actually occurred but as of the times when he learned of them; and letters addressed to him are treated not as of the dates when they were written but as of the times when they ‘came into his hands. This procedure results in frequent discontinuities in subject: but life itself is discontinuous, and the very frequency of the discontinuities that appear in this book Vv

vi PREFACE

own experiences. _

may serve to illustrate the extraordinary variety of Petrarch’s Many of these experiences have been objects of controversy hitherto, or have not received due notice. The attempt has been made to discuss such matters adequately; and the biographical

narrative, accordingly, is interspersed with such discussions, some of them of considerable length. Passages from Petrarch’s prose writings are quoted in Latin in cases in which his ipsissima verba are thought to be of importance or interest or of notable literary quality, and in English if the passage in question is quoted only for its general content.

The frontispiece is taken, with the kind permission of the Fondazione Treccani degli Alfieri, from the cooperative Storia di Milano, Vol. II (Milan, 1954), p. 580.

It is my hope that the reader may find pleasure in the intimate companionship with Petrarch that this book seeks to provide. Such companionship has meant much to me for many years.

Newton Centre, Massachusetts

Lable of Contents

PREFACE | Vv INTRopucTORY Notes 1X Page

A SUMMaRY OF PETRARCH’s LIFE AND WorK |

BEForE Comine To MiLtan | XVII

CHAPTER

J. PrrrarcH IN SEARCH OF A Hargor 3

II. 1353: SUMMER 16

Ill. 1353: SEPTEMBER 30 IV. 1353: Ocroper-DECEMBER 39

V. Earty 1354 50 VI. Tue Mission to VENICE 53 VII. 1354: From THE RETURN FROM VENICE TO THE

| DEATH OF THE ARCHBISHOP 61

VIL. «61354: From THE ADVENT OF THE EMPEROR TO

THE END OF THE YEAR 77

IX. 1355: From THE First oF THE YEAR TO THE

FLIGHT OF THE EMPEROR 88 X. 1355: JuLty-DECEMBER ~ 103

XI. 1356: January-May | 117

XII. “THe Misston To PRAGUE 122

XIII. 1356: SeEpreEMBER-DECEMBER 125

XIV. 1357: January-May 135 Vil

| TABLE OF CONTENTS viii XV. 1357: SUMMER AT GAREGNANO 141

THE YEAR 150

XVI. 1357: From Mip-SepreMBER To THE END oF

AVI. 1358: January-JUNE 159

XVII. 1358: Juty-DEcEMBER 170 XIX. 1359: JANUARY-JUNE | 177 XX. 1359: JuLy-DECEMBER | 192 XXI. 1360: JANUARY-JUNE | 203 XXII. 1360: Juty-DECcEMBER 207

XXIIL Tue Mission To Parts 220

XXIV. 1361: MarcH-JuNE 226 XXV. 1353-1361: ADDENDA 232

| XXVI. A Summary or Perrarcy’s Lire anp Work

AFTER Leavine M1ILan 245

APPENDIX: A TAaBuLAR VIEW OF THE CORRESPONDENCE

BETWEEN PETRARCH AND NELLI, 1353-1360 254

INDEX OF PERSONS 259 InpEx oF Works oF PETRARCH 263

Introductory Notes Petrarchan Editions

Quotations from the works of Petrarch are taken from or based on the following editions. Collective Editions Librorum Francisci Petrarche impressorum annotatio (Venice, 1501). Referred to as Coll. 1501.

Rime, Trionfi e poesie latine, ed. by Ferdinando Neri, Guido Martellotti, Enrico Bianchi, and Natalino Sapegno (= Vol. 6 in the series La letteratura italiana, storia e testi, Milan and Naples, 1951).

Referred to as Rime etc. ,

Prose, ed. by Martellotti, P. G. Ricci, Enrico Carrara, and Bianchi (= Vol. 7 in the same series, Milan and Naples, 1955). Referred to as Prose.

, The Canzoniere Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, ed. by Gianfranco Contini (Paris, 1949) .4

Manuscript Drafts and Notations for Italian Lyrics or for the Triumphs In Vat. Lat. 31962 Carl Appel, Zur Entwickelung itahienischer Dichtungen Petrarcas (Halle, 1891). Referred to as Appel 1. Mario Pelaez, “Descrizioni e trascrizioni,” in Bullettino dell Archivio paleografico italiano, Il (1910), 163-216. -*In the present book parenthesized numerals following abbreviated first lines of poems in the Canzoniere indicate their positions in the final form of the Canzoniere.

* Statements made with regard to the position of notations in this manuscript are based on examination of the two photographic reproductions: I] manoscritto vaticano latino 3196 autografo di Francesco Petrarca riprodotto in eliotipia a cura della Biblioteca Vaticana (Rome, 1895), and R. Accademia d'Italia, I] codice vaticano lat. autografo del Petrarca, ed. by Manfredi Porena (Rome, 1941). ix

x INTRODUCTORY NOTES Angelo Romano, I] codice degli abbozzi (Vat. Lat. 3196) di Francesco Petrarca (Rome, 1955). Referred to as Romano.? In Casanatensis A. III. 31 Appel 1.*

Bucolicum carmen

In Antonio Avena, I] Bucolicum carmen e i suoi commenti

inediti (Padua, 1906). Referred to as Avena. Epistolae metricae

In general, in Francesco Petrarca, Poémata minora, ed. by Domenico Rossetti, II-IJI (Milan, 1831-1834). III 18, 19, and 24: ed. by Bianchi in Rime etc.°

Epitaph for Andrea Dandolo In Fracassetti’s edition of the Epistolae variae (see below), p. 325.

| De otio religioso Ed. by Giuseppe Rotondi, the editing being completed by Martellotti (= Studi e testi, 195, Citta del Vaticano, 1958).

De remediis utriusque fortune In Coll. 1501. | , Translation Phisicke against Fortune, aswell prosperous, as aduerse, con-

teyned in two Books. Whereby men are instructed, with lyke indifferencie to remedie theyr affections, aswell in tyme of the brygt shynyng sunne of prosperitie, as also of the foule lowrying stormes of aduersitie. Expedient for all men, but most necessary for such as be subiect to any notable insult of eyther extremitie. Written in Latine by Frauncis Petrarch, a most famous Poet, and Oratour. And now first Englished by Thomas Twyne (London, 1579).

| | De vita solitaria

Ed. by Martellotti in Prose. |

* Petrarch’s abbreviated notations are quoted in the expanded forms given by Romano.

*Petrarch’s abbreviated notations are in general quoted in the expanded forms given by Appel in his Die Triumphe Francesco Petrarcas

(Halle, 1901), pp. 109-115. * The numeration of Coll. 1501 is followed in all cases. For the sev-

eral variant numerations see my The “Epistolae metricae” of Petrarch:

A Manual (Rome, 1956), pp. 11-16. , ,

INTRODUCTORY NOTES xi Translation

The Life of Solitude, translated by Jacob Zeitlin (University

of Illinois Press, 1924). Referred to as Zeitlin.

Invectiva contra quendam magni status hominem sed nullius scientie aut virtutis

part in Prose. | | Ed. by Ricci (Florence, 1949), who reprints his text in large Itinerarium breve de Janua usque

ad lerusalem et Terram Sanctam ,

Ed. by Giacomo Lumbroso in R. Accademia dei Lincei, Rendiconti, Classe di scienze morali, Ser. IV, IV (1888), 390-403, and again in his Memorie italiane del buon tempo antico (Turin, 1889), pp. 16-49. A critical edition by Giuseppe Billanovich is forthcoming. Orations _ In general, in Attilio Hortis, Scritti inediti di Francesco Petrarca

(Trieste, 1874). Referred to as Hortis 1. The oration delivered in Paris is printed by A. Barbeu du Rocher in his ““Ambassade de Pétrarque auprés du roi Jean le Bon,” in Aca-

demie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres de l'Institut Impérial de France, Mémoires présentés par divers savants, Ser. III, Ill (1854),

172-228. Referred to as Barbeu du Rocher. | Rerum memorandarum libri

Ed. by Billanovich (= Edizione nazionale, Vol. V, Part I, Florence, 1943). Epistolae familiares

_ Le familiari, Vols. I-UI ed. by Vittorio Rossi and Vol. IV ed. by Rossi and Umberto Bosco (= Edizione nazionale, Vols. X-XIII, Florence, 1933-1942). Referred to as Rossi 1.° Epistolae sine nomine

Ed. by Paul Piur, in his Petrarcas “Buch ohne Namen” und die Papstliche Kurie (Halle, 1925). Referred to as Piur 1. ° Rossi’s numeration of the Familiares is followed in all cases. For a Table showing the respects in which his numeration differs from the now superseded numeration followed by Fracassetti in his edition and in his translation of the Familiares, see my The Prose Letters of Petrarch: A Manual (New York, 1951), pp. 5-6. A mimeographed copy of a list of

addenda et corrigenda for that manual will be sent, without cost, to any scholar who may ask for one.

Xii INTRODUCTORY NOTES Epistolae seniles In general, in Coll. 1501."

X 2, XV 7 and XVII 2, ed. by Martellotti, and XVIII 1 (Pos-

teritati), ed. by Ricci, in Prose. , Epistolae variae

In Epistolae de rebus familiaribus et variae, ed. by Giuseppe Fracassetti, m1 (Florence, 1863). Referred to as Fracassetti 1. Miscellaneous Letters

In The Miscellaneous Letters of Petrarch, ed. by Wilkins and

Billanovich (forthcoming).®

Extant Letters Addressed to Petrarch For a list of these letters, with references to their places of pub-

pp. 115-122.° | |

lication, see The Prose Letters of Petrarch (referred to in n. 6),

Periodicals Abbreviated references will be used for certain periodicals, as

follows:

ASI, Archivio storico italiano. , ASL. Archivio storico lombardo. El, Etudes ttaliennes.

GSLI, Giornale storico della letteratura italiana.

NAV. Nuovo archivio veneto. |

America. , SP. Studi petrarcheschi. a

PMLA. Publications of the Modern Language Association of

11-14. ,

For a Table showing the respects in which this numeration differs from the incorrect numeration of the collective editions of 1554 and 1581 and (in a very few cases) from the numeration followed by Fracassetti in his translation of the Seniles, see the same manual, pp. 6-8. “For earlier editions of individual letters see the same manual, pp. * Such letters are referred to by the parenthesized abbreviation LAP followed by the arabic numerals they bear in the list in The Prose Letters, except that the extant letters of Nelli are referred to, without the LAP, by the Roman numerals they bear in the books listed on p. xiii as Cochin 1 and Cochin 2. It is to be assumed that letters addressed to

Petrarch and mentioned without use of the LAP or (in the case of Nelli) without Roman numerals are not extant.

INTRODUCTORY NOTES Xili Other Books and Articles

Other books and articles that are referred to in two or more chapters, with the abbreviated references that will be used for

them, are as follows: .

Annoni. Ambrogio Annoni, “I] Petrarca in villa,” in F. Petrarca

e la Lombardia (Milan, 1904), pp. 97-127. . |

_ Azario-Cognasso. Pietro Azario, Liber gestorum in Lombardia, ed. by Francesco Cognasso, in Muratori (see below), 2d ed., XVI,

Part IV) (Bologna, 1925-1939). |

Baluze-Mollat. Etienne Baluze. Vitae paparum avenionensium, 2d ed., ed. by Guillaume Mollat, 2 vols. (Paris, 1916 and 1927). Bayley. C. C. Bayley, “Petrarch, Charles IV, and the ‘Renovatio

imperu, ” in Speculum, XVII (1942), 323-341. Bigi. Quirino Bigi, “Di Azzo da Correggio e dei Correggi,” in RR. Deputazioni di storia patria per le provincie modenesi e parmensi, Atti e memorie, III (1866), 211-258. Billanovich 1. Giuseppe Billanovich, Petrarca letterato, I: Lo scrittoio del Petrarca (Rome, 1947). Boccaccio-Masséra. Giovanni Boccaccio, Opere latine minori, ed. by A. F. Masséra (Bari, 1928). Boni. Marco Boni, review of Petrarch’s Invectiva contra quendam magni status hominem sed nullius scientie aut virtutis, ed. by Ricci, in SP, III (1950), 230-276. Bosco. Umberto Bosco, “I] Petrarca e l’umanesimo filologico,”

in GSLI, CXX (1942), 65-119.

| Carrara 1. Enrico Carrara, “Le ‘Antiquis illustrioribus’,” in SP, I (1948), 63-96. Claude Cochin. Claude Cochin, ‘‘Recherches sur Stefano Colonna,” in Revue d’histoire et de littérature religieuses, X (1905),

352-383.

Cochin 1. Henry Cochin, Un ami de Pétrarque: lettres de Francesco Nelli a Pétrarque (Paris, 1892). Cochin 2. Idem, Un amico di Francesco Petrarca: le lettere del Nelli al Petrarca (Florence, 1901). A translation of Cochin 1, containing some revisions (and several typographical errors). Cognasso. Francesco Cognasso, “L’unificazione della Lombardia sotto Milano,” in Storia di Milano (see below), V, 1-567.

The Cortusi. Cortusiorum historia de novitatibus Paduae, et Lombardiae ab anno MCCLVI. usque ad MCCCLXIV, in Muratori, XII (Milan, 1728).

Cosenza. M. E. Cosenza, Petrarch’s Letters to Classical Authors (Chicago, 1910).

Xiv INTRODUCTORY NOTES

(Paris, 1909). a 7

Delachenal. Roland Delachenal, Histoire de Charles V, I and II

Eubel. Conrad Eubel, Hierarchia catholica medi aevi, 2d ed., I (Miinster, 1913). — | , Foglietta. Uberto Foglietta, DelPistorie di Genova (Genoa,

1597). | Foresti 1. Arnaldo Foresti, Aneddoti della vita di Francesco

Petrarca (Brescia, 1928). |

Foresti 2. Idem, “Il figlio di Francesco Petrarca,” in Archivio _storico per le province parmensi, N.S., XXIV. (1934), 363-390. Foresti 3. Idem, “Pietro da Muglio a Padova e la sua amicizia

163-173. ,

col Petrarca e col Boccaccio,” in L’Archiginnasio, XV (1920),

Fracassetti 2. Lettere di Francesco Petrarca ... delle cose familiari.. . lettere varie, trans. and ed. by Fracassetti, 5 vols. (Florence, 1863-1867).

Fracassetti 3. Idem, In Epystolas Francisci Petrarcae de rebus famuiliaribus et vartis adnotationes (Fermo, 1890). Galli. Emilio Galli, ‘Le ville del Petrarca:nel Milanese,” in ASL,

XXXII (1905), 359-369. oo

~ Giulini. Giorgio Giulini, Memorie spettanti alla storia... di Milano ne’ secoli bassi and Continuazione.delle Memorie ..., 12

Parts (Milan, 1760-1771). , Heitmann. Klaus Heitmann, “La genesi del ‘De remediis utriusque fortune’ del Petrarca,” in Convivium, N.S., I (1957), 9-30... —

- Lazzarini 1. Vittorio Lazzarini, ‘Marino Faliero: avanti il dogado,” in NAV, V (1893), 95-197. Mommsen 1. T. E. Mommsen, Petrarch’s Testament (Ithaca, 1957).

Muratori. L. A. Muratori, Rerum italicarum scriptores. Negroni. Carlo Negroni, Francesco Petrarca a Novara e la sua arringa ai novaresi ... (Novara, 1876). - ‘Nolhac. Pierre de Nolhac, Pétrarque et ’humanisme, 2d ed., 2

vols. (Paris, 1907). a ,

_ Novati. Francesco Novati, “Il Petrarca ed i Visconti,” in F.

Petrarca e la Lombardia (Milan, 1904), pp. 11-84. ,

Piur 2. Paul Piur, Petrarcas Briefwechsel mit deutschen Zeitgenossen (== Konrad Burdach, Vom Mittelalter zur Reformation,

~ VIT) (Berlin, 1933). | , Porta-Salomon. Iohannes Porta, Liber de:coronatione Karoli IV.

1930). a

imperatoris, ed. by Richard Salomon (Hannover and Leipzig, 1913). — Quarta. Nino Quarta, Chi era Confortino? (Naples, 1938). — _. ‘Rossi 2. Rossi, Studi sul Petrarca e sul Rinascimento (Florence,

INTRODUCTORY NOTES XV Rotondi. Giuseppe Rotondi, “Le due redazioni del De otio del Petrarca,” in Aevum, IX (1935), 27-77. Sabbadini 1. Remigio Sabbadini, “Note filologiche sul ‘Secretum’ del Petrarca,” in Rivista di filologia e di istruzione classica, XLV

(1917), 26-27. |

Stella. Giorgio Stella, Annales genuenses, in Muratori, XVII

(Milan, 1730).

Storia di Milano. Storia di Milano (cooperative), several vols. (Milan, Fondazione Treccani degli Alfieri per la Storia di Milano,

1953- ).

Ullman 1. B. L. Ullman, “The Composition of Petrarch’s ‘De vita solitaria’ and the History of the Vatican Manuscript,” in Mis-

cellanea Giovanni Mercati (= Studi e testi, 121-126, Citta del Vaticano, 1946), [V, 107-142. Ullman 2. Idem, Studies in the Italian Renaissance (Rome, 1955). Vattasso 1. Marco Vattasso, Del Petrarca e di alcuni suoi amici (= Studi e testi, 14, Rome, 1904).

Villani. Matteo Villani, Cronica, IV (Florence, 1825). Weiss 1. Roberto Weiss, [/ primo secolo delPumanesimo (Rome, 1949).

Werunsky 1. Emil Werunsky, Italienische Politik Papst Innocenz VI. and Kénig Karl IV. (Vienna, 1878). Wilkins 1. E. H. Wilkins, The Making of the “Canzoniere” and Other Petrarchan Studies (Rome, 1951).

Wilkins 2. Idem, Studies in the Life and Works of Petrarch (= The Mediaeval Academy of America, Publication No. 63, Cambridge, Mass., 1955). Zacour. N. P. Zacour, ‘Petrarch and Talleyrand,” in Speculum, XXXI (1956), 683-703.

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A Summary of Petrarch’s Life and Work Before Coming to Milan 1304-1326. Petrarch was born in Arezzo on 20 July 1304 (his father, a notary, had been exiled from Florence, his property

_ being confiscated). Most of his early childhood was spent at L’Incisa, in Tuscany. A younger brother, Gherardo, was born in or about 1307. In 1312 the tamily moved to Provence. Petrarch’s mother died in 1318 or 1319: his earliest extant poem is an elegy in Latin verse written on her death. The years from 1320 to 1326 were spent mostly in the unwilling study of law at the University of Bologna. 1326-1337. On his father’s death Petrarch returned to Avignon; and there for a time he and Gherardo lived a life of fashionable gayety. In 1327 Petrarch fell in love with a Laura whose identity is not known: she did not return his love. The malversation of his father’s executors soon made it necessary for him to earn his living, and he chose the ecclesiastical profes-

sion. In 1330 he entered the service of Cardinal Giovanni Colonna as a commensal chaplain. In 1333 he went on a northern

journey, visiting Paris, Cologne, and other cities. In 1335 Benedict XII gave him his first canonry. In 1337 his son Giovanni was born, of an unknown mother. In this same year he went on a journey to Rome. In this period and in all later periods covered in this Summary he wrote Italian lyrics, short Latin poems—chiefly epistolae metricae—and letters in Latin prose. Within this period he wrote also a comedy, Philologia, that has not survived. 1337-1341. On his return from Rome he acquired a modest

house at Vaucluse, in the valley of the Sorgue, some fifteen - miles from Avignon; and there he lived quietly—except for occasional visits to Avignon—devoting himself to study and XVIil1

XVill SUMMARY writing. Within these years he began the two major works on which, during much of his life, he based his chief hopes of fame:

the Africa, an epic on the life of Scipio, and the De wiris illustribus, a series of biographies of classic heroes. In the autumn

of 1340 he received and accepted an invitation to be crowned in Rome as poet and historian; and wrote the oration that he

was to deliver on that occasion. | 1341-1342. He left Provence in February 1341, with his friend Azzo da Correggio, going first to Naples, where, as a preliminary to his coronation, he underwent a three-day examination by King Robert, who pronounced him worthy to be crowned. The coronation ceremony took place in Rome on 8 April. He went then with Azzo to Parma, and witnessed the capture of the city by Azzo and his brothers. He remained in or near Parma for about a year, continuing work on the Africa. , 1342-1343. In the spring of 1342 he returned to Vaucluse, where he remained—except for visits to Avignon—until the autumn of 1343. Within this period Pope Clement VI gave him _ two additional canonries. Early in 1343 Petrarch learned, with great distress, of the death of King Robert. In 1343 Gherardo _ became a Carthusian monk, and entered the monastery of Montrieux. In that same year Petrarch’s daughter Francesca

was born. In the course of this stay in Provence Petrarch resumed work on the Africa and the De viris illustribus, wrote his Augustinian Secretum, and began a treatise on the cardinal virtues, the Rerum memorandarum libri. It was at this time, in all probability, that he wrote his Latin Pemitential Psalms, and two poems in terza rima: the Triumph of Love and the Triumph of Chastity. At this time also he began work on a collection of his Italian lyrics—the first form of the collection which, in its much later and final form, is known as the Canzoniere. 1343-1345. In the autumn of 1343 he went to Naples on

- mussions for Clement VI and for Cardinal Colonna. From _ Naples, at the end of the year, he went to Parma, where he

bought a house. Early in 1345 local warfare forced him to flee to Verona, but he was able to return to Parma in the summer or autumn. While in Parma he went on with the Africa and the

BEFORE COMING TO MILAN X1X Rerum memorandarum libri: neither of these works was ever to be completed.

1345-1347. Late in 1345 he returned to Vaucluse. Within the two years that he then spent in Provence Clement gave him a Parmese canonry. He also offered him both a bishopric and

an apostolic secretaryship: he refused both offers. Early in 1347 he visited Gherardo at the monastery of Montrieux. In the summer he became enthusiastically interested in the revolution

of Cola di Rienzo. In September he obtained from the Pope

the legitimation of his son Giovanni. During this stay in Provence he wrote eight Eclogues, and two prose treatises, the De vita solitaria and the De otio religioso: in this latter treatise the serene life of the monastery of Montrieux is reflected. At

this time, also, he began work on a second form of the Canzoniere.

1347-1351. Late in 1347 he returned to Italy, intending probably to go to Rome, there to give such support as he could to Cola; but en route he received a disillusioning report of Cola’s recent actions. His enthusiasm for Cola came to a sudden end; and he went to Parma. The year 1348 was the terrible year of the Black Death: Laura died in the spring, and Cardinal Colonna

in the summer. In that same summer Clement awarded to

Petrarch the archdeaconate of the Cathedral of Parma. In the spring of 1349 Jacopo da Carrara, the lord of Padua, gave him a canonry in the cathedral of that city, and from that time on he was much in Padua. In 1350, which had been proclaimed by the Pope as a year of Jubilee, Petrarch made a pilgrimage to Rome, stopping, on the way, in Florence, where he made the acquaintance of Boccaccio and of Francesco Nelli, who were

thereafter to be among his closest friends. While in Italy Petrarch wrote four more Eclogues; and after the death of Laura he wrote the Triumph of Death and began the writing of the Triumph of Fame. At this time also he began work both on a collection of his Epistolae metricae and on a collection of his prose letters.

1351-1353. In the early summer of 1351 he returned to Provence. He spent as much time as he could in Vaucluse, but

XX SUMMARY _ he was in Avignon during the autumn of 1351 and the following

winter, and again for part of the autumn of 1352. Clement again offered him both a bishopric and an apostolic secretaryship: he again refused both offers. During this stay in Provence Petrarch, always concerned with public affairs, became more concerned than ever before, especially with the state of affairs in Rome and in Naples, with the warfare between Genoa and Venice, with the Emperor’s neglect of his imperial responsi-

bilities, with the fate of Cola di Rienzo, now a prisoner in Avignon, and with the deplorable conditions prevailing in the

papal court. He came to hate Avignon as intensely as he loved Vaucluse. During this stay in Provence he went on with the De viris illustribus, with the Triumph of Fame, and with the making of his collections; and as a result of his indignation at

the action of physicians attending the Pope he wrote his Invective contra medicum. Several of the letters that he wrote at this time are violent expressions of his horror at the conditions in the papal court: these, and certain other letters, he planned to gather in a small special collection, the collection that was to be known as the Liber sine nomine, since the names of the addressees were not to be given. The story of Petrarch’s last months in Provence will be told

in Chapter I. |

PETRARCH’S EIGHT YEARS IN MILAN

BLANK PAGE

CHAPTER I

Petrarch in Search of a Harbor | Petrarch was a man of many desires, which differed greatly in character, scope, and intensity, and were at times in conflict; but his dominant desire, at least after about 1340, was the desire for personal freedom—freedom to study and to write,

freedom from obligations of any sort that would interfere seriously with his study and his writing. This desire is by no means to be dismissed as selfish: among the strands of which

it was woven there was, to be sure, the desire for self-fulfillment—a desire which in Petrarch’s case took the form of a craving for lasting fame—but his desire to study and to write was in its essence a desire to learn and to communicate what he had learned: he studied and wrote non sibi, sed amicis, sed omnibus, sed etiam posteritatt.

For the enjoyment and the effective use of his personal freedom he needed a quiet abiding-place, a “harbor’’—to use a favorite figure of his own. Vaucluse, the dearest spot on earth to him, was in itself just such a harbor as his heart desired; but — it was so close to Avignon, to him the most hated spot on earth, that its usual peacefulness was all too often shattered.

Last Months in Provence | By the summer of 1352—having been in Provence for a year —Petrarch had made up his mind to return to Italy; but he did

not know where, in Italy, he could find a harbor. He owned a house in Parma, and held the archdeaconate of the cathedral there; but the Bishop of Parma was hostile to him. He had been | happy in Padua, where Jacopo da Carrara had given him a canonry, and where he had found a dear friend in Bishop Ildebrandino Conti; but Jacopo had been assassinated, and— 3

4 CHAPTER ONE late in 1352—I]debrandino died. He had received an invitation to settle in Florence and lecture in the newly founded university, but he had not accepted—nor had he declined—the invitation: he seems never to have forgiven Florence for the exile of his parents and the confiscation of his patrimony. He had written

to the friend whom he called “Laelius” (Angelo or Lello di Pietro Stefano dei Tosetti),? then in Rome, to ask whether conditions there were such that he could find a harbor in the Eternal City; but there is no reason to think that he ever received—or that he could have received—a favorable reply. Niccolo Ac- — ciaiuoli, the Grand Seneschal of the Kingdom of Naples, had invited him to establish himself there; but to Petrarch Naples

without King Robert was not Naples. | In November 1352 Petrarch actually started for Italy; but a wild storm and news of the presence of bandits on his chosen road led him to abandon his journey. At this time, however, he sent some of his servants on to Italy, instructing one of them to return with a report on the state of affairs he might expect to find if he should resume residence there. Early in 1353 that servant returned. His report is thus summarized by Petrarch in Fam. xv 3, written on 22 February 1353: “Et heus” inquit, “quid moliris? dum Caribdim fugis, proram agis in Scyllam: curie curas horrescis, nec immerito, nescis autem que te curarum moles maneat si pedem in Italia posueris; quos reditus tui fama iam nunc amicorum cuneos erexerit,; quot in partes distrahendus animus quem colligere meditaris; quot etsi non tuis, certe tuorum negotiis estuandum sit, quantumque perdendum temporis, cuius modicum habes egens multo; quid patiendum tibi molestiarum ut multorum desideriis satisfiat.”

Evidently this servant had been sent to places where Petrarch had many friends and acquaintances.

Petrarch then settled down again in Vaucluse for the time being; but he did not abandon his hope of returning to Italy. In Fam. xv 3, he writes (the italics in this quotation and in the next are mine): “fessam ... vite turbinibus carinam, domnec *On whom see Lillian H. Hornstein, “Petrarch’s Laelius, Chaucer’s Lollius?” in PMLA, txm (1948), 64-84.

PETRARCH IN SEARCH OF AHARBOR so portus appareat, hos inter scopulos alligavi.” And in the epzstola

metrica beginning Exul ab Italia, written about the same time to his friend Philippe de Cabassoles, Bishop of Cavaillon, he writes:

Nam res, fama, novas properat nisi pandere laetas,

Rure tuo statu quae restant tempora vitae ,

Degere... ,

About the first of March he sent other exploratory messengers to Italy, who returned in April (these dates are inferential) with a report that is referred to thus in Fam. xvi 10, written on 28 April: Premissis enim rursus in Italiam exploratoribus nuntiis, invenio, etsi nil usquam constet esse tranquillum, aliquam tamen fesso votivi portus efigiem non deesse. Quicquid erit feram, dum meminero toto orbe nil Babilone turbidius, nil peius.

This report was none too satisfactory: It gave no assurance of tranquillity; it promised not a sure harbor, but “aliquam .. . votivi portus effigiem”; and it suggested, to Petrarch at least, the possibility of new troubles—“Quicquid erit feram.” Never-

theless, it led Petrarch to decide to return to Italy very soon. In April he went once more to Montrieux to visit his brother

Gherardo, taking with him, as companion, a youth who was serving him as a copyist.

Before he left Provence he received an invitation from the

Gonzaga, transmitted through their Chancellor, Petrarch’s friend Giovanni Aghinolfi, to occupy a house that was occupied at the time by one of the Gonzaga sons. In Var. 24, Petrarch’s reply to Aghinolfi’s letter, he expresses his hearty thanks; and says that he could not think of dispossessing a Gonzaga son, and

that he is coming straight to Mantua and will talk things over there: Sed haec et alia propediem mutuo coram sermone tractabimus. Ad vos enim hinc nunquam deflexo tramite et me meus urget animus, et trahit eximia caritas tanti viri.

The possibility that he might settle in Mantua is left open. Even when he left Provence he had not decided to what

6 CHAPTER ONE place in Italy he would go, but his expectation was that he

would seek harbor either in Mantua or in Padua: this we know

from the closing words of Var. 17, written to an unknown addressee after his arrival in Italy:

succedat. ... qui procellas perosus Parmensium simultatum, sedem otio Italico Mantuam Pataviumque delegeram, Mediolani mihi sedes est! ut appareat vera esse quae loquimur, quamque nihil ex consilio

The Journey |

Leaving Vaucluse late in May or in June, as will presently

_ appear, Petrarch went to Italy by way of the pass of Mont Genévre, where there came to him at least the conception and probably some of the phrasing of his magnificent salutation to

Italy (Met. 11 24): | | Salve, cara Deo tellus sanctissima, salve | | tellus tuta bonis, tellus metuenda superbis, tellus nobilibus multum generosior oris. . .

It is probable that he was accompanied by the youth who had been his companion in April on his visit to Gherardo at Montrieux.

He must have taken with him many of his precious books

(though we know from Sen. x 2 that he left some books at Vaucluse), and a vast amount of MSS of writings of his own that were in need of completion or revision or were in process of collection. Presumably he took with him, also, some other cherished possessions, such as his collection of ancient Roman coins.

One incident of the journey is known to us through the opening sentence of Var. 17: at some point—we do not know where—he had to leave one of his horses, “fessum atque aegrum,”

to be cared for in the stables of a friend or acquaintance. | Dates of Departure and Arrival

Before leaving Vaucluse Petrarch had felt it necessary to go once more from Vaucluse to Avignon, mainly, no doubt,

PETRARCH IN SEARCH OF A HARBOR 7 _ to bid farewell to certain friends. He had gone into the city on 26 April, and had remained there until the 28th. In Fam. xvi 10, written on the latter day, he states that he expects to leave Avignon as soon as he has finished that letter, and to spend

not more than eight days in Vaucluse before starting for Italy. If he carried out the plan thus stated he returned to Vaucluse — on 28 April and started for Italy by 7 May. The distance be-

tween Vaucluse and Milan is about 300 miles, much of it through mountainous country. Travelling on horseback, he

would have been able to cover the distance within two weeks or so. If then he had carried out his plan to start for Italy by 7 May, he would have reached Milan by the end of the month. But it is by no means certain that he did carry out the plan. We know from Boccaccio’s letter Ut huic epistole (LAP 54) that

news of Petrarch’s settlement in Milan had reached Forli, which is about 150 miles from Milan, by 12 July. This means that Petrarch must have reached Milan not later than the first days of July, and that he must have left Vaucluse not later than the latter part of June. Thus his departure from Vaucluse took place within a period beginning on 7 May and ending in the latter part of June, and his arrival in Milan took place within

a period beginning late in May and ending in the first days of July. Fam. xvu 3, written in mid-September to his friend Guido Sette, who was in Avignon, contains these clauses: dum estate media egrum te post terga relinquerem neque ab incolumi exegissem ut nulla urgente necessitate phebeis caput ardori-

bus obiectares interque Cancri rabiem ac Leonis delicatiore corpusculo pulverem mecum susciperes ac sudorem.

This passage serves to indicate that Petrarch’s journey took place within the latter rather than the earlier portion of the period just defined. It seems safe to conclude that Petrarch left

Vaucluse late in May or early in June, and reached Milan in June or very early in July.’ ? Cochin attempts to date Petrarch’s arrival by working back from a passage in Fam. xix 16, in which Petrarch says that he is just about

8 CHAPTER ONE , Harbor Found On his arrival in Milan Petrarch went to see the Archbishop Giovanni Visconti, then lord of that city and of all Lombardy;

the Archbishop invited him to settle in Milan; and Petrarch accepted the invitation. Their interview is reported in three — letters written in the course of the summer of 1353, Var. 7 and

Fam. xvi 11 and 12. , ,

In Var. 7, written soon after Petrarch’s arrival in Milan,

he writes: Qui me pontificibus romanis, qui Galliae Siciliaeque regibus aperta toties me fronte negaveram, huic Italicorum maximo, satis humane postulanti, negare non potui. Subitis et inexpectatis precibus ac maiestate viri circumventus obstupui. Consilia hominum inania!

In Fam. xvi 11, written to Francesco Nelli on 23 August

he writes: |

cum Mediolanum pervenissem, maximus iste italus iniecit manum

tam suaviter tantoque cum honore quantum nec merui nec speravi, verumque ut fatear, nec optavi. Excusassem occupationes turbeque odium et quietis avidam naturam, nisi parantem loqui velut cunta presagiens prevenisset, et in maxima frequentissimaque urbe solitudinem ille michi in primis et otium promisisset .. .

In Fam. xvi 12, written on 27 August, in answer to Nelli’s x—a letter in which Nelli, without himself reproaching Petrarch,

speaks of the indignation of Petrarch’s Florentine friends on hearing of his establishment in Milan—he writes: quid enim agerem, quibus uterer verbis, quas quererem fugas, quibus viis evaderem, quibus artibus tanti precatoris pondus excute_ rem, cui lentius obedire rebellare erat? ... [llud equidem inter multa vehementius urgebat, et reverentie mee stimulus et maiestati sue pondus accesserat, quod ipse quoque vir esset ecclesiasticus et quan-

tum in tam excelso fortune gradu fieri potest, devotissimus; cuius to begin his fifth year of residence in Milan. He dates this letter as of 28 May 1357: see Cochin 1, p. 106, and 2, p. 14. But Fam. x1x 16 bears no month-and-day date in Rossi 1. On Guido Sette see Guido Zaccagnini, “Guido Sette amico del Petrarca,” in Parma a Francesco Petrarca (Parma, 1934), pp. 237-247.

PETRARCH IN SEARCH OF A HARBOR 9 conversationem fugere vir honestus sine nota superbie vix posset. Proinde quid michi luctanti nunc etiam negantique vim attulerit, etsi verecundius silentio premeretur, tibi tamen tacitum nolim. Dum enim scrupulosius quererem quid ex me vellet, cum ad nichil eorum quibus egere videretur aptus essem aut dispositus, nichil ex me velle respondit nisi presentiam meam solam, qua se suumque dominium

crederet honestari. Hic, fateor, humanitate tanta victus erubui; tacui et tacendo consensi seu consensisse visus sum. Quid enim contra hec dicerem, non fuit vel certe non affuit. Protests and Explanations

Many of Petrarch’s friends received the news of his settlement in Milan with more or less astonishment and indignation. Boccaccio’s letter Ut buic epistole, written in a curious semiallegorical form, full of attacks on the Archbishop, reaches its stinging climax in what purports to be an account of a conversation between Petrarch and Boccaccio held while Boccaccio was visiting Petrarch in Padua in 1351: Inde indignatione crescente, vidisse potuisti eum [Silvanus, representing Petrarch], elevatis oculis in superos, multa dicentem atque in Egonem [the Archbishop] infausta omnia imprecantem. Quibus

et te [Petrarch] multo sermone assensum prestitisse memini.. . .

Nelli, himself perplexed but willing to trust Petrarch’s judg-

ment, wrote thus of other friends (doubtless including Boccaccio): “nescio quid suspitionis incidit in fideles tuorum animos amicorum, qui ad te scribunt satirice satis.” An otherwise

unknown Gano del Colle, presumably a Florentine, wrote a sonnet in which, according to a manuscript note, “dominum _ Franciscum commendat ... hortans eum quod discedat a tyrannide dominorum de Mediolano, et accedat ad libertatis locum,” and sent it to Petrarch by a giullare who sang it to him. Giovan-

ni Aghinolfi wrote a letter which led Petrarch to write in his reply: “hortaris ut fugiam meque in libertatem eripiens .. . rerum meliorum fundamenta non deseram.” And an unidentified friend in Provence wrote a letter to which Petrarch refers thus: “querens . . . ex me quid est quod ego, tantus ruralis affectator

10 CHAPTER ONE ;

mea.” 3 |

otii, in tot urbana negotia sim relapsus sponte, ut sibi videtur, Petrarch’s only extant explanations are those contained in the passages in Var. 7 and Fam. xvi 11 and 12 that have been quoted above. They are in effect, as follows: The Archbishop is the greatest of Italians, a man of power and of majesty, and a man of high ecclesiastical status, faithful in his ecclesiastical observances. His invitation was highly honorable, and was made immediately, satis humane, and suaviter. He promised Petrarch that even in the city he should have solitudinem and otium, and that no demands should be made upon him: “nichil ex me velle respondit nisi presentiam meam solam, qua se suumque dominium crederet honestari.”

But there is much more to be said. | It may be noted, first of all, that the known protests against Petrarch’s self-subjection to a man regarded as a tyrant came

(with the possible exception of the letter of the unidentified friend in Provence) from Florentines and a Mantuan, all of whom had reason to fear the expanding power of the Archbishop, and were therefore not in a position to judge Petrarch’s

action objectively. Petrarch, moreover, though he often referred to Florence as his patria, and though he cherished his Florentine friends, never evinced any love for Florence, and, as already noted, seems never to have forgiven Florence for the exile of his parents and the confiscation of his patrimony. Even so, however, and even granting that Boccaccio’s report of the abhorrence of the Archbishop expressed by Petrarch in 1351 may have been exaggerated, and that the expression on which that report was based may have been hardly more than a host’s

concession to opinions expressed by a Florentine guest, the fact remains that Petrarch, at that time, must have expressed, at the least, a strong disapproval of the Archbishop. It may be noted also that the survey of world conditions contained in Fam. xv 7, written in the spring of 1352, con> Nelli’s letter is his x. For Gano see Misc. 3; and for the letters from Aghinolfi and the friend in Provence see Fam. xvii 10.

PETRARCH IN SEARCH OF A HARBOR 11 tains these passages: “quicquid Alpes Apenninumque et antiquum Italie terminum Rubiconem interiacet, tota fere quam —

magna est, tyrannide premitur immortali,” and “Tuscia .. . hodie inter ambiguam libertatem formidatumque servitium titubanti vestigio, quam in partem casura sit dubitat.” Even granting that the whole tone of the letter is extremely

pessimistic, and that the “tyranny” of the first passage presumably refers to many lordships east of Lombardy as well as to Milan, the fact remains that when Petrarch wrote this letter he was certainly classing the Archbishop as a tyrant. It is of course possible that during the year that had passed since the writing of this letter Petrarch’s opinion had changed. Warfare between Milan and Florence had ceased, and a treaty of peace had been signed at Sarzana early in 1353. And while

the Archbishop continued to be territorially acquisitive, there is, I believe, no record of any action of his between his succession to sole power in 1349 and the summer of 1353 that can fairly be characterized as tyrannical.

| The Archbishop’s brother Luchino, who until his death in 1349 had been the active partner in the lordship of Milan, had

conquered Parma in 1345; and Petrarch, after his return to Parma late in 1347, had had a courteous correspondence with

Luchino, apparently through the kind offices of Paganino Besozzi, Luchino’s podesta in Parma.*

The Archbishop himself had appointed as his vicar Gabrio Zamorei of Parma, an eloquent jurist and a writer of prose and verse; and Gabrio had long been a friend of Petrarch, to whom in 1344 he had addressed an epistola metrica, to which Petrarch

had replied with his Met. I 9.° When Petrarch came to Milan in the summer of 1353 he had as yet no assurance of finding his desired harbor anywhere in Italy. He was expecting, as we have seen, to go to Mantua or Padua; but the fact that both places were in his mind shows that he had reached no definite decision. And his sense of need *See Novati, pp. 13-20. °See Novati, pp. 21-23, and Vattasso 1, pp. 37-63.

12 CHAPTER ONE for a harbor, even a harbor that might not be entirely satisfactory, was very strong indeed. It may be noted, furthermore, that the fact that Milan was ruled by one man rather than by a democratically elected body of temporary officers would not have troubled Petrarch at all.

He had been unreservedly devoted to King Robert; he had lived happily in Parma under the lordship of Azzo da Correggio; he had lived happily in Padua under the lordship of Jacopo da Carrara; and he approved one-man rule in principle.

In Fam. xvu 4, written to Guido Sette in October 1353, he writes: “allud constat quod a sapientibus diffinitum est, optimum reipublice statum esse iusto sub unius imperio.”

In and after 1347, moreover, when he was profoundly stirred by the revolution of Cola di Rienzo, Petrarch was moved often by the desire to play a beneficial part in the great affairs

of his troubled world. Consequently, the fact that in Italy at this time Milan was the most powerful state and the Archbishop

_ the most powerful ruler would have led him to think favorably

Milan. | |

rather than unfavorably of the possibility of residence in He did indeed require solitude; but the Archbishop had

promised him that he should have it—and while he would cer-

tainly have preferred solitude in the country to solitude in a city, the vitally important thing for him was that he should have

solitude. He had no prospect of country solitude anywhere in

Italy; indeed he had no assurance even of city solitude in Mantua or Padua or in any Italian city other than Milan. In view of the foregoing considerations it would seem that

Petrarch’s acceptance of the Archbishop’s invitation was

neither strange nor reprehensible. |

Had Petrarch Thought of Milan as a Possible Harbor?

The passages quoted above from Var. 7 and Fam. xvi 11 and 12 give the impression that Petrarch’s decision to settle in Milan was entirely unpremeditated; and students of Petrarch who have had occasion to speak of Petrarch’s settlement there

PETRARCH IN SEARCH OF A HARBOR 13 have without exception and without question accepted that impression as valid. Novati, for instance, writes thus: - .. non puo mettersi in dubbio che, quando nel maggio 1353 il Petrarca scese in Italia . . . ei non pensava né punto né poco a prendere stanza a Milano. Qui egli si reco pertanto in seguito ad una risoluzione improvvisa, ad un caso che ebbe virtu d’indurlo a deviare della strada che stava percorrendo.®

It is certain that Petrarch was genuinely surprised by the warmth and urgency of the Archbishop’s invitation and by the Archbishop’s immediate readiness to satisfy his need for personal freedom. But the fact of that surprise does not suffice

to prove that Petrarch, before coming to Milan, had not thought of the possibility that he might find a harbor there. Indeed, reflection on Petrarch’s previous despatches of messengers instructed to report as to possible harbors, on the fact that even when he entered Italy he had not decided whither to go, and on certain other considerations that will be mentioned presently, has led me to the formulation of an hypothesis which I believe to be sound, though hardly susceptible of proof:

namely, that Petrarch, while still in Provence, had thought of Milan as a place where he might find a harbor; that he went there

thinking that he might receive an invitation to settle there (he had received similar invitations, as he says in Var. 7, from papal

sources and from the kings of France and of Naples), but not

knowing whether he would receive such an invitation, or whether the conditions of such an invitation, if 1t were given, would be acceptable; and that he went there prepared to go on to Mantua or Padua if he did not receive an acceptable invitation in Milan. I am inclined to believe also—though these ideas are not essential to my hypothesis—that Milan was one of the places

that he had told his exploratory messengers to visit, perhaps telling them also to confer there with Gabrio Zamorei; that their report had been somewhat favorable, though not definitely so; and that prior to Petrarch’s arrival Zamorei had discussed with the Archbishop the possibility that he might be invited to settle in Milan. * Novati, p. 21.

14 , CHAPTER ONE Petrarch may well have thought that Milan would at least be free from such preéxisting difficulties as he would have found in places were he already had obligations; and he may well have borne in mind the fact that Milan was a center of powerful in-

_ fluence. And there are certain considerations which, while by no means conclusive, seem to me to support my hypothesis. Why, indeed, should Petrarch have gone to Milan at all? The most direct route from the pass of Mont Genévre to Mantua would have taken him through Pinerolo, Alessandria, and Piacenza, well to the south of Milan. In Fam. xvi 11, Petrarch says: “maximus iste italus iniecit manum tam suaviter tantoque cum

honore quantum nec merui mec speravi ...” (italics mine). And in that same letter, the sentence “Excusassem occupationes turbeque odium et quietis avidam naturam, nisi parantem loqui velut cunta presagiens prevenisset, et in maxima frequentissimaque urbe solitudinem michi in primis et ottum promisisset,” both as a whole and specifically in the words that I have italicized, seems to me to indicate that even before Petrarch’s arrival the _ Archbishop had been made acquainted with his probable coming and with his needs. He must always have known, to be sure, that a settlement in Milan would rouse the resentment of those who had cause to hate or fear Milan, and that this would be especially true—despite the peace of Sarzana—of his Florentine friends in general, and most

especially of Boccaccio; but he might well have thought that such resentment, at least in its possible initial bitterness, would soon pass. At the worst, it would be one of the things that he might have to endure, and for such endurance as might be neces-

sary he was ready: “Quicquid erit feram.” At the very worst, Milan would be far better than Avignon. He knew, moreover, that he could not please everybody. Perhaps the fable of the old man, his son, and the ass was already in his mind: he was to make use of it a few months later. Furthermore, a careful reading of the passages quoted above from Var. 7 and Fam. xvi 11 and 12 will show that they con- —

tain nothing that Petrarch might not well have written if the actual course of events had been what I believe it to have been.

PETRARCH IN SEARCH OF A HARBOR 15 The three letters, in that case, do not tell the whole truth, but what they do tell is true. Petrarch, on my hypothesis, did not know that he would receive an invitation or that he would accept it if it should be given; he was quite prepared to go on to Mantua

or Padua if he did not receive an acceptable invitation; and he was genuinely surprised by the warmth and understanding of the invitation that he did receive. Under such circumstances, what more could he reasonably have been expected to say to his correspondents? What need would there have been for his telling them that even before his arrival in Milan he had considered the possibility of taking harbor there if he should receive an acceptable invitation? Given the unquestioned fact of his surprise, what appropriateness would there have been in his going behind that fact? Milan, as the event proved, was indeed a real harbor for him. Despite his congenital restlessness he lived there for eight years, a longer time than he ever spent in continuous residence in Vaucluse or Parma or Padua or Venice; he found in Milan freedom

for a vast amount of literary activity; and he found there also opportunities for what he may well have regarded as beneficial participation in the great affairs of his still troubled world.

CHAPTER I

1353: Summer The Archbishop treated Petrarch with honor and with gen-

erous consideration for his needs." | Petrarch’s House

The house assigned to Petrarch, which he terms “saluberrima,” stood at the left side of the church of Sant’Ambrogio,

at what was then the western edge of the city. From the front of his house, which evidently faced south or southeast, toward the church, he could see its leaden pinnaculum and the two campanili at the entrance. From the rear he could see the walls of the city; beyond them, a wide expanse of “frondentes agros”:

and, far beyond them, the Alps [Fam. xvi 11].? His household included the young copyist who had been with him at Vaucluse, and had probably accompanied him on his journey [Fam. xvi 5]. He had a few servants [Fam. xxi

12]; and he certainly kept horses. |

| Sant Ambrogio . Petrarch took great satisfaction in his closeness to Sant’Am*On Milan under the rule of the Archbishop see Cognasso, pp. 323361. On Petrarch’s relations with the Visconti see Hortis 1, pp. 43-219 and 329~358, and Novat.

| *See the “Carta topografica della citta di Milano ne’ secoli bassi,” facing p. 158 in Giulint, Part IX. The pinnaculum was evidently a pointed roof over the easternmost bay of the nave: $. Ambrogio has no transept. From this point on, letters of Petrarch that are cited merely as sources for statements made in the text and not as objects of consideration in themselves will in many cases be referred to simply by in-

clusion of the references in square brackets. : 16

1353: SUMMER 17 brogio, as being the burial place of St. Ambrose; and he speaks with special pleasure of an image of the saint: imaginem .. . eius summis parietibus extantem . . . sepe venerabundus in saxo pene vivam spirantemque suspicio. Id michi non leve premium adventus; dici enim non potest quanta frontis autoritas, quanta maiestas supercilli, quanta tranquillitas oculorum; vox sola defuerit vivum ut cernas Ambrosium [Fam. xvi 11].

This passage 1s of special interest as being Petrarch’s only de-

— scription of a work of art that still survives: a 12th-century tondo in colored stucco that until recently was set high in the wall of the first bay in the right aisle. Below it there was affixed

to the wall a tablet, dating from the late 12th century or from the 13th, bearing this inscription:

, Fffigies sancti hec tracta est ab imagine vivi Ambrosi, pia, clara, humilis, venerandaque cunctis Ergo genu flexo dicas: o maxime doctor Alme patrone, Deum pro nobis iugiter ora.

This tondo has recently been placed between the entrance doors

of the new Museum of Sant’ Ambrogio.* | The general appearance of Sant’Ambrogio is much the same as it was when Petrarch saw it. The plan, including the distinc-

tive atrium, and the fundamental structure are unchanged. There are but two main external differences: in Petrarch’s day the northern campanile was unfinished, and the easternmost bay of the nave was covered simply by a pinnaculum, not by the more recent octagonal lantern. Much that Petrarch saw within

the church is still to be seen there, notably the pulpit, the ciborium, and the bishop’s throne.* At the other side of the church he could and undoubtedly *See Achille Ratti, “Il piu antico ritratto di S. Ambrogio,” in Ambrosiana (Milan, 1897), Sect. XIV, pp. 61-64; and Ferdinando Reggiori, La basilica ambrosiana (Milan, 1945), pp. 18 and 32. The tondo is reproduced and briefly mentioned in the Storia di Milano, mt (1954), 580, whence it is reproduced as the frontispiece of this book. I am grateful to Professor Billanovich and to Dr. Raffaele de Cesare for information as to this tondo. *See Reggiori, passim, and his many plates.

18 CHAPTER TWO did often visit a tiny chapel in which he thought (mistakenly) that St. Ambrose had baptized St. Augustine [Fam. xvm 10]. At the other side of the church also, and associated with it, was a Benedictine monastery; and the church or the monastery, or perhaps the church and the monastery jointly, had a garden, as will appear below.

Study and Writing Petrarch’s main occupations throughout his residence in Milan were of course study and writing. In Fam. xix 16, written in 1357, he gives this account of these occupations, an account applicable, beyond any doubt, to the whole period:

By day and by night I read and write, relieving each task by the solace of the other .. . I know no pleasure and no sweetness save in such toil; and I am so absorbed and immersed in it that I am not aware of any other labor or of any other peace. So my works grow under my hands, and new works are constantly pressing upon me. Yet the years are passing; and when I consider the brevity of life I am filled with dismay at the amount of the work that I have begun. How it will all end, God only knows... Meanwhile I pant, keep vigil, sweat, seethe, and struggle onward; and

the thicker the difficulties are the more eagerly I face them, excited and driven on by their very newness and hardness.

The writings that Petrarch brought to Milan comprised a great many Italian lyrics, the first four Triumphs, the Africa, the Bucolicum carmen, many epistolae metricae, the De otio, the

De viris illustribus, the De vita solitaria, the Invective contra medicum, the Secretum, and a great many prose letters. In the cases of the Italian lyrics, the epistolae metricae, and the prose letters he had already begun the making of collections, and expected to go on with them. In all cases he expected to do some revision; he was a perfectionist if ever there was one, and very reluctant indeed to release anything that he had written until he was at least fairly well satisfied that there was nothing more he could well do to improve it. »

The form of the Canzoniere that he brought was the second

form of that collection, and contained about 150 poems. This

1353: SUMMER 19 form, like all the later forms, was divided into two parts, the first beginning with the sonnet Voi ch’ascoltate and the second with

the canzone [ vo pensando. The second part contained only a few poems. This form had doubtless been transcribed—perhaps by Petrarch himself, perhaps by,a copyist—on relatively neat and legible pages; but it is likely that many of those pages bore revi-

sions. In addition to the poems contained in this form of the Canzoniere Petrarch brought with him some 250 other Italian lyrics, written on the five four-page sheets that are now ff. 7-14 in V.L. 3196 and on some thirty other similar sheets that are now lost. Some of the pages of these sheets (such as ff. 13-14 of

V.L. 3196) bore first drafts of poems; others (such as f. 117) bore copies that had already been revised but presumably needed more revision; and others (such as ff. 7-8) were little reference

collections of a few poems that presumably needed little or no further revision. Many sheets showed revisions and marginal notations of one kind or another. Marginal notations that ap-

peared on one of the sheets that are now lost are preserved through transcriptions made in the 16th century in the MS that

is now Casanatense A. III. 31.5 Among the poems on these sheets were many for which the decision as to whether they should or should not be included in the Canzoniere had not yet been made. On similar sheets Petrarch brought drafts of most or all of the capitoli of the Triumphs of Love, Chastity, Death, and Fame—a

draft of most of Evra si pieno (the second capitolo of the Triumph of Love) on the sheet that now constitutes ff. 17-18 of V.L. 3196, and other drafts on a dozen or more sheets that are now lost. Many of these sheets showed revisions and marginal notations of one kind or another. Revisions and marginal notations that appeared on some of the sheets that are now lost are preserved through transcriptions made in Cas, A. III. 31.° The Africa had a great lacuna between Books IV and V, minor lacunae in other Books, and many imperfections. All *See Appel 1, passim, and Wilkins 1, pp. 77-106 and 145-198. *See Appel 1, passim, and Wilkins 1, pp. 77-79 and 195-198.

20 CHAPTER TWO twelve of the eclogues of the Bucolicum carmen had been written, but they were not in final form. The incomplete collection of the epistolae metricae was already divided into three books, and contained about fifty poems, including the dedicatory poem to Barbato da Sulmona, Met. 11. In addition to the episto-

Jae already included in the collection Petrarch brought some twenty or twenty-five more, including some for which the decision as to inclusion or exclusion had not yet been made. For the De viris illustribus Petrarch had now written 35 biographies, the first 23, from Romulus to Cato the Censor, written long ago, the last 12, from Adam to Hercules, written recently

in Provence. | The collection of the Fammiliares consisted at this time of the

first three Books and part of the fourth, and contained about fifty letters. Petrarch brought with him, also, some two hundred other letters, among them about a dozen that he already intended to include in the small special collection that was eventually to be known as the Liber sine nomune. A very large share of Petrarch’s time in Milan was undoubtedly given to the revision of these writings and to the building up of his collections. In general, he seems not to have worked steadily on any one of these writings or collections for any considerable length of time: he turned rather from work on one of

them to work on another—or to work on a new piece of writ-

ing—as his restless thought moved him to do.

Early Summer It must have been quite soon after his arrival that Petrarch wrote the announcement of his settlement in Milan that is preserved as Var. 7, a letter that calls for extensive discussion. It is, in its entirety, as follows: Babylonicis tandem vinclis, et carcere vix explicitus T'ransalpino, laetus ac liber in patriam revertebar vobiscum ex voto vitae reliquias

-acturus. Sed pervertit dulce propositum dominatrix rerum Fortuna - mortalium. Qui me pontificibus romanis, qui Galliae Siciliaeque regibus aperta toties me fronte negaverim, huic Italicorum maximo, satis humane postulanti, negare non potui. Subitis et inexpectatis

1353: SUMMER 21 precibus ac maiestate virl circumventus obstupui. Consilia hominum inania! Quod impossibile amicorum arbitrabar, huius victus instantia cessi, et desueta iugo colla submisi. Tanti est libertatis et ocii nomen, quae sub illius imperio promittuntur, quorum me ita cupidum norunt omnes, ut quisquis me capere decreverit, non voluptates, non divitias,

non honores, sed haec duo tantum velut escam laqueas adhibeat dulciorem. Tu vero tibi persuadeas me sive sub Austro, sive sub Arcto agam, tamdiu vobiscum animo futurum, quamdiu mecum fuero, nec unquam ab illius optimi viri fide atque obsequio discessurum, nisi a me prius ipse discessero.

To whom was this letter addressed? ‘The vobiscum of the first sentence makes it clear that it was addressed to more than one person. The last sentence, however, beginning with Tw, is addressed specifically to the person in

whose care the letter was to be sent. The patriam evidently means Italy in general; but the vobis cannot possibly mean Petrarch’s Italian friends in general. The addressees, therefore,

must be the members of a local circle of friends of Petrarch. Two such circles existed in Italy, one in Florence and one in Naples. The addressees must then be either the members of the

Florentine circle—chiefly Nelli, Boccaccio, Lapo da Castiglion-

chio, and Forese Donati—or the members of the Neapolitan circle—chiefly Barbato da Sulmona, Giovanni Barrili, and Zanobi

da Strada (who had been in Naples since the spring of 1352)." Niccolo Acciaiuoli, though he and Petrarch occasionally exchanged friendly letters, could hardly be considered a member of the circle. The Florentine circle was the more closely knit: Barbato was often absent from Naples. If the circle in question

was the Neapolitan circle, the man referred to in the words “alius optimi virl” was undoubtedly Niccolo Acciaiuoli. If it was the Florentine circle, the man so referred to was undoubtedly Bishop Angelo Acciaiuoli (a cousin of Niccolo): Nelli, at 7 On Barbato see Wilkins 2, pp. 213-253, and the references given on p. 213, n. 1. On Barrili see E.-G. Léonard, “Un ami de Pétrarque, sénéchal

de Provence: Giovanni Barrili,” EJ, mx (1927), 109-142. On Zanobi see Paola Guidotti, “Un amico del Petrarca e del Boccaccio: Zanobi da

Strada, poeta laureato,” in ASI, Ser. vu, xu (1930), 249-293, and

EI, NS., wv (1934), 5-19. | Léonard, “Victimes de Pétrarque et de Boccace: Zanobi de Strada,” in

220 | CHAPTER TWO this time, was serving as vicar to Angelo, and Angelo had visited

_ Petrarch at Vaucluse in May 1352. The last words of the letter, “nec unquam ab illius optimi viri fide atque obsequio discessurum, nisi a me prius ipse discessero,” would seem to be more

appropriate if used with reference to Angelo, whom Petrarch knew personally and had entertained, than if used with reference to Niccol6, whom he had never met.® Petrarch’s chief Floren-

tine correspondent at this time was Nelli: of the extant letters written by Petrarch during his last stay in Provence (13511353) twelve were written to Nelli, one to Boccaccio, one to Lapo, and none to Forese (who was in Avignon for at least part of the period); and of the extant letters written by Petrarch in August and September 1353 six (not counting Var. 7) were written to Nelli and none to Boccaccio, Lapo, or Forese. His chief Neapolitan correspondent at this time was Zanobi: of the extant letters written by Petrarch during his last stay in Provence _ five were written to Zanobi, two to Barrili, and one to Barbato. No extant letter is known to have been written by Petrarch to

any one of these Neapolitan friends in August or September 1353. Presumably, then, the person in whose care Var. 7 was sent was either Nelli or Zanobi. The fact that the Florentine circle was more closely knit than the Neapolitan circle, the fact that the last words of the letter would seem to be more appropriate if used with reference to Angelo Acciaiuoli than if used with reference to Niccolo, and the fact that Petrarch’s current correspondence with members of the Florentine circle was more frequent than his current correspondence with members of the Neapolitan circle, combine

to indicate that Var. 7 was addressed to the members of the

Florentine circle.

It is indeed inherently probable that Petrarch would have sent word of his decision to the members of the Florentine circle very soon after he had made it. And while it is possible that he * Petrarch refers to Angelo as Optimus et suavissimus presul noster in Fam. xi 4. He refers to Niccolo as optimus in Fam. xvi 10; as optimus et maximus in Fam. xm 17, xut 9, and xvi 9; as clarus in Fam. xu 3; and as maximus in xu 11.

, 1353: SUMMER 23 might have sent word similarly to the members of the Neapolitan circle, the need to send the news to that circle might well have

seemed to Petrarch to be less than urgent. | In the bitterly reproachful Ut buic epistole, written to Petrarch on 18 July 1353 in Ravenna, “ferventi atque commoto animo,” Boccaccio states that in Forli, on the 12th, he had heard that Petrarch had settled in Milan, but had thought it impossible. He then continues: Inde post dies paucos Ravennam forte venit Simonides [Nelli]; hic a Silvano [Petrarch] de materia hac litteras scriptas ostendit, et

sic certior factus in celum et Silvani facinus clamavi.®

Boccaccio’s words seem to indicate that the letter shown to him was an original letter rather than a copy. It would indeed be most natural that Nelli should have shown to Boccaccio an original letter that had been sent in care of Nelli and was ad-

dressed to the members of the Florentine circle, of which Boccaccio was himself a member. If the letter shown by Nelli had been a letter sent in care of Zanobi and addressed to the members of the Neapolitan circle, it would presumably have

been a copy; and it would seem that the messenger to whom _ Petrarch had entrusted the letter for delivery to Zanobi, if he had gone through Florence and had shown the letter to Nelli, would have done so in disobedience to orders given by Petrarch.

I conclude that it is highly probable that Var. 7 was addressed to the members of the Florentine circle, and that it was the letter shown by Nelli to Boccaccio. This conclusion does not exclude the possibility that Petrarch wrote a similar letter,

either about the same time or somewhat later, to Zanobi. In Fam. xx 14, written to Laelius in 1358 or 1359, probably in the latter year, Petrarch says of Zanobi: “Non multum tempus quod ipse michi fraterne condolebat meque predulcibus aculeis urgebat quod Mediolanum, turbida civitas, esset Elicon meus.” ‘This statement, however, provides no basis for dating either Petrarch’s possible letter to Zanobi or Zanobr’s lost letter to Petrarch.*° ° Boccaccio—Masséra, pp. 136-140.

*° Fracassetti says of Var. 7 “la credo diretta o a Francesco Nelli, o al

Boccaccio”; but later in the same paragraph, being unable to think of

24 CHAPTER TWO - We know that not long before 4 August Nelli had sent to Petrarch a letter that is now lost (Cochin 25):1** it is quite possible that this lost letter was written to acknowledge the

receipt of Var. 7. |

It must have been quite soon after his arrival in Milan, also, that Petrarch wrote to Barbato da Sulmona the brief epzstola metrica (11 18) beginning Rus michi tranquillum media contingit in urbe,

_ in which he gives an enthusiastic account of his new situation: Hic mihi tanta quies, quantam nec valle sonora Parnasi nec cecropie per menia ville invenit studiosa cohors heremoque silenti : vix Egiptiace cives, nisi fallor, arene angelici sensere patres.

In the course of his journey from Provence, as has been anyone except Niccolo Acciaiuoli who could be referred to in the words “allius optimi viri,” he asks: “Sarebbe mai la lettera diretta a Barbato 0 a Zanobi?” Foresti 1, p. 282, n. 1, says: “La lettera [i.e., the letter shown by Nelli to Boccaccio] . . . 10 credo fosse la Var. 7, indirizzata, come ha supposto bene il Fracassetti, a Zanobi, il primo al quale il Petrarca

avrebbe scritto della nuova dimora. E noto che Zanobi non fu meno accanito del Boccaccio nel deplorare (Fam. xx 14) quella che parve

dedizione al nemico di Firenze. Zanobi scandolezzato pud aver mandata

copia della lettera al Nelli.” Foresti is quite wrong in saying, on the basis of the words “fraterne condolebat” and “predulcibus aculeis urgebat,” that Zanobi was no less “accanito” than Boccaccio. It is very un-

likely that a letter written to Zanobi after Petrarch’s settlement in

Milan could have reached Zanobi in time for him to send Nelli a copy of it which could have reached Nelli in time for him to have shown it to Boccaccio in Ravenna a few days after 12 July. Billanovich 1, p. 181, n. 2, says, with reference to the letter shown by Nelli to Boccaccio, “Per ora si vede solo Vipotesi un po’ difficile che quella lettera sia la Var. 7,

a Zanobi.”

™ Cochin 1, pp. 101 and 138, and 2, pp. 11 and 38. In the cases of

lost letters from Nelli to Petrarch or from Petrarch to Nelli that are accounted for in Cochin’s list (Cochin 1, pp. 136-146, and 2, pp. 37-44)

I give in parentheses the numbers they bear in that list. For a tabular view of all Petrarch’s correspondence with Nelli during his eight years _ in Milan see the Appendix.

1353: SUMMER 25 noted above, one of Petrarch’s horses had given out, and he had left it behind, at an unknown point, to be cared for by someone whose identity is unknown. It was probably not long after Pe-

trarch’s arrival in Milan that this horse was brought to him in excellent shape, and that Petrarch wrote, as a letter of thanks,

Var. 17, which begins thus: | ,

That horse of mine that you have been feeding in your stables has come back to me healthier and more mettlesome than ever; thanks to your kindness and generosity the tired and sick beast that you undertook to care for and to cure is now in fine condition.

Not long after his arrival in Milan, apparently, Petrarch had with an interminably loquacious old soldier an undesired interview which he describes with much verve in Var. 44 (written in September—in this letter Petrarch refers to the interview as having taken place “ante aliquot menses’). ‘They met, under a blazing sun, in a dusty narrow street. The soldier assailed Pe-

trarch with a torrent of words, saying that he was going to Florence, and asking for a message that he might take to Petrarch’s friends there. Petrarch tried to get away from him—the combination of the sun, the dust, the cicadas, and the soldier was unendurable—but his tormentor blocked the way with his horse. Finally, seeing no other means of escaping from him, Petrarch bade him to give his greetings to Nelli; and with that the soldier let him go.”

August |

Before going to Provence in 1351 Petrarch had written eight letters addressed to ancient Latin authors. Now in Italy again, he was moved to write a similar letter, Fa. xxiv 9, addressed to Asinius Pollio, which he dated “Apud Mediolanum Insubrium, Kalendis Sextilibus, anno etatis ulttme MCCCLIII.” The letter

is devoted chiefly to censure of Asinius for his censure of Cicero.?° * See Foresti 1, pp. 279-288. ** This letter is translated and amply annotated by Cosenza, pp. 112124. See also Carrara 1, pp. 82-83.

26 CHAPTER TWO It was probably in August, though possibly late in July, that

Petrarch began to receive letters protesting his settlement in Milan. The only one of these letters that is extant is Boccaccio’s

wrathful Ut huic epistole. Whether Petrarch recognized this letter as giving a fair account of his conversation with Boccaccio

in 1351 is very doubtful, but the letter must have grieved him deeply. As far as we know, he never answered it.

On 13 August Petrarch wrote Fam. xvi 11 to Nelli. This letter consists of two quite different portions: the first and longer portion is a disquisition on the preciousness of time, while in the second portion Petrarch gives Nelli a general report on his situation in Milan. This second portion contains this passage: ~ Morem sane meum nosti; animum rerum fessum locorum alternatione reficio. Itaque biennio iam in Galliis exacto, revertebar, et cum Mediolanum pervenissem, maximus ille italus iniecit manum tam suaviter tantoque cum honore quantum nec merui nec speravi, verumque ut fatear, nec optavi. Excusassem occupationes turbeque

-odium et quietis avidam naturam, nisi parantem loqui velut cunta presagiens prevenisset, et in maxima frequentissimaque urbe solitu-

dinem ille michi in primis et ottum promisisset atque hactenus, quantum in eo est, promissa prestaret. Cessi igitur hac lege ut de vita nichil, de habitaculo aliquid immutatum sit idque non amplius

quam quantum fieri potest illesa libertate salvo otio. , The letter then goes on to tell of Petrarch’s house and of sant’Ambrogio, as indicated above. In speaking of his view of the Alps, Petrarch says that they are now whitened with

snow.

The passage just quoted, if taken by itself, might be supposed to be Petrarch’s announcement to Nelli of his arrival in Milan and his decision to settle there. It can hardly be such an announcement, however: for (1) Petrarch, in all probability, had sent Var. 7 to Nelli at least a month and a half before 23 August; (2) it is highly improbable that Petrarch, having arrived in Milan in June, or very early in July, should have waited until 23 August to inform Nelli of his Milanese decision; and (3) the treatment of this matter in Fam. xvi 11 is the secondary and not the primary element in that letter.

The account in Fam. xvi 11 of Petrarch’s arrival in Milan

1353: SUMMER 27 and his decision to remain there is similar in content to the ac-

count in Var. 7, but it is much more complete and covers a longer period of residence there. The two sentences beginning Itaque and Excusassem repeat in substance, and with two or three natural repetitions in wording, what had already been said in Var. 7; but the specific content of the Excusassem sentence 1s new; the atqgue hactenus clause, which of course could not have

been written on Petrarch’s arrival, reports that the assurances then given have been fulfilled; and the passage quoted is followed

by a full account of the habitation that had been assigned to Petrarch and of his great satisfaction in it. It is indeed quite possible that on 23 August Petrarch did not yet know whether Nelli had received Var. 7—even if that letter had been written before the end of June and received before the

middle of July, and even if the letter, now lost, that Nelli had

written to Petrarch not long before 4 August was in fact an acknowledgement of the receipt of Var. 7. There was of course no regular messenger service of which Petrarch and Nelli could

avail themselves. It might be several days after a letter was written before a messenger could be found; and while the distance between Milan and Florence is only about 150 miles, any messenger going from one city to the other might easily meet

with more or less serious delays. The following data are instructive in this connection (it is not assumed, of course, that a letter was necessarily answered on

the day of its receipt): Nelli’s vin, of 4 August 1353, was answered by Fam. xvi 14, of 16 September: an interval of 43 days.

Fam. xix 6, of 25 December 1355, was answered by Nelli’s xv, of 3 February 1356: an interval of 40. days. Fam. x1x 14, of 20 September 1356, was answered by “Nelli’s xvi, of 10 October: an interval of 20 days. Nelli’s xx1, of 17 March 1359, was answered by Fam. xx

7, of 11 April: an interval of 25 days. |

Fam. xx 7 was answered by Nelli’s xxim, of 17 May: an interval of 36 days. An exception is afforded by the fact that Var. 56, written on

28 CHAPTER TWO 18 September 1353, was received and answered by Nelli’s x1, written on 2 October—an interval of only 14 days: but Var. 56 was a letter of extreme urgency, which would have lost its value to Nelli unless it could have been delivered very promptly. It 1s indeed probable, as will appear presently, that a messenger sent by Nelli was waiting to take Petrarch’s letter as soon as it was

written. | |

The portion of Fam. xvi 11 in question, then, is to be re-

garded as a statement sent to Nelli as an individual, supplement-

ing and bringing up to date a brief announcement addressed some weeks earlier to the Florentine circle of Petrarch’s friends.

It is indeed precisely such a statement as Petrarch might well

have written prior to the receipt of an acknowledgment of

Var. 7. |

On 27 August a messenger from Nelli arrived, bringing Nelli’s x, which had been written early in August, and letters - from other Florentine friends. In Nelli’s letter he states thus the general reaction of the Florentine circle to Petrarch’s settlement in Milan, and his own moderate judgment: Posthac, sensi, nescio quid suspitionis incidit in fideles tuorum

animos amicorum, qui ad te scribunt satirice satis... Ego autem dissentio non consentio eorum in hac parte iudiciis, et iterum con-

sentio non dissentio. Tu cui fideliter ab omnibus scribitur, quid honori tuo conueniat uisito. Si quid finaliter sentio petis? quod expressi in literis, cursum fortune fortiter agas: Magnus enim labor est magne custodia fame. Et incongruum ualde est, ut quem phylosophya liberum fecit, iniquo popularis lingue imperio territus, seruus fiat. In te hec omnia parui duco. Age quod lubet, et libere.

The messenger, anxious to start back to Florence as soon as he possibly could, had told Petrarch that he would call for his reply at dawn on the following morning; and in the course of the night, therefore, Petrarch wrote his Fam. xvi 12, which 1s dated “Mediolani, XI Kal. Septembris, propere, silentio noctis intempeste.” It is a sorrowful letter, in which he tells again of his decision to remain in Milan, this time in a tone of justification—which was not necessary for Nelli, but might perhaps help matters with his other Florentine friends. He says more than he

1353: SUMMER , 29 had said in Var. 7 or Fam. xvi 11 of the pressure that the Archbishop had brought to bear upon him: Proinde quid michi luctanti nunc etiam negantique vim attulerit, etsi verecundius silentio premeretur, tibi tamen tacitum nolim. Dum enim scrupolosius quererem quid ex me vellet, cum ad nichil eorum quibus egere videretur aptus essem aut dispositus, nichil ex me velle respondit nisi presentiam meam solam, qua se suumque dominium crederet honestari.

Petrarch’s position with regard to the criticism he was enduring

is summed up in this sentence: |

De reliquis fortuna viderit ubi desinant, quis exitus, quis eventus,

in quam partem obliquo vulgi iudicio trahantur; michi contingat nichil agere cuius non ratio probabilis reddi possit.

It was probably only a day or two later** that Petrarch wrote to Nelli, as a supplement to the letter just quoted, another

letter, Fam. xvi 13, in which, to illustrate the point that it 1s impossible to avoid criticism, he tells, and tells very effectively indeed, the fable of the old man, his son, and the ass. ** Fam. xu 12 and 13 were both written to Nelli on 24 May 1352; and Fam. xm 5 and 6 were written to him on 9 and 10 August 1352.

CHAPTER III

1353: September — News that the Genoese fleet had been disastrously defeated,

and largely captured or destroyed, by Venetian and Catalan fleets in the battle of Alghero (sometimes called the battle of La Lojera), fought off the western coast of Sardinia on 27 August, must have reached Milan early in September.* To the Archbishop this doubtless suggested that he might soon gain possession of Genoa; to Petrarch, to whom the news came at night, it must have brought great distress, for internecine warfare between Italian states seemed to him to be a very terrible thing. Venice and Genoa, perennial and bitter rivals, had been engaged in intermittent naval hostilities since 1350; in the spring

of 1351 Petrarch had written to Andrea Dandolo, Doge of Venice, a long and able letter, Fa. x1 8, in which he had urged the Doge to make peace with Genoa; and on 1 November 1352— the Genoese having won a major victory earlier in the year, and a peace conference having failed to reach an agreement—he had written to the Doge and Council of Genoa another long and able

letter, Fam. xiv 5, in which he had urged them to make peace with Venice. No sooner had he heard the news of the battle of Alghero than he started to write a letter of consolation and exhortation to the Doge and Council of Genoa; but early on the following morning he heard a report that the Genoese, broken in spirit, were considering a course of action that seemed to him unworthy—and he did not finish the letter that he had begun. Pre-

sumably the course of action in question was the one that the *See Stella, col. 1092, and Foglietta, pp. 295-296. The distance from

Alghero to Genoa is about 275 miles, and the distance from Genoa

to Milan is about 75 miles. , 30

1353: SEPTEMBER 31 Genoese adopted later in the month, as will presently appear. Immediately, however, or almost immediately, he wrote a long letter, Fam. xvir 3 (which bears no date), to his Genoese friend Guido Sette, who, though Archdeacon of the cathedral of Genoa, was living in Avignon. The account of the battle contained in this letter is written from the point of view of a distressed Genoese sympathizer, though Petrarch says at one point “Forsitan sic expediebat insolentie, ut quam prosperitas lugis aluerat, adversitas inopina compesceret,” continuing with the memorable clause “longi sepe culpam temporis brevis ora castigat.” He tells Guido of the letter he had begun and abandoned: Sections 36—40 of the letter to Guido, indeed, evidently reproduce, at least in substance, a considerable portion of that unfinished letter.

It was early in September, in all probability, that Petrarch received two letters of which we have knowledge. One of them,

Nelli’s vi, written on 4 August, apologizes for an error in the Latinity of Nelli’s previous letter, now lost (Cochin 25). The other came from Moggio dei Moggi, who had taught Petrarch’s son Giovanni when Giovanni was a child, and was now teaching

Barriano and Giovanni, sons of Azzo da Correggio, now in Verona; this letter enclosed an epistola metrica written by Barriano, and evidently expressed the hope that Petrarch would help Moggio in his instructional effort by writing an epistola metrica for Barriano. To both of these letters Petrarch replied just after the middle of the month, as will presently appear.”

During the first half of September preparations were being made in Milan, as elsewhere in northern and central Italy, for the coming of Cardinal Gil Albornoz, who had been designated as Legate by Pope Innocent VI, and commissioned to reéstablish

papal control in the States of the Church.? Notification of his *On Moggio see Vattasso 1, pp. 67-105; and on this episode see

Foresti 1, pp. 294-299, | >On the career of Albornoz see Juan Ginés de Sepulveda, Historia

de bello administrato in Italia per annos XV. @ confecto ab Ill™ ac

32 CHAPTER THREE coming had been sent by the Pope on 1 August to many Italian cities; and he had left Avignon about the middle of the month

with a considerable suite, which included Bishop Laurentius _ of Idafia,* and with a considerable body of troops. At some time prior to the Cardinal’s arrival in Milan Petrarch wrote to Nelli a letter, now lost (not in Cochin’s list), mm which he indicated that he did not have much faith in the cardi-

nal: Var. 56, which will be considered presently, contains the words “Legatus . . . de quo ambigue tibi scripseram.” On Saturday 14 September, as the Cardinal was approaching Milan, the Archbishop, with a considerable company of nobles

and notables—including at least one of his three nephews, Matteo, Galeazzo, and Bernabo—rode out and met him about two miles west of the city. Petrarch also was in the welcoming party, and was able to greet the Cardinal and be greeted by him. Immediately after this exchange of greetings, however, Petrarch had a mishap that might have been fatal, though he escaped unharmed. Both he and his horse were blinded by the dust raised by the cavalcade, and his horse’s hind legs slipped over the edge of a declivity beside the road: if the horse had fallen, Petrarch would presumably have been killed. One of the Archbishop’s nephews warned him of his danger, came to his aid, and helped him off his horse, which then managed to struggle back onto the road. Petrarch’s reference to the nephew who had warned him reads thus: At vero ille magnanimus adolescens, quem nisi coeptam succes-

sionum telam fata praeciderint, Mediolani Liguriaeque dives expectat haereditas, et quo, nisi iudicium amor fallit, inter 1uvenes fortunatos nullus est melior, nullus humanior, ante alios me nomine inclamans ut caverem admonebat [Var. 56].° Rev™ Car'e Aegidio Albornotio (Bologna, 1559); Werunsky 1, pp. 58129; and H. J. Wurm, Cardinal Albornoz, der zweiter Begriinder des Kirchenstaates (Paderborn, 1892). “See Eubel, p. 235. * Fracassetti 2, assumes that this nephew was Galeazzo. He may or may not be right. I know of no other statement that could be interpreted as meaning that the succession was expected to fall to one of the three

nephews rather than to all three. Matteo was the oldest of the three,

1353: SEPTEMBER 33 The Cardinal spent three days in Milan—the 15th, 16th, and 17th—and left on the morning of the 18th.° On 16 September Petrarch, in Fam. xvi 14, replied to Nelli’s

vit, in which Nelli had apologized for an error in his Latinity. Petrarch’s letter is kindly, amused, and learned. On the afternoon or evening of the 17th, as we learn from Var, 56, Petrarch received from Nelli, with a covering letter, now lost (not in Cochin’s list), a petition to be presented to the Cardinal; and on that same afternoon or evening he did present it to the Cardinal, who approved it, signed it accordingly, and gave it back to Petrarch, leaving certain details to be attended to by Bishop Laurentius. Either at the same time or at some earlier moment in the Cardinal’s visit Petrarch presented also requests from other friends, and these also were approved. The Cardinal furthermore indicated his readiness to do something for Petrarch, but Petrarch made no request on his own behalf: So this Legate . . . outstripped my hopes by his generosity .. .

He did not refuse any request that I made: on the contrary he urged me to make some substantial request on my own behalf. But I asked nothing for myself. Or rather, all that I asked was.

for my friends? | for myself: for what could be more truly for myself than what is

‘There were nevertheless certain matters related to Nelli’s petition with regard to which it was necessary that Nelli should himself see either the Cardinal or Bishop Laurentius; and the - Cardinal’s plans, as Petrarch understood them, would take him Galeazzo the second. Petrarch’s characterization, at least if read in the light of later events, appears to be more appropriate for Galeazzo than for Matteo or Bernabo. Petrarch uses “Liguria” in the sense of Lombardy. ° That he spent three days in Milan is proved by Sepulveda’s phrase “triduo ibi commoratus” (ed. cit., f. VY): the context shows that Sepul-

veda was not counting the 14th as one of the three days. That he left in the morning is proved by the words “mane discessit” in Var. 56. ‘That

letter, as is indeed proved by those very words, was written after the Cardinal’s departure. Yet Fracassetti 2 asserts, without argument, that the letter was written on the 18th, and takes that to prove that the Cardinal left on the 19th. Wurm, p. 36, n. 1, follows Fracassetti, misinterpreting Var. 56 as implying that “der Legat werde morgen die Stadt verlassen.”

34 CHAPTER THREE to Pisa and Siena but not to Florence. It was therefore of the utmost importance to Nelli that Petrarch should send him the requisite instructions at the earliest possible moment; and he did so, accordingly, in Var. 56, which, in view of the circumstances just stated, and in view of the fact that Petrarch says at the end of the letter that he had been striving in vain to finish it “ante crepusculum,” must have been written on the 18th. In this long letter, after a learned introductory discussion of the history of legateship in general, Petrarch tells of the arrival of the Cardinal, of his own nearly fatal mishap, of his presentation of the petitions, and of the Cardinal’s generous approval; and he urges Nelli to go to Pisa or Siena to see the Cardinal or his chancellor.

As we know from Nelli’s x1, Petrarch despatched Fam. xvi 14 and Var. 56 by the same messenger. On 18 September, also, Petrarch wrote to Moggio a brief letter, Var. 8, in which he apologizes for his delay in answering Moggio’s letter, says that at the moment he is too busy to reply to Barriano’s epistola metrica, urges Moggio to continue his good work, and promises that he will help when he can.’

At some time in September, probably soon after Cardinal Albornoz had left Milan, the Genoese Council, shocked by the disaster of Alghero and dismayed by the factional strife that was

rending the city, sent to Milan an embassy instructed to offer the lordship of the city to the Archbishop Giovanni Visconti. The dates of the arrival of the embassy and of the conclusion of the negotiations are not known. The sum of the times necessary (a) for the report of the battle of Alghero to reach Genoa,

(b) for the Council to reach its drastic decision, (c) for the organization of the embassy, and (d) for the journey of the embassy to Milan would seem to be large enough to indicate that the embassy could hardly have reached Milan before the middle "This letter, in Petrarch’s own hand, is preserved in Laur. Lut 35, a collection of letters made by Moggio and containing, among other things, the autograph copies of all eight of Petrarch’s extant letters to Moggio. See Rossi 1, 1, xlix—1.

1353: SEPTEMBER 35 of the month. It is furthermore unlikely that the Genoese envoys would have been welcome in Milan while Cardinal Albornoz was there, or that they would have wished to be there at that

time. And it was only on 10 October that the Archbishop’s _ representative actually took office in Genoa. In Fam. xvu 4, written to Guido Sette after the conclusion of the negotiations, Petrarch says: “post non multos dies primum cladis nuntium

secuta, legatio solemnis huc venit”: but the exact date when news of the battle reached Milan 1s unknown, and the phrase “non multos dies” is quite indefinite. That the negotiations, if begun after the departure of the Cardinal, began soon after that departure is indicated by Petrarch’s statement, in Fam. xvu 4, that they involved much discussion—“Multis . . . res acta tractatibus’”—taken in connection with Stella’s statement, which indicates (though it does not definitely prove) that the negotiations were concluded in September. On the afternoon or evening before the day set for the final session of the conference—at which the decisions that had been reached were to be officially stated and ratified—some of the

Milanese conferees came to Petrarch and asked him to make, on the morrow, the formal reply to the Genoese envoys. He would have liked to do so, he tells us in Fam. xvi 4; but he declined on the grounds that the time was short and that one word from the Archbishop would mean more than anything

anyone else could say.

Petrarch’s account of the final session of the conference,

given in Fam. xvii 4, is, in summary, as follows:

At last the day came, and all of us who had been summoned were present. I had been requested to show attention to the Genoese envoys until the Archbishop should arrive, and I was very glad to

obey, since I was anxious to get an authoritative report of what had happened in the battle and in Genoa, local reports being at variance with each other. We took our places, in the palace, in a great hall the walls and beams of which were sheathed in shining gold. It chanced that I found myself next to the head of the Genoese embassy, and he told me all about the battle and the state of things

in Genoa .. . While he was talking of these matters the formal session began, the Archbishop and many notables being present.

36 CHAPTER THREE The head of the Genoese embassy declared officially that by order

of the people of Genoa he entrusted to the Archbishop “urbem cives agros mare terras oppida spes opesque et fortunae suas,” from Corvo [near La Spezia] to Monaco, under certain conditions, which

were duly read . . . The Archbishop then replied, accepting the proffered lordship, and promising guidance, protection, succor,

and justice. |

It was in all probability during the latter part of September

that Petrarch received Nelli’s brief vu, written on 28 August. He must have been much puzzled by the opening of the letter: Neophytum hunc preter consuetudinem gratiosum a te uenientem accepi facie liberalem, et tui adeo amatorem, ut gratiam non paruam habeam uidisse, atque audisse se. Sermonum maximus ©

elargitor est... | |

These words were evidently meant to apply to the messager to whom Nelli had given the letter, but the messenger who

delivered the letter to Petrarch was not a neophyte, and Petrarch had no knowledge of any such neophyte. In point of fact, as the messenger who delivered the letter may have told Petrarch, it had been given to him not by Nelli himself, but by another messenger, who had received it from Nelli but had found that he would be delayed in reaching Milan; but even so Petrarch would still have been puzzled as to the identity

of the neophyte. The latter part of Nelli’s letter concerns new difficulties of the Don Ubertino on whose behalf Petrarch had labored successfully while in Provence.®

Soon afterward, on the morning of a day of which we do not know the date, but probably still in September, Petrarch wrote to Nelli a letter, now lost (not in Cochin’s list), which

was presumably an answer to Nelli’s vu. |

A few days later there appeared at Petrarch’s door a chattering monk whom Petrarch did not recognize. Nevertheless he invited him to come in, and when dinner time came, he invited him to stay to dinner. He talked incessantly, “about *See Wilkins 2, references in the index, s.v. Ubertino.

1353: SEPTEMBER 37 himself, his friends, his kindred, his relatives by marriage, — servants, the people for whom he did errands, his companions, and his acquaintances; about what his sister and his niece and all the neighbors were doing; and about dogs and wolves and the Lion of Florence, the government, the gonfaloniere, the priors,

the drought, and innumerable other things.” Finally Petrarch realized that this man must be Nelli’s neophyte—and then, despite his monk’s dress, that he was the old soldier to whom, early in the summer, he had given a message to Nelli: it was he to whom Nelli had given his vu, and it was he who in turn had given it to the messenger who had delivered it to Petrarch

away. |

a few days before. His flood of words came to an end only when he heard the city clock—a new invention—strike an hour that

warned him of the coming of night. So Petrarch and his

servants helped him onto his horse, and he rode uncertainly

All this and more Petrarch tells in Var. 44, written to Nelli soon after the visit of the soldier-neophyte, whom in this letter Petrarch calls “Bolanus,” borrowing the name from one of the Satires (I, 9) of Horace.

In 1352 Petrarch had secured a Veronese canonry for his difficult son Giovanni, and had written to two of his Veronese

friends, urging them to do what they could for the boy’s ingenium and mores. For a time the reports that had reached Petrarch had been distressingly unfavorable; but a better report came to him in the autumn of 1353—probably in September or October, and somewhat more probably in September than in October. Petrarch then wrote to his son Fam. xvu 2, a letter that is very moving in its combination of grief and reproach for the past, of faint yet affectionate hope and of exhortation for the future, and of anxiety for his son in the years that would follow his own death. “It is too late now,” he writes, “for me to see more than the first blossoms of your better con-

duct: do you see to it that after I am gone you gather the full fruitage of the labors you are now beginning.” Petrarch may have been unwisely severe in his dealings with his son, but

38 CHAPTER THREE _ there is plenty of evidence that he did his best to be a good father to him.°

On the last day of September Petrarch began the planting that he was to finish on the morrow. °On Petrarch’s relations with his son see Cochin 1, pp. 59-66, and 2,

pp. xlii-xlvi, and Foresti 2. The three letters that follow this letter in the order of the Familiares, xvi 3-5, were written respectively before mid-September, later in September, and on 21 October. This suggests, but does not by any means prove, that xvm 2 was written early in September. That possibility is not lessened by the fact that xvm 1 bears a November date: it was doubtless given its initial position, in any case, in accordance with Petrarch’s usual practice of placing an especially

impressive letter at the head of a Book. But xvm 1 is addressed to Petrarch’s brother Gherardo; and xvi 2 may have been placed next to xvi 1 simply because, like that letter, it was addressed to a member of Petrarch’s family.

CHAPTER IV

1353: October-December October

On the last day of September and the first of October Petrarch planted spinach, beets, fennel, and parsley in the garden of Sant’Ambrogio; and then added this note to the series of garden notes that he had written from time to time at the end

of a manuscript that contained, among other things, the De agricultura of Palladius: Anno 1353, die lune ultimo Septembris et die Martii 1° octobris, in orto Mediolani Sancti Ambrosi abunda hesterna pluuia humecto et ad unguem subacto, seuimus spinargia, bletam, fenidem, petrosillum. Pars anni serotina et umbrosior locus et lune reuolutio uidentur

obsistere.1 |

It may well have been early in October that Petrarch, in accordance with the promise that he had made to Moggio det Moggi in his letter of 18 September, wrote for Moggio’s pupil Barriano da Correggio the brief epistola beginning Gratulor ingenio, quod me flammantibus usque,

which he included as mr 31 in the collection of his epistolae metricae. It is a pleasant poem of quasi-paternal encouragement, seasoned with a little advice as to the writing of Latin verse: neu sit ter mensa pudori Syllaba, et in digitis iterumque, iterumque reversa. | * Nolhac m1, 98-100 and 266. This MS is now in the Vatican Library, as Vat. lat. 2193. The plural “seuimus” indicates that one or more men were working with Petrarch.

40 CHAPTER FOUR It was doubtless about the middle of October that the mes-

senger who had taken Fam. xvi 14 and Var. 56 to Nelli returned to Milan, bringing Nelli’s x1, which had been written on the second day of the month. On that day, Nelli writes,

he had been entertaining a little company that included Boccaccio, Lapo da Castiglionchio, and Forese Donati; after dinner there was a knock at the door; and a messenger was brought in who delivered Petrarch’s Fam. xvi 14 and Var. 56. The company was delighted; and the two letters were read

aloud, to the admiration of the listeners—the account of Petrarch’s perilous mishap creating “gaudium horrore mixtum.”

In the latter part of the letter Nelli thanks Petrarch heartily for what he had done on his behalf, as reported in Var. 56, and says that on that very day the Legate had entered Florence “cum

- ingenti totius populi plausu,” and that he, Nelli, is to confer with the Bishop of Idafia on the next day. At the start of the letter Nelli says that he 1s writing it hastily, since the messenger is waiting for it. This letter must have pleased Petrarch greatly. He may well have inferred that the resentment felt by Boccaccio and others as a result of his settlement in Milan was subsiding; and he may well have attributed its subsidence, in part at least, to the effect of his own letters, Fam. xv1 11-13.

It was very possibly about this time, however, that the | giullare Giovanni di Firenze, known as Malizia, presented himself to Petrarch and sang to him a sonnet in which Gano del Colle, while applying to Petrarch Italian terms corresponding to the Latin “mundi unicum solem et singulare lumen,” reproached him for settling in Milan, and bade him come rather to a place of

freedom. Petrarch’s reaction is contained in a letter, Misc. 3, addressed to Malizia, which must have been written immediately and given to him to be shown to Gano. In the course of this brief

letter Petrarch writes: “Multi similia scripserunt, sed nemo fuit qui, re comperta, sententiam non mutaret”; bids Gano to lay aside his fears and to hope well of his friend, to whom any place on earth may serve as patria; and says to Malizia: Super his secundum tuam illam praerapidam eloquentiam disputabis ut tibi videtur viva voce, sed non aspera ut solitus es: suaviter,

1353: OCTOBER - DECEMBER | 41 oro te, sine clamore . . . et sine accentibus horrificis, denique non barbarice, quaeso, sed italice.?

About 25 miles southeast of Milan there rises the hill of San Colombano; and on that hill there is a castle that in Petrarch’s time belonged to the Visconti. On Monday 21 October Petrarch

was a guest there; and in the afternoon he went up to the summit of the hill to enjoy the remarkable view. To the west there lay a “solitudo gratissima et dulce silentium liberrimusque prospectus,” with Pavia visible in the distance; to the north he saw the Alps, snow-covered; to the east he saw Cremona, to the southeast Piacenza, and to the south the Po, only a few miles away, and beyond the Po the Apennines. It was said by inhabitants of the town of San Colombano that many other cities could be seen from the hill; but this particular day was nubilosus, so that Pe-

trarch could not verify that statement. The beauty and variety of the scene put him in mind of Vaucluse; he had heard recently that Guido Sette had spent a few days in his (Petrarch’s) house there; and as he rested on the grass in the shade of a great chestnut tree he decided to write to Guido about Vaucluse and about San Colombano. In the evening, accordingly, in the castle, in a room which he calls “non philosophico poetico ve sed regio,”

he wrote Fam. xvi 5. The first part of the letter is filled with memories of Vaucluse; the latter part tells of the view from the hill of San Colombano. We do not know when Petrarch had come there, or how long he stayed there. Apparently, however, he had come on this very day, or possibly a day or two before: otherwise he would hardly have gone to the hilltop on a day that * The identification of Malizia as Giovanni di Firenze was made by Novati, pp. 26-27. This Giovanni di Firenze may or may not have been

identical with the Giovanni di Firenze, apparently a scribe, who is mentioned incidentally in Nelli’s x1. An early note in the MS in which this letter is preserved says that the sonnet was sent to Petrarch urging him “quod discedat a tyrannide dominorum de Mediolano”: see Fracassetti 1, p. 515. The plural domunorum might seem to suggest a date subsequent to October 1354, when the Archbishop was succeeded by his

nephews; but it is inherently probable that the note is considerably later than the writing of the sonnet.

42 CHAPTER FOUR was nubilosus to get the view. He cannot have stayed very long: he was in Monza, as will presently appear, on 7 November. It is only in Fam. xvi 5 that Petrarch mentions San Colombano. There is then no basis for the several statements that have been made to the effect that he stayed at San Colombano as in villeggiatura, or that he alternated periods of residence in Milan

with vacations at San Colombano. Nor is there any basis for statements to the effect that he was constrained to go to San Colombano at this time to seek relief from the cares and splendors of the Viscontean court: it is quite true that he had recently

had courtly duties in connection with the visit of Cardinal Albornoz and with the Genoese embassy, but those duties were light rather than onerous, and he had only to go through a gate near his house if he wished to stroll in the country. And Met. m1 19, written about 1 January 1354, as will presently appear,

contains the words |

Tranguillum dulcis michi fluxerat annus, : and (the subject still being “annus”’) michi grata reliquit otia.°

Before the end of October, presumably, the seeds that he had planted on 30 September and 1 October in the garden of sant’Ambrogio not having sprouted, he wrote below the note that he had then made in his manuscript of Palladius the words

“Effectus fuit nullus omnino.”

* See in particular Giorgio Bonfiglioli, “Francesco Petrarca, la Terra e il Castello di S. Colombano al-Lambro,” in R. Accademia Petrarca di Lettere Arti e Scienze di Arezzo, Annali della Cattedra Petrarchesca, Iv (1933), 139-152—a valuable study despite certain weaknesses. Bonfiglioli says at one point, with reference to Fam. xvu 5: “gli accenni a particolari topografici ed agli usi degli abitanti lasciano presumere che gia alcuni giorni prima egli vi avesse posto dimora”’; but at another point,

with reference to Petrarch’s going to the hilltop on a day that was nubilosus, he says: “Cio fa supporre che il Poeta fosse giunto a S. Colom-

bano il giorno stesso in cui scrisse la lettera.” Petrarch says nothing, in

Fam. xvtt 5, about the usi of the inhabitants of San Colombano: it would seem that the passage, just quoted, in which Bonfiglioli mentions those inhabitants is derived from a passage in the first part of Fam.

1353: OCTOBER - DECEMBER 43

, November

Either in the latter part of 1353 or the early part of 1354 the Archbishop sent a mission to Venice, with Petrarch as its chief spokesman. Since the evidence seems to me to indicate that it was sent in the early part of 1354 rather than in the latter part of 1353, this mission will be considered below.

Late on an afternoon about the first of November a monk brought to Petrarch a libellus written by his brother Gherardo. He looked into it, thinking that he would read it on the morrow; but he became absorbed in it, and read it straight through—supper being postponed until after night had fallen. He was greatly pleased not only by the religious content of the book, but by its unexpected excellence in learning and in style—gifts that Gherardo had not possessed when he had become a monk. He expressed his thanks for the /ibellus and his appreciation of it in

Fam. xvi 1, a long treatise on Christian philosophy and the Christian law of life, containing several quotations from St. Augustine and from Cicero. This letter was written on 7 November at Monza: we do not know when he went there or how long he stayed or what the circumstances of his visit were.* Charles [V had been emperor in fact since 1346, but had not yet been crowned. Petrarch had long been exceedingly eager to have him enter Italy, both because he hoped that the presence of the Emperor might bring peace and liberty to a land riven by local warfare and oppressed by local tyranny, and because, as a champion of the great Roman tradition and a citizen of Rome, he desired intensely the restoration of Rome to its rightful imperial state and dignity. He had written twice to the Emperor, urging him to enter Italy, first in February 1351, when he wrote xvi 5 in which Petrarch has much to say of the usi of the inhabitants of Vaucluse. Galli shows that Petrarch never owned a villa in the re- _ gion of Milan.

*Gherardo’s book (which is not extant) and Fam. xvu 1 are dis-

cussed by Cochin in his Le frére de Pétrarque et le livre “Du repos des religieux” (Paris, 1903), pp. 136-140.

44 CHAPTER FOUR Fam. x 1, and then early in 1352, when he wrote Fam. xt 1; but prior to his return from Provence he had not received an answer to either letter. Now, however, and in all probability in November, he received at last an answer to Fam. x 1: a letter beginning Laureata tua (LAP 9), which had been written in 1351.

The receipt of this letter must have brought Petrarch mingled satisfaction and indignation: satisfaction, since it proved

that his first letter had been received, considered, and thought worthy of an answer, and indignation, since the letter takes the position that the time is not appropriate for the Emperor to enter Italy. ‘The Emperor’s letter, after a courteous opening sentence, attributes his inaction, in the main, to three causes: (1) the des- — perate present condition of Italy, far different from its condition in ancient times, is such as to make effective imperial action in Italy all but impossible—though the Emperor does not by any means abandon it; (2) the dificulty of governing the Empire is extremely great—in this connection the letter quotes the saying “Nescitis quanta bellua sit Imperium,” attributing it to Augus-

tus—; and (3) “Omnia... prius temptanda quam ferrum.” This letter must have reached Petrarch in Milan, since it certamly would not have been forwarded to him at San Colombano or at Monza; and it must have been in Milan that he answered it, in Fam. xvut 1, on 23 November. In this long and able letter, after referring to the extraordi-

nary lapse of time between the writing and the receipt of the Emperor’s letter, Petrarch answers the Emperor’s three main _ arguments one by one, quoting verbatim, at several points, from

the Emperor’s letter. He maintains that the times have not _ changed: ancient Rome was constantly at war and in peril, and “mundus idem est qui fuit; idem sol, eadem elementa; virtus sola decrevit”—in this connection, and as an indication of what might be accomplished, he cites the temporary achievements of Cola, frustrated only by Cola’s own weakness. It was Tiberius and not

Augustus who said “Nescitis quanta bellua sit Imperium”; but even if Augustus had said it, 1t would follow only that the mon-

1353: OCTOBER - DECEMBER 45 ster can and must be mastered. And by this'time all things save the sword have already been tried, and tried in vain.°

Marco, the first son of Bernabd Visconti and his wife Bea-

trice della Scala (sister of Cangrande II, at this time lord of Verona), was born a few days before 26 November, and was baptized before the end of the month.® At the request of Bernabo, Petrarch served as the baby’s godfather; held him at the font; and named him. He also gave him a golden cup; and to Bernabo he gave an epistola metrica, beginning Magne puer, dilecte Deo, titulisque parentum, addressed in part to Marco and in part to Bernabd, which he included as 111 29 in the collection of his epistolae metricae. This poem is to be dated, therefore, as of late 1353.7 The most notable passages of the poem are one in which Marco’s presumptive future realm is indicated by a listing of a dozen of the rivers of Lombardy, each briefly characterized, and one in which some

thirty Latins named Marcus, together with the earlier Marco Visconti and St. Mark, are proposed for the eventual emulation

of the new Marco. | December

Probably in December, though possibly a little earlier, Petrarch received letters from two friends who took him to task for settling in Milan, Giovanni Aghinolfi and an unnamed friend in Avignon. The tone and something of the content of the letter of Aghi© The Emperor’s letter and Petrarch’s reply are published in Piur 2, pp. 12-15 and 26-34, and discussed on pp. 7—8, 15-16, and 34-38. Both letters are discussed by Bayley, pp. 328-330. There is MS evidence to

the effect that the Emperor’s letter was written for him by Cola di Rienzo, then held in custody by the Emperor; but there is no ground for thinking that Petrarch had reason to suspect such authorship. °See Azario-Cognasso, p. 133, n.3. "Diana Magrini, Le epistole metriche di Francesco Petrarca (Rocca San Casciano, 1907), dates it on p. 171 as of 1351 and on p. 177 as of 1354.

46 CHAPTER FOUR nolfi are reflected within the opening portion of Petrarch’s reply,

Fam. xvu 10, which was written, as will presently appear, on 1 January 1354: So clearly do you set the brevity and uncertainty of life before my eyes, so thoughtfully do you enumerate my former occupations,

which you regard as praiseworthy, contrasting them with all my present occupations, which you regard as inimical to the endeavor to win glory, so sweetly do you urge me to flee, and, regaining my liberty, not to cease my long and studious efforts toward better accomplishments, but rather to speed them and, fearing the dangers of long delay, to give wings to my mind and to spur my pen, that you seem to me even wiser and more friendly, if that were possible,

than I had heretofore known you to be. | The friend in Provence, so Petrarch tells Aghinolfi, had assailed him courteously but vigorously, asking how it could be that one who had sought so eagerly the leisure of the countryside could have sunk, of his own free will, mto the busy cares of city

life—although in the very same letter his friend had confessed that he could not tear himself free from Avignon.

| Probably in December, though possibly somewhat earlier, Petrarch wrote to Nelli a letter, now lost (not in Cochin’s list), in which he asked Nelli to try to find copies of certain works for him: this we know from the clause “de libris petitis responsum dabo” in Nelli’s rx, written on 13 January 1354. Toward the end of the year the Archbishop decided to send a mission to Avignon, presumably at the request of the Pope, to take part in a conference which, it was hoped, might result in the establishment of peace between Genoa and Venice; and he suggested to Petrarch that he would be glad to have him serve as a member of the mission. Petrarch regarded the suggestion as a command, and of course accepted it, with mingled satisfaction

and regret: with satisfaction because the object was to bring about peace between two great Italian states, and with regret because it involved a difficult journey over the Alps in winter (the return to be made in the spring). All this we know from three letters: Fam. xvu1 10, written on 1 January 1354 to Aghinolfi, Fam. xvi 6, written about the same time to Bernardo

1353: OCTOBER - DECEMBER 47 Anguissola, Governor of Como, and Met. ur 19, written about the same time to Barbato da Sulmona.® Petrarch’s regret must _ have been increased by the fact that the Archbishop’s virtual command contravened the terms of the Archbishop’s original invitation to him, as reported in Fam. xvt 12; and by the fact that the mission was to go to the hated city of Avignon. Since Fam. xvui 6 stands before xvm 10 in the order of the Famiuliares, it is slightly probable, though far from certain, that Xvir 6 was written before xvu 10, and therefore before the end of 1353. The letters in this portion of the Familiares stand in general in chronological order. Within the range xvi 11-xvimi 2, all these letters having been written—in most cases certainly, in a few cases not more than very probably—in the period 23 August 1353 to April 1354, the only letters that are clearly out of chronological order are xvit 1 and xvi 1, both of which, obviously, were displaced in order that they might be given places of initial honor, and xvi 7, which was obviously displaced in

order that it might follow xvu 6, since, like that letter, it 1s addressed to Bernardo Anguissola.

From Fam. xvi 6 it appears that Bernardo had invited Petrarch to visit him in Como, and that Petrarch had promised to accept the invitation: but at the present time, Petrarch tells Bernardo, he cannot come, since he is about to start on a transalpine mission by the desire of the Archbishop.

| Addenda for 1353 The news of Genoa’s submission to the Archbishop caused resentment and dismay in northeastern Italy and in Tuscany, especially in Venice and in Florence. In the last quarter of 1353 both these cities endeavored to form military leagues directed against Milan. Venetian efforts to form such a league began in October—Venetian emissaries were in Ferrara on 17 October—

and Verona, Padua, Ferrara and Venice formally constituted such a league in December. At the end of the year negotiations for the participation of Charles IV in the Venetian league, for * See Foresti 1, pp. 300-311; and Wilkins 2, pp. 236-240.

48 CHAPTER FOUR the formation of the Tuscan league, and for the admission of

anxiety. |

Venice into the Tuscan league were still in progress.° The Archbishop was of course aware of these activities, and it may well be that Petrarch knew of them and that they caused him some

Even before Petrarch came to Milan he had counted Gabrio Zamorei as a friend. Within his first months in Milan he must have made many new friends and acquaintances, among them, certainly, members of the Visconti family; certainly Bernardo

Anguissola; almost certainly Giovannolo da Mandello (for whom, later on, he was to write the Itinerarium syriacum); and probably some, at least, of the following, who are mentioned by Hortis or Romussi or both: 7° Francescuolo da Brossano (who

was to marry Petrarch’s daughter Francesca), Bernardo Anguissola’s brother Lancellotto (with whom Petrarch had exchanged letters some years earlier), Alberico da Rosciate, Antoniolo Resta, Giacobino de’ Bossi, and Pietro Azario (the historian).

There are five undated letters, not mentioned hitherto, that may quite possibly have been written in Milan before the end of 1353: Fam. x 6 and xvi 8 and 9, and Sine nom. 14 and 15. Fam. x 6 is addressed to the Czech humanist Jan ze Streda (usually referred to as Johann von Neumarkt). It is an appreciative but noncommittal answer to Jan’s first and undated letter to Petrarch, beginning Vitinam Parnasei (LAP 63), in which Jan asks that Petrarch favor him with some of his poetry. The super-

scription of Petrarch’s letter begins “Ad Iohannem Neumburgensem electum.” Jan was named Bishop of Naumburg on 15 February 1352; but he never entered upon this bishopric, and therefore remained “Neumburgensis electus” until 9 October 1353, when he was named Bishop of Litomysl. Petrarch’s letter *Werunsky 1, pp. 135-142; Cognasso, pp. 364-365.

*’ Hortis 1, pp. 78-79; Carlo Romussi, Petrarca a Milano (Milan, 1874), p. 63.

1353: OCTOBER - DECEMBER 49 must then have been written after 15 February 1352, and before

Petrarch had heard of Jan’s election as Bishop of Litomysl. It may then have been written either before or after Petrarch came

to Milan: in the latter case it is probable, but not certain, that it was written before the end of 1353.1!

Fam. xvi 8 and 9 are addressed respectively to Brother

Matteo da Como and to Marco Portonario of Genoa: the first inveighs against avarice and lauds eagerness for learning, and declines, courteously, a request—made presumably in a letter now lost—for some sort of literary or scholarly assistance; the second, which answers a letter, now lost, from Marco, protests that Marco’s praises are undeserved. Since these two letters stand between xvi 6 and xvu 10 it is probable, though by no means certain, that they were written late in 1353. The last six Epistolae sine nomine, 14-19, were all written in Milan, and as far as we can tell they stand in chronological order: the first three are certainly earlier than the last three, and the last three certainly stand in chronological order. No. 16 1s probably not earlier than 1354. It is then at least possible that Sine nom. 14 and 15 are of 1353. In neither case is the addressee known. Both letters are essentially fierce invectives against con-

ditions in the court of Avignon. No. 14 contains, for instance, this passage:

Noui expertus ut nulla ibi pietas, nulla caritas, nulla fides, nulla Dei reuerentia, nullus timor, nichil sancti, nichil iusti, nichil equi, nichil pensi, nichil denique uel humani. Amor, pudor, decor, candor inde exulant. De ueritate quidem sileo; nam quis usquam uero locus, ubi omnia mendaciis plena sunt: aer, terra, domus, turres, uici, atria, platee, porticus, vestibula, aule, thalami, tectorum laquearia, murorum rimule, diuersoria edium, penetralia templorum, iudicum subsellia, pontificum sedes? *”

**See Wilkins 2, pp. 167-168. On Jan ze Streda see Burdach, Aus Petrarcas dltestem deutschen Schtilerkreise (=Vom Mittelalter zur Re-

formation, 1v, Berlin, 1929), pp. 28-40. : ** See Piur 1, pp. 210-216 and 378—407.

CHAPTER V

Early 1354 On Wednesday 1 January 1354 Petrarch wrote Fam. xvi 10 in answer to Giovanni Aghinolfi. In this letter, as has already

been noted, Petrarch reports the receipt and indicates the reproachful contents of both Aghinolfi’s letter and a letter received from an unnamed friend in Avignon, and tells of his own unex-

pected journey to Avignon on behalf of the Archbishop. He plans to answer the letter of his Avignonese friend orally, while he himself is in Avignon. He does not enter into any detail as to the circumstances of his settlement in Milan; but granting that he may have been at fault in settling there, yet without indicating any inclination to leave that city, he maintains that conflicting desires, with unfortunate outcomes, are by no means unusual. He cites St. Paul’s “For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which [ would not, that I do”; and he quotes substantiating passages from St. Augustine. The mood of the letter, very dif-

ferent from that of Var. 7 and Fam. xvi 11, appears to reflect the regret with which, it would seem, he had received the Archbishop’s virtual command. At about the same time—possibly even before the end of De-

cember—Petrarch wrote to Barbato da Sulmona the epistola metrica 1 19, to which reference has already been made. The mood is the same as that of Fam. xvi 10: the poem, beginning, Sors sua quenque vocat: rigidam transire per Alpem sole nivem radio nondum frangente iubemur, obscenosque locos informia claustra malorum atque feram Rodani totiens contingere ripam,

laments the compulsion to undertake such a journey, and the interference with his constantly desired freedom. At the end of 50

EARLY 1354 51 the poem, in the passage, already quoted, that begins “Tranquillum dulcis michi fluxerat annus,” he contrasts his present unhappy prospect with the peacefulness of the preceding year. Early in January, or possibly before the end of December, Petrarch had the exciting pleasure of receiving, from Constanti-

nople, 2 MS of Homer in the original Greek, as a gift from Nicholas Sygeros, whom Petrarch had met in 1348 when Sygeros and two other Byzantine officials had been sent by the Emperor John Cantacuzenus on a mission to Pope Clement VI

regarding the possible unification of the Greek and Roman churches. On 10 January Petrarch wrote to Sygeros a glowing letter of thanks, Fam. xvu1 2. In the course of this letter Petrarch tells of his unfortunately abbreviated and ineffective study of Greek with Barlaam,” and says that he still hopes to make progress in such study—even as Cato did in his old age. He tells Sygeros

that he has already a Greek Plato, and that he delights in both books, although he cannot read them. Of the Homer he says: Your Homer is mute with me, or rather I am deaf to him. And yet I delight even in the mere sight of him; and I often embrace him, sighing, and exclaim: “O thou great man, how eagerly would

I listen to thee!”

And of both books: But to behold these Greeks in their own proper dress is a joy to me, even though it be of little benefit. At the end of the letter he asks Sygeros to send him also Hesiod and Euripides, if possible. It may have been in the latter part of this month that Petrarch +See R.-J. Loenertz, “Ambassadeurs grecs auprés du pape Clement VI (1348),” in Orientalia christiana periodica, xtx (1953), 178-196,

especially 194-196. | On whom see Nolhac, u, 135-139, and K. M. Setton, “The Byzan-

tine Background to the Italian Renaissance,” in American Philosophical Society, Proceedings, 100 (1956), 40-45.

52 CHAPTER FIVE | heard that Vaucluse had been attacked on Christmas Day by a band of robbers, and that his own property had suffered; but since it seems more probable that the Christmas Day in question was that of 1354, this matter will be treated below, in Chapter IX.

| : January—March Early in 1354, it would seem, the Archbishop decided not to send a mission to Avignon after all. There is no satisfactory evidence that such a mission was sent: in any case, Petrarch did not now go to Avignon.? *Foresti 1, pp. 309-311, assumes, probably rightly, that the mission was not sent. Evidence that missions were sent by Venice and by Aragon is given by Lazzarini 1, pp. 154-155; but the presence of those missions does not necessarily involve the presence of a Milanese mission. The only indication known to me that a Milanese mission may have been sent occurs

in this sentence in the Cortusi, col. 937: “Joannes Vicecomes, Archiepiscopus Mediolani, quasi Dominus totius Lombardiae, acquisito dominio Januae, per nobiles Legatos rogavit pacem 4 Venetis denegatam. Hac de causa Legati partium iverunt Avinionem coram Papa in MCCCLiVv,

mense Februaru.” The writer, however, might have used these words either with or without knowledge of the facts, if missions had been sent only by Venice and Aragon; and his statements, in any case, are not always reliable, as is indicated by the fact that at the beginning of the paragraph containing the sentence just quoted he assigns the battle of Alghero to the year 1354.

CHAPTER VI

The Mission to Venice In one of the early months of 1354 the Archbishop decided to send a mission to Venice, with Petrarch as its orator, the objective of the mission being to bring about peace between Venice and Genoa. Petrarch’s agreement to serve on this mission was

doubtless ready and hearty. It offered him an opportunity to work for peace between two great Italian states, whose warfare had long been a matter of deep concern to him; it involved no difficult journey; and it led to a pleasant destination. Petrarch’s own statements with regard to this mission appear.

in Fam. xvi 16, written to the Doge Andrea Dandolo on 28 May 1354, and in Sen. xvi 2, written many years afterward. From Fam. xvi 16 we learn that Petrarch was the orator of the mission—“princeps . . . ad loquendum et fortissimis illis atque doctissimis viris antepositus”; that purely military matters were presented, however, by another member of the mission; that Petrarch spoke before the Ducal Council; that in the first part of his oration he made use of a quotation from Cicero urging openmindedness; that he spoke privately, also, with the Doge; and that he failed to move either the Councillors or the Doge—

their obstinacy being attributed to desire for war, to the persistence of traditional hatreds, to the proud memory of recent victory, and to the prospect of support from northern “barbarians.”

From Sen. xvu 2 we learn that the mission took an entire month of Petrarch’s time, in the winter season: “Semel Venetias

pro negotio pacis missus inter urbem illam et Ianuam reformande, hibernum in hoc mensem integrum exegi.” There exists in Vienna a 15th-century MS, Pal. 4498, written 53

54 CHAPTER SIX probably in Bohemia, containing an oration which has this heading, Arengna facta venecijs 1353, octauo die Nouembris super pace

tractanda Inter commune Janue et dominum Archiepiscopum

dictum, _ | ,

Mediolanensem ex una parte, et commune veneciarum ex altera per dominum franciscum petrarcham poetam et ambasiatorem supra-

and this concluding note: “In uenecijs coram duce et consilio _ per d. franciscum petrarcham poetam laureatum.”? This brief oration consists of an introduction, a main portion, and a conclusion. The introduction 1s essentially a captatio benevolentiae: in it the author expresses the hope that He who said to His disciples “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you” may open the hearts of his hearers and bring the slight seed of his discourse to a rich fruitage; appeals to the intelligence of his hearers,

and to the Doge’s personal knowledge of his good faith; prays that Christ may of His mercy aid the cause of peace; quotes Cicero on the desirability of openmindedness; and urges his hearers to listen openmindedly: “pellatur inde odium cesset ira aboleatur memoria offensarum, extinguatur libido vindicte.” In the body of the oration the author states that the Archbishop, acting for Genoa, has sent the present mission to attain a peace that will benefit both parties and indeed the whole world, but Italy most especially; reminds his hearers that in the course of the preceding year Venice had offered the Archbishop naval and financial assistance to enable him to conquer Genoa: “quod .. . nuper nondum anni tempore alias spacio elapso ad hoc ut ad dicte urbis dominium perueniret, non paruum ei et armate classis et pecuniarum auxilium obtulistis”; and refers to the fact that in

secking to make peace between Genoa and Venice the Archbishop 1s seeking to do what his father [Matteo I Visconti] had once done. He then assures his hearers that what is sought is * Published in Hortis 1, pp. 329-333, and discussed on pp. 114~-122. Published and discussed also by Rinaldo Fulin, in “Il Petrarca dinanzi alla Signoria di Venezia,” in Petrarca e Venezia (Venice, 1874), pp. 295-309. Discussed by Eugenio Musatti in his “Leggenda petrarchesca,” in Padova in onore di Francesco Petrarca, McMiv, tt (Padua, 1909),

87-91. , |

THE MISSION TO VENICE _ 55 peace only, and an honorable and favorable peace; quotes Cicero and Livy to the effect that in the attamment of peace lies the only justification for warfare, and warns that the desire to attain any-

thing more than a just peace is perilous. In conclusion he cites the generosity of the Romans in giving to the conquered Antiochus the same terms they would have given him before their victory; urges his hearers to win equal fame through equal generosity; warns that unless they are generous they will be thought to be unworthy of their victory, which will then be attributed to fortune, whereas it will be attributed to strength “si uictis hostibus animos quoque uestros vincitis qua nulla uictoria maior est.”

Hortis believes the oration to be authentic, but says: “Si confessi che |’ orazione € meno retorica di quanto si avrebbe potuto credere.” ° Fulin and Musatti maintain that the oration is not authentic. Fulin’s main argument is to the effect that the statement made in the oration that Venice had offered to send naval and financial

assistance to enable the Archbishop to conquer Genoa is not borne out by archival or other historical sources, and is in itself highly improbable.* Fulin believes the oration to be a rhetorical exercise, perhaps the work of a friar. Musatti’s main argument

is to the effect that the oration cannot be authentic in view of the fact that the date given in the heading, 8 November, must >The “est” is followed immediately, in the printed form of the

oration, by the word “deo gracias,” which may be part of the oration itself, or merely scribal. The same two words appear similarly at the end of the oration pronounced by Petrarch at Novara, as preserved in the same MS: see Hortis, p. 358. * Hortis is quite wrong, as Musatti points out, in assuming that the oration was delivered before the Venetian Senate: the final note in the MS states that it was delivered “coram duce et consilio”; and we know

Council. ,

from Fam. xvii 16 that Petrarch actually spoke before the Ducal *Fulin argues also, ineffectively, that unauthenticity is indicated by the fact that only one of the several arguments used in Fam. xvut 16 appears in the oration, and by the presence in the oration of biblical quotations and of the final deo gracias. Other arguments of Fulin are invalidated by the fact that for Fam. xvut 16 he uses not the Latin text, but Fracassetti’s translation, which is misleading at the points in question.

56 CHAPTER SIX , be erroneous. He is in all probability right as to the erroneousness of that date, as will presently appear, but wrong in his conclusion. The erroneousness of the date would not prove, or even indicate, that the oration itself is not authentic: the undoubtedly authentic oration pronounced by Petrarch at Novara in 1358, which is preserved in the same single MS that preserves the Venetian arengna, is in that MS misdated as of 1356.° Musatti agrees with Fulin in thinking that the oration is a rhetorical exercise—but he does not repeat or comment on Fulin’s suggestion _ that it may have been the work of a friar.

The authenticity of the oration is proved, however, by the fact that the letter beginning Amice dum singulare (LAP 2), sent by the Doge to Petrarch on 13 June 1354, refers unmistakably to four elements of the oration: the quotation of Christ’s “Peace I leave with you”; the use of Cicero; the assertion of the Archbishop’s peaceful intentions; and the reference to the gener-

osity shown by the Romans to Antiochus. The only argument against authenticity that has any weight at all is Fulin’s argument based on the passage in which it is asserted that Venice had offered naval and financial assistance to the Archbishop to enable him to conquer Genoa. This is indeed a surprising assertion; but the facts, even though so reported, may not have been reported

with perfect accuracy; and Venice was disposed to do almost anything that would lay Genoa low. It seems to me not at all impossible that “feelers” of the nature indicated may have been made. If so, there would hardly be any official record of them. Furthermore, it is exceedingly hard to see why anyone preparing the oration as a rhetorical exercise would have introduced this _ Item—so hard that its presence in the oration seems to me to con-

stitute an indication of authenticity rather than of unauthenticity. It would appear, indeed, that Petrarch at this point is revealing a bit of otherwise unknown secret diplomacy. Presumably Petrarch had at least made a draft of the oration

before he started for Venice. ,

© See below, n. 6. Musatti’s only other argument is that the MS in question is not in Petrarch’s own hand.

THE MISSION TO VENICE 57 When was this mission sent to Venice? The evidence is conflicting, but permits, in my judgment, a fairly confident decision. Two pieces of evidence point toward November.

(1) The date 8 November appears in Pal. 4498 at the head of the oration. This dating, however, is not authoritative. The oration appears in this MS only; and this MS, as has been said, is of the 15th century and was probably written in Bohemia. This same MS, as has already been noted, assigns the date 1356 to the oration that Petrarch delivered in Novara in 1358.°

(2) Matteo Villani, in his Cronica, Book II, Chapter 93, after referring (without dates) to the mission, continues thus: E conseguendo al fatto, incontanente feciono accomiatare e bandeggiare di Vinegia, e di Trevigi, e di tutte le loro terre e distretti tutti coloro che fossero sotto la giurisdizione dell’arcivescovo di Milano; e simigliantemente fece nelle sue terre l’arcivescovo de’

Veneziani: e cosi fu manifesta la guerra tra loro, del mese di novembre del detto anno, per tutta la Lombardia e Toscana. Thus while Matteo does not definitely state that the mission took place in November, he does imply that it did. This implication, however, can hardly be regarded as authoritative. Matteo seems here to be telescoping events: while Venetian efforts to form an anti- Visconti league began as early as October 1353, actual hostilities between Venice and Milan did not begin until May 1354.’ There are several reasons for believing that the mission was

sent to Venice in the early part of 1354 rather than in No-

vember 1353. |

(1) Fam. xvu 1 was dated at Monza on 7 November; it

must have been in Milan that Petrarch on 23 November wrote

Fam. xvi 1 to the Emperor; Petrarch served as godfather at the baptism of Bernabo’s son Marco, which took place before the end of November. These facts would seem to exclude the

possibility that November was the month of the mission of ° The error is pointed out by Hortis, pp. 166-168 and 341. See AzarioCognasso, p. 107, notes 2-4.

7™I have been unable to ascertain the date of the Venetian banish-

ment of Milanese citizens.

58 CHAPTER SIX which Petrarch wrote, in Sen. xvir 2, “hibernum .. . mensem integrum exegi.” > — , | (2) In Met. mm 19, written about 1 January 1354, after the Archbishop had requested Petrarch to serve as a member of a mission to be sent to Avignon, Petrarch contrasts the toil this mission would involve with the freedom he had been enjoying:

| Tranguillum dulcis mihi fluxerat annus, sed brevis heu nimiumque fugax, oblitaque forte tantisper fortuna mei, dum cetera gaudet precipiti versare rota, michi grata reliquit otia; nunc eadem sphingosa negotia reddit, et labor invitus placidam fugat ecce quietem.

It is virtually impossible that Petrarch could have written such lines immediately after a return from a month spent in futile negotiations in Venice.

(3) Neither in Afez. m1 19 nor in either of the two prose letters written about 1 January 1354 in which he refers to his — expected mission to Avignon does he make any mention of a previous mission to Venice.

: (4) His mission to Venice, whenever it occurred, was a complete failure: it is hardly probable that immediately after his return from such a mission the Archbishop would have requested him to go on a similar mission to Avignon.

(5) Fam. xvi 16, written to the Doge on 28 May 1354, contains this passage: “Cum . . . tractator pacis ad te civesque tuos missus . . . quanta presens in consilio cui presides, quanta tecum solus in thalamo verba feci, puto propter vicinitatem adhhuc, ut ita dixerim, in auribus tuis sonet.” The word vicinitatem,

as used here, must mean “nearness in time,” “recency,” ° and the reference, therefore, as Musatti notes, can hardly be to an *Foresti 1, p. 98, assumes that the date of 8 November is correct for

the Arengna, and concludes arbitrarily that the date of Fam. xvu 1, “VII Idus Novembris,” is a mistake, probably for “VII Kal. Novembris.”

But no MS containing Fam. xvm 1 gives any variant for the date; and - it is not safe to assume that the dates of letters of Petrarch are erroneous or have been altered (cf. Wilkins 2, pp. 86-89, 216-218, and 225-227). ° Cf. Forcellini, s.v. “vicinitas,” 5: “Refertur etiam ad tempus.” |

THE MISSION TO VENICE «59 event that had taken place as much as seven months previously.1°

(6) The Venetian Lorenzo de’ Monaci in his early 15th century Chronicon de rebus venetis places the mission after the formation of the Venetian league. After mentioning the adher-

ence of Padua, Verona, Mantua, Faenza, and the hiring of “quandam Armigerorum societatem,” he continues Archiepiscopus hac liga circumventus decrevit tutari civitates, & oppida sua... & interim inter confoederatos seminat zizanias, praesidentes societati conductae per Venetos subornat pecunia. Tentat etiam per solemnissimos oratores, principe legationis Francisco Petrarcha Florentino Poeta, pacem magnis suasionibus im-

petrare cum maximo honore, & praerogativa Venetorum; nam permittebantur eis conditiones dictae pacis. Sed pax absolute a Venetis denegatur hiantibus de Janua summam, & finalem obtinere victoriam, quod Deo displicuit, ut sequentia docuerunt. Iteratoque pax per litteras ab Archiepiscopo implorata iterum denegatur."*

(7) Guiulini, after stating that four Genoese ambassadors

came to Milan on 25 February 1354 to swear fealty to the Archbishop “in quel modo, che piu bramava,” continues thus: “Grudico altresi quel Prelato, che era bene terminare la guerra de’ Genovesi co’ Veneziani; e pero mando a Venezia una solenne Ambasceria, in cui v’era anche il celebre Francesco Petrarca.” 7”

period. ,

(8) The fact that none of the extant letters of Petrarch are

dated, or are thought to have been written, in the period 11 January—24 April 1354, suggests an absence from Milan within that

I conclude that Petrarch’s mission to Venice took place, in

all probability, in the early part of 1354.*° 1° Musatti in his discussion of the date asserts that Fav. xvi 11 was written in Milan on 14 November 1353: but Foresti 1, p. 235, has shown that it was written in 1355. 1 Ed. by Flaminio Cornelio (Venice, 1758), pp. 217-218. The “Armigerorum societas” was the “Grande compagnia” of Fra Moriale. * Part X, p. 534. *2W.C. Hazlitt, in his The Venetian Republic, 1 (London, 1900), 590-591, states, without references, that Petrarch reached Venice toward the end of January 1354 and left about the end of February. Heinrich Kretschmayr, in his Geschichte von Venedig, u (Gotha, 1920), 209-210, states, without references, that Petrarch went to Venice in May 1354.

60 CHAPTER SIX It does not appear possible to determine the exact date of the mission. Petrarch’s “hibernum ... mensem,’’ however, indicates a date in January or February rather than a later date; and there is one slight piece of evidence that points in the same direction. In the letter Amice dum singulare, written to Petrarch

on 13 June 1354, the Doge Andrea Dandolo refers to the fact that Venice had sent envoys to Avignon after Petrarch’s visit to Venice; and in the passage from the Cortusi quoted above it 1s said that envoys (from Venice, at least) went to Avignon “mense

februari”: this statement, however, is to be regarded as indicative rather than determinative. The earliest date at which the presence of the Venetians in Avignon is definitely attested is 2 May (they spent several months there).** Guulini, as has been noted, puts the sending of the mission after 25 February 1354.

While in Venice Petrarch presumably renewed or made acquaintance with three Venetian officials: Marino Falier, to whom he refers in Fam. xtx 9, a letter written after Marino’s execution, as “vir ab olim mihi familiariter notus,” 1° and Neri

Morando and Benintendi dei Ravagnani,‘® who were to be among his correspondents.

“See Lazzarini 1, pp. 154-155.

** Marino had been podesta of Padua for a year beginning in September 1350: see Lazzarini 1, p. 143. **On whom see Vincenzo Bellemo, “La vita e i tempi di Benintendi

de’ Ravagnani cancelliere grande della veneta repubblica,” in NAV, xxmt (1912), 237-284 and xxiv (also 1912), 54-95.

CHAPTER VII | 1354: From the Return from Venice to the Death of the Archbishop On 13 January Nelli had written to Petrarch his brief rx: Petrarch may either have received it before leaving for Venice

- or found it waiting for him on his return. In this letter Nelli apologizes for his delay in replying to letters from Petrarch, and for not having sent him the books for which he had asked. This present letter, Nelli says, is to be taken to Petrarch by the “neophyte,” by whom Nelli is sending supplementary oral messages.

Either before or soon after his return to Milan Petrarch must have heard with much concern of a rebellion in Verona and of

its effect upon two, at least, of his friends and upon his son Giovanni. On 17 February, Cangrande II Della Scala, the lord of the city, being away, his brother Frignano seized power. The rebellion was shortlived: Cangrande reéntered the city and regained power on the 25th. Bernabo Visconti was in the neighborhood of Verona with a small armed force, but took no part in the conflict. ‘Those who were thought to have been implicated in the rebellion and were still in Verona were dealt with mercilessly. Petrarch’s friend and former patron Azzo da Correggio fled to Ferrara. Moggio dei Moggi and Petrarch’s son, though probably not personally implicated, were expelled or thought it best to leave the city; and Giovanni was deprived of his canonry. Moggio went first to Vicenza: where Giovanni went first we do not know.? *See Cognasso, pp. 365-366. For Azzo, see Bigi, esp. pp. 235-236. For

Moggio see Vattasso 1, pp. 74-75. For Giovanni see Foresti 2, p. 74. _ 61

62 CHAPTER SEVEN Fam. xvi 6, Petrarch’s only letter to Forese Donati, was written on a 15th of March which may have been that of 1354 or that of 1355. The balance of probability seems to me to favor 1355 rather than 1354; and this letter, therefore, will be treated below, in Chapter [X.

7 April It was presumably in April, though possibly earlier, that Petrarch received a letter from his “Socrates” (Ludwig van Kempen),” telling him that Philippe de Cabassoles was trying to arrange to bring Petrarch back to Provence, there to be closely associated with Philippe. This we know from Var. 64, written to Philippe, as will appear presently, which contains this passage:

id enim agis non ut vulgare aliquid, sed ut suprema vitae gaudia, libertatem, solitudinem, otium, silentium, id agis ut laborum ferias, ut tranquillae mentis statum, ut te postremo, ut me mihi restituas. In quo te adeo pervigilem probas quasi rerum immemor maximarum

huic uni omne studium curamque devoveris; quod mihi stupens Socrates meus scribit et stilo efficit ut pene rebus ipsis interfuerim.

Before the end of April Petrarch went to live for a time in the new Carthusian monastery, a gift of the Archbishop, which was located in or near the village of Garegnano, three or four miles west of Milan:* Sen. xvi 8, written on 25 April to Jean Birel, the Grand Prior of the Carthusian order, is subscribed “ex

ipsa Mediolanensi Carthusia, ubi nunc habito.” | The fact that Petrarch’s brother Gherardo was a Carthusian gave him a special interest in the Order. Petrarch had never met Birel; but it chanced that the Prior of the Milanese Certosa was just about to leave to attend a General Chapter of the Order, to begin on 12 May, at the Grande Chartreuse (near Grenoble); and Petrarch took the occasion to write to Birel, giving the letter to the Milanese Prior to carry to him. This letter, deeply reli, 7 On whom see Ursmer Berliére, Un ami de Pétrarque, Louis Sanctus

de Beeringen (Rome, 1905).

* Data regarding this Certosa are given by Annoni, pp. 97-127.

TO THE DEATH OF THE ARCHBISHOP 63 | gious, lauds Birel’s saintliness, asks for his prayers, and mentions

Gherardo as being a brother to Petrarch and a son to Birel. | Two other letters are dated from Milan on the same day: the distance was so short that Petrarch could easily ride back and forth as he chose. One of these letters is addressed to Philippe de

Cabassoles, and the other to Gherardo. Var. 64, to Philippe, expresses deep gratitude for the efforts that Philippe is making on his behalf, and the hope that these efforts may be successful. Most of the letter is devoted to the praise of friendship as more

to be desired than wealth or power. At one point Petrarch recounts in some detail the experiences of the night in November 1352, when, having started to return to Italy, he had stopped at Cavaillon to say good-bye to Philippe, and the combination of a wild storm and news of the presence of bandits on his chosen road had led him to abandon his journey. In April 1353, just before leaving Provence, Petrarch had visited Gherardo at Montrieux; and while he was there Gherardo

had asked him for a copy of the Confessions of St. Augustine, and Petrarch had promised to send him one. ‘That copy was now

ready, transcribed by the youth, already referred to, who had been with Petrarch at Vaucluse, whom he now characterizes as “yuvenis digiti quam ingenu melioris.” “The affectionate accom-

panying letter, Fam. xvi 5, dated “VII Kal. Maias, ad vesperam,” speaks of the difficulty of getting MSS correctly copied, and of the fact that the preparation of a MS is a cooperative effort, involving the work of several persons other than the one who orders the MS to be prepared: “Alii membranas radunt, alii libros scribunt, alii corrigunt, alii ut vulgari verbo utar, illuminant, alii ligant et superficiem comunt.” 4

The letter for Philippe and the MS and letter for Gherardo were certainly entrusted to the Milanese Prior: the MS and letter for Gherardo to be handed at the Grande Chartreuse to the Prior of Gherardo’s monastery, to be carried back to Montrieux, and the letter for Philippe either to be handed to the same Prior (who * On these three letters, and on Sen. xvi 9, which is to be considered presently, see Foresti 1, pp. 312-318, and see below, pp. 69-72.

64 CHAPTER SEVEN , might very possibly pass through Cavaillon on his return) or to be delivered to Philippe in some other way.

It was probably in the latter part of April that Petrarch received from Cecco di Meletto Rossi, Chancellor of Francesco Ordelaffi of Forli, an epistola metrica and a prose letter dated 3 April: both letters—extant but still unpublished—reproach Petrarch for having settled in Milan.° May

It may well have been in May, though perhaps a little earlier

and possibly a little later, that Petrarch received from Jan ze Streda, who by the end of 1353 had been made the Imperial Chancellor, a letter beginning Aureis redimita momilibus (LAP 64), in which he praises the style of Petrarch’s last letter to the Emperor (Fam. xvi 1), and expresses his desire that he and Petrarch may some day meet: “summe desidero auctoris suprem1 subsidus corporalibus oculis intuert.”

On 28 May Petrarch dated a long and admirably conceived and composed letter, Fam. xvim1 16, to Andrea Dandolo, Doge of Venice. At the outset Petrarch refers to the letter, Fam. xm 1, that he had written to Dandolo in the spring of 1351, urging him to refrain from war with Genoa; to Dandolo’s reply; to the two great naval battles that the rival cities had fought since that time; and to his own recent mission to Venice. He attributes the failure of that mission to the readiness of Venice to make war, to the persistence of her traditional hatred of Genoa, to pride in her victory at Alghero, and to the prospects of reénforcements from the North—and in this connection he inveighs against the tragic folly of the use of mercenaries. Now, he continues, he is impelled to undertake once more the task in which hitherto he has been unsuccessful. His main arguments are these: >See Weiss 1, pp. 88-89. Both letters are to be published in a posthumous article by Masséra, “Studi boccacceschi HI. Corrispondenze poetiche del Boccaccio,” which is being prepared for publication by Augusto Campana.

TO THE DEATH OF THE ARCHBISHOP 65 (1) War brings either defeat or victory, and the results of victory may be even worse than the results of defeat: | Si damni quam lucri plus, si plus mali quam boni, plus flagitii quam virtutis, imo equidem si virtutis si boni si lucri nihil in bello est, si contrariorum infinita congeries, desine, oro, iantandem.. .

(2) War is contagious, and cannot be confined to the two rival cities: in particular, all Lombardy is now involved on the side of Genoa. (3) The only ones who can derive any advantage from a war between Italian states are the plundering mercenaries: “illis qui rapto vivunt et exiguum censum multo mercantur sanguine, immane genus hominum, si tamen homines sunt quibus humani nichil est preter effigiem.”

| (4) Such a war would ruin Italy, and if Italy is ruined Venice cannot escape ruin.

(5) Arms should be used for defense against foreign enemies, and wealth should be used for the advancement of the

arts of peace. = . In conclusion, Petrarch urges Dandolo to act before it is too | late; to rise above the “vulgi furorem”; to win lasting fame, “ut dicaris italice pacis auctor nomenque tuum cum multis et magnis

rebus tum hac precipue gloriosum mittas ad posteros”’; and to be worthy of his own excellences: “Nam quid he litere profue-

rint, quid studia hec arttum honestarum . . . si cum meliora provideris, deteriora secteris?” He implores him “per virtutis amorem ac studitum quo nullo cedis, per patrie caritatem qua cuntos exuperas, postremo per quinque Cristi vulnera quibus sacratissimus et innocentissimus sanguis fluxit, quo redempti sumus.” He says finally—and rightly—that if Dandolo fails to act, this letter will at least prove to posterity that he, Francesco, had done everything that he could do for the cause of peace: “pro viribus reluctante teque, quando aliud nequit, alto suspirio et magnis animi gemitibus revocante.”

Before the end of May, in all probability, and perhaps considerably earlier, Petrarch had begun the writing of his

66 CHAPTER SEVEN | ponderous treatise De remediis utriusque fortune: in June, as

will presently appear, he wrote the dialogue entitled “De tristitia & miseria,” which stands in the final form of the work as the 93rd dialogue of the second Book: Book I contains 122 dialogues, and Book II contains 132. Foresti assumes that Petrarch wrote the entire De remediis in the order in which the dialogues now stand: if this were so, it would put the beginning of the work early in 1354, or even earlier. Foresti’s assumption, however, is not valid: the order in which the dialogues stand in the finished work is not necessarily—nor even probably—the order in which they were written. It is perfectly possible that the dialogue “De tristitia” was one of the first dialogues to be written—conceivably, even, the very first.° _

June :

_ The Prior of the Milanese Certosa, returning from the Grand Chapter, brought to Petrarch a letter from the Grand Prior. On the day—almost certainly in June, just possibly at the end of May—when this letter reached Petrarch’s hands, he was working on the De remedus, and specifically, as we learn from Sen. xv1 9, on the dialogue “De tristitia & miseria” (II, 93). That dialogue,

in which the interlocutors are “Dolor” and “Ratio,” contains this fine passage, which is here quoted in the translation of

Thomas Twyne: |

Sorowe. The thinking of the present miserie, maketh me heavie. Reason. That the miserie of mankinde is great and manifolde,

I doo not denie .. . but yf thou looke to the contrarie part, thou _ shalt also see many thinges, whiche make this lyfe happie and plea-

sant... haue not you great cause to reoyce? Fyrst, for that you are the image and likenesse of God your Creator, whiche is within in the soule of man, your witte, memorie, prouidence, speeche, so many inuentions, so many artes attendyng uppon this soule of yours

... also... so many sundrie shewes and kindes of thynges, whiche by strange and marueylous meanes doo serue to your delyght: moreouer, so great vertue in rootes, so manie iuices of hearbes, such pleasaunt varietie of so many sortes of flowres, so great con*See below, pp. 70-71.

TO THE DEATH OF THE ARCHBISHOP 67 corde of smelles, and colours, and tastes, and soundes rysyng of contraries, so many lyuyng creatures in the ayre, uppon the lande,

and in the sea... Adde herevnto moreouer, the prospect of the Hylles, the opennesse of the Valleys, the shadowie Wooddes, the colde Alpes, the warme Shoars . . . Adde lastly some Lakes, as bygge and brode almost as the Sea, and Pondes lying in bottomes, and Riuers fallyng downe headlong from the toppes of Hylles, with theyr brinkes full of flowres and pleasaunt hearbes . . . What

shall I neede to speak of the foming Rockes that lye upon the soundyng shoare, and the moyst Dennes, and the Fieldes yellowe with Corne, and the buddyng Vineyardes, & the commodities of Cities, & the quietnesse of the Countrey, and the libertie of Wildernesses? And also the most glorious and bryght spectacle of all, whiche is the circumference of the starrie Firmament, that continually turneth about with incomprehensible swiftnesse, wherein are fastened the fixed Starres? Lykewyse the wanderyng lyghtes, whiche you call the seuen Planettes ...

Man has also many other prerogatives, the greatest of which is immortality. ‘The phrases “ Miseriam conditionis humane” and “humane conditionis infamie,” which occur in this dialogue, appear to reflect the title of the De dignitate conditionis humane _ of Innocent HI, which is presently to be mentioned. The Grand Prior’s reply to Sen. xvi 8 is not extant; but from

Sen. xvi 9 we learn that in that reply Birel reproved Petrarch severely for flattery, saying: “Turpe est... viventem & eum ipsum quem alloqueris laudare”’; that he in his turn praised

Petrarch unduly: “Tantum nempe mihi preconium ingeny tribuis quantum ego nec posco nec mereor”; and that he asked

Petrarch to undertake the completion of the unfinished De dignitate conditionis humane of Innocent III.4 Petrarch’s answer, Sen. xvi 9, was presumably written very promptly. In it Petrarch says that there had been no flattery in

his praise of Birel; that praise may stimulate the activities of both the receiver and the bestower; that in praising Birel he was in reality praising Christ through him, that St. Augustine and St. Jerome praised each other while both were living; that * This work, properly called De miseria humane condicionis, is better known by the title De contemptu mundi.

68 CHAPTER SEVEN even St. Paul wrote to the pagan Seneca a letter in which he praised him; and that he is both unworthy and too much occupied to undertake the completion of Innocent’s treatise. His excessive occupation, he says, 1s due to his “operosum ocium & literarum sitis inexplebilis: nec vnquam .. . nisi supremo cum

spiritu deponenda.” He reports, however, that he is at work on a treatise “de remedijs ad utranque fortunam” which is somewhat similar to that of Innocent; he refers in particular to his treatment of “tristitia” and “miseria”: and apparently sends to

Birel a copy of his dialogue on that subject in its first form: “facio ecce quod iubes: hic rerum ut arbitror summa est quam si

ornare diligentiusque distinguere uel vite breuitas uel rerum impedimenta uetuerint: hoc tibi saltem nullus eripiet.” He says that the questions that Birel has asked will be answered orally by the messenger who 1s to deliver the letter to him. And he asks again that Birel pray for him. On 25 June, having heard recently that his friend Cardinal Gui de Boulogne had succeeded, in April, in bringing about the signing of a preliminary peace treaty between John II of France and Edward III of England, Petrarch wrote to the cardinal a letter of praise and congratulation, Var. 26.8 Having in mind, evidently, his recent argument with the Grand Prior

of the Carthusians as to the justifiability and the value of deserved praise, Petrarch treats the same subject in this letter, and says, furthermore, that he plans to treat it elsewhere: “De

quo alibi pluribus.” At the end of the letter he refers briefly to the efforts—already referred to more fully in Var. 64—that were being made by Philippe de Cabassoles to bring Petrarch back to Provence, and to the interest of Socrates in those efforts: “oro te... ut et Socrati meo credas, et libertate meae

faveas, ut spero.” |

It was in all probability before the end of June that Petrarch received Andrea Dandolo’s letter beginning Amice dum singur lare (LAP 2), written on 13 June. This letter answers Fam. xv 4

and xvur 16, and refers to the oration that Petrarch had de*On the date and the addressee of this letter see Zacour, Pp- 696-698.

, TO THE DEATH OF THE ARCHBISHOP 69 livered in Venice. In Fam. xv 4, written early in 1352, Petrarch, having heard that the Doge had expressed astonishment at Petrarch’s many changes of residence, had sought to justify himself for the frequency of these changes. The Doge’s

letter refers briefly and pleasantly to Fam. xv 4, but is devoted chiefly to an assertion of the justice of the Venetian — cause. The Doge insists that Venice has desired and desires peace; blames Genoa for the continuation of hostility; says that Petrarch should have addressed his appeal to Genoa rather than

to Venice, and that if the Archbishop’s intentions are peaceful he should restrain Genoa; avers that the response given to the Milanese mission to Venice had been “mitis & honesta”; and refers to the sending of a Venetian mission to the Pope, after the visit of the Milanese mission to Venice, as an evidence

of Venetian sincerity. It does not attempt a systematic reply to the arguments contained in Fam. xvii 16. Reference has already been made to its use of elements of Petrarch’s Venetian oration. The Dates of Sen. xvi 8 and 9

Sen. xvi 8, Var. 64, and Fam. xvii 5 all dated 25 April; both Sen. xvi 8 and Fam. xvi 5 are addressed to Carthusians;

Var. 64 and Fam. xvi 5 are unquestionably of 1354; and

Sen. xv1 8 and xvi 9—the latter letter written a few weeks after the former—are unquestionably either of 1354 or 1357. Foresti argues that the circumstances of the dispatch of Sez. xvi 8 prove that it, and consequently Sen. xvi 9, were written in 1354; and

he supports his argument by other considerations.? His conclusion has seemed convincing to Ricci,*® and is convincing to me. Heitman, however, opposes it, and argues at length that these two letters were written in 1357.** His arguments are as follows: * Foresti 1, pp. 312-318. * Prose, pp. 1169-1170.

“ Although I believe Heitman to be mistaken in this respect, I regard his study, in general, as notably valuable and important. In particular, I agree heartily with his conviction that the De remediis deserves far more attention than it has received from modern scholars— an opinion expressed also by P. G. Ricci in Prose, pp. 1169-1170.

70 CHAPTER SEVEN (1) While the Prior of the Carthusian monastery would have had sixteen days to reach the Grande Chartreuse in time for the meeting of the General Chapter in 1354 if he left on 25 April,

and would have had only twelve days if he left on the same date in 1357, twelve days would be time enough in view of the fact that in 1351 Petrarch had made in sixteen days the journey

from Piacenza to Vaucluse, a journey which Heitman calls “ben pit lungo.” But Piacenza is only 35 miles from Milan; and a person travelling from Piacenza to Provence would naturally go straight on to Alessandria without going through Milan. The difference in distance would be trifling. (2) Neither Var. 64 nor Fam. xvut 5 mentions Petrarch’s being at the Certosa, which might well have been mentioned, especially in the letter to Gherardo; and both letters are dated at Milan, not at the Certosa. But an argumentum ex silentio has

little or no weight in the case of Petrarch’s letters; and the difference in location indicated by the dating is easily explicable in view of the fact that the Certosa was only three or four miles from Milan.

(3) There is no independent evidence to indicate that Petrarch was living in “ipsa Mediolanensi Carthusia” in April 1354, whereas there is ample evidence that in 1357 he spent the summer in Garegnano. But our only evidence as to the date when Petrarch went to Garegnano in 1357 is contained in the clause “imminentem cogitans estatem diversorium amenissimum saluberrimumque adi” in Fam. x1x 16. (4) The words ‘“Rure enim nunc Italico habitanti, unum hoc ex multis estivis tediis . . . michi ad vesperam et insultus volu-

crum et lapidum collisio et villici clamor durat,” which occur in the Preface to Book II of the De remediis, indicate “Che il De remedius almeno in parte abbia avuto origine d’estate e in campagna.” But there is no evidence that the writing of that

8 and 9. |

Preface was contemporary with the writing of Sen. xvi (5) The De remedtis was completed between the end of 1356 and the end of 1360; and in the Preface to the work Petrarch refers to it as “paucissimis diebus ceptum per-

TO THE DEATH OF THE ARCHBISHOP. 71 fectumque”’; Dialogue II 93, which is mentioned in Sen. xvi 9,

comes near the end of the work [there are 132 dialogues in — Book II]; the dialogues were written in the order in which they stand; it is impossible that the writing of II 93 can have preceded

the completion of the work by as much as two years; and that

dialogue, therefore, was written in 1357, not in 1354. But _ Petrarch’s reference to the massive De remediis as a work “paucis-

simis diebus ceptum perfectumque” is obviously an extreme — case of Petrarch’s habit of referring to his own writings in very

deprecatory terms. Moreover, it is by no means certain or even probable that all the dialogues of the work were written in the order in which they stand (or indeed that Book I was finished before Book II was begun). Foresti had assumed that

they were so written, but on this point Ricci says (and I believe him to be absolutely right): Ma il Foresti non tenne conto della particolare struttura dell’opera, tutta formata di parti tra loro indipendenti. In tali condizioni chi ci assicura che il Petrarca scrivesse i vari dialoghi uno dopo altro, secondo Yordine che occuparono nel piano definitivo dell’opera? Nulla vieta che il De museria et tristitia [i.e., Il 93] fosse, poniamo, fra i primi dialoghi cui i] Petrarca poneva mano; cosi come nulla vieta che fosse anche degli ultimi. L’affermazione del Foresti, pur essendo plausibile, manca di quel carattere di necessita che ne farebbe un punto fermo per stabilire i tempi della composizione.

Heitman’s arguments, as thus reviewed, seem to me altogether too weak to prove his point, or to lessen the strong natural

probability that Sen. xvi 8, Var. 64, and Fam. xvi 5, all dated on a 25 April, the first and the third addressed to Carthusians, and the second and the third certainly of 1354, were all written

in the same year—1354. |

There is moreover positive evidence, not hitherto utilized,

to the effect that Sev. xvi 9 was written in 1354. More than half —

of that long letter 1s devoted to an extensive discussion of the

justifiability of deserved praise; and that theme reappears, briefly but with identical thought and similar terminology, in Var. 26, which was written in June 1354. The main theme of Sen. xvi 9 is stated in this passage:

72 CHAPTER SEVEN | ueras enim laudes inter blandimenta non numero: que multis ad studium wirtutis ac perseuerantiam profuerunt. Turpe est inquis viuentem & eum ipsum quem alloqueris laudare. Scio nihil agendum esse quod noceat. Quid si prosit: quid si laudanti: quid si ipsi etiam expediat laudato.

The several elements of the theme are then developed at length. ‘The same theme is thus stated in Var. 26: Adulatio omnis fortibus viris invisa est: sed reddendum vero testimonium. At non aliter, dicat aliquis, nist dum alteri scribas; illum enim ipsum, quem alloqueris, laudare muliebre nimis ac tenerum, ipsique nonnunquam vel laudanti damnosum vel laudato. Credo

si adulator laudet, aut si laudetur stultus. Inter doctos autem ac

prudentes viros, vera laus verae virtutis est stimulus. Inardescit qui laudat, accenditur qui laudatur: neque aliquando metuendum est ne in animos altissimos serenosque terrenarum nebula sordium possit obrepere.

July |

About the Ist of July there came to Petrarch a young German who, having entered Italy with Cardinal Albornoz, expecting to remain with him for a year, had now been overwhelmed by homesickness—especially by the desire to see his aging mother again—and had left the Cardinal. He was in need

of advice as to the best and shortest route from Milan to his home in western Germany; and Petrarch, unable himself to give him such advice, referred him to Bernardo Anguissola, the Governor of Como, giving him a cordial letter of introduction, Fam. xvi 7, in which the young man’s story is told and Anguissola, whom Petrarch knew to have given such advice to others,

is asked to provide the desired directions. At the end of the letter Petrarch points out that Germany may be just as dear to a German as Italy is to an Italian; that if you ask a German about his homeland he will tell you that nowhere is the sky more benign and that nowhere is there any sweeter country; and that if you force him into comparisons “barbaricam dicet

Italiam.” |

| Prior to 26 July Petrarch had been in correspondence with his Veronese friend Guglielmo da Pastrengo about a book or

TO THE DEATH OF THE ARCHBISHOP 73 books that he needed for his work on the De viris and about some of the unfortunate consequences of the attempt of Frignano della Scala, in February, to seize power in Verona (see the first

page of the present chapter): Guglielmo was not affected.’ On 26 July Petrarch wrote to Guglielmo (in haste, he says) a letter, Fam. 1x 15, in which he asks him urgently for a particular book,—“Libro illo valde egeo in virorum illustrium congerie,

cui hos humeros qualescunque subieci; oro ergo, festina: scis quam carum est tempus horas et momenta librantibus” **—and

thanks him for the reminder that he should take some action, presumably related to what had happened in Verona. Petrarch says that he had started to do so but had not carried his effort through, and that he will now do so. In the course of the letter Petrarch refers to life as a dream: ‘“‘inane somnium videtur fere

quicquid in terris agitur.” At the end (in the first form of the letter) he sends his regards to another Veronese friend, Rinaldo Cavalchini."* While the references to what had happened in Verona are not clear, it seems probable that what Guglielmo and Petrarch had in mind was an attempt to persuade Cangrande to

allow Azzo (and perhaps Moggio and Giovanni) to return to Verona, and that this attempt would be made through Bernabo Visconti, who had a special interest in Verona through his wife, Beatrice della Scala. August-September

The efforts referred to in Fam. 1x 15 proved to be fruitless;

and in Fam. 1x 16, undated, but written probably in August 2, On Guglielmo see Antonio Avena, “Guglielmo da Pastrengo e gli inizii dell’umanesimo in Verona,” in Accademia d’Agricoltura Scienze

Lettere Arti e Commercio di Verona, Atti e memorie, Ser. IV, Vil (1907), 229-290. *® The identity of this book is uncertain: see Bosco, pp. 96-97.

**On Rinaldo see Giuseppe Biadego, “Un maestro di grammatica amico del Petrarca (Rinaldo Cavalchini da Villafranca),” in R. Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Atti, Lvim (1898-1899), m, 261-280, and two supplementary articles in the same Atti, tix (1899-1900), u, © 299-302, and txv (1905-1906), 1, 493-500.

74 CHAPTER SEVEN , or September, Petrarch so reports to Guglielmo: “consilium fidemque tuam et pietatem .. . aliena temeritas atque iniquitas crudelitasque vicerunt.” At some time in August Petrarch wrote another letter, now lost, to the Doge Andrea Dandolo, who received it, as we learn from a later letter, Fam. x1x 9, not long before his death, which occurred on 7 September. The Doge held the letter unanswered

for a week or so, worrying (according to Petrarch) about his inability to equal Petrarch in style; and then sent Petrarch’s messenger back to Milan, without an answer, but with the promise that he would send an answer later. _ Petrarch’s messenger must have returned early in September; and before many days had passed after his return Petrarch must

have heard, with much grief, of the death of Dandolo. He had regarded him as a friend; and in Fam. xix 9 he characterizes him thus: “bonum .. . virum atque integrum sueque reipublice

amantissimum .. . doctum preterea et facundum et circumspectum et affabilem et mitem.” | Early in September, probably, Petrarch received Nelli’s x1v, which had been written on 18 August. In this long letter Nelli

says that having a copy of Statius that had been in Petrarch’s hands he has been making a copy for himself: *° retardauit has literas precipue tolosanus noster ... cuius lection atque scriptoris correctioni per tractum non modici temporis institi curiosus, eoque magis, quia exemplar unum habeo digestum, tuorum oculorum digitorumque subiectum examini, puntatum, signatum, atque paucis admodum glosulis in dubiis de manu tua propria exornatum.

He poses and discusses the question whether Petrarch is greater

as a writer of prose or as a poet, and concludes that Petrarch is in himself both a Virgil and a Cicero: “te solum legens, Maronem Ciceronemque legam.” And he expresses the hope that he may soon be able to read certain works of Petrarch that he has not yet seen: “Dic michi quando te in Affrica tua legam? ** Petrarch’s copy is not known to be extant; Nelli’s copy is extant _ in the Bibliothéque Nationale, as Lat. 8061: see Nolhac, 1, 198-202.

TO THE DEATH OF THE ARCHBISHOP 75 quando in buccolicis omnibus? quando in comediis? et dyalogo? nec non et compendio illo et paratissimo ad ystorias generosas

itinere?” 7° |

Death of the Archbishop

October. |

The Archbishop, who had been ill in August, died on 5

Petrarch was requested to deliver a commemorative oration, and he did so on the 17th. His brief arringa is preserved not in

its original Latin form, but in an Italian translation (made probably in the 15th century), in which, however, the quotations are left in Latin.17 Taking as his text the 10th verse of the 38th Psalm, Cor meum conturbatum est, dereliquit me virtus mea, et lumen oculorum meorum, et ipsum non est mecum,

Petrarch proceeds by division, exposition, and application. He praises the Archbishop for divozione, fervor d’animo, riverenza, pletd verso 1 poveri, lealta verso ogni maniera di gente, dolcezza di costumi, cortesia, allegrezza, and benigno ragionamento; makes use of the saying that on the day of Plato’s

death the sun seemed to have fallen from the sky; argues that since the soul of the Archbishop has gone to its eternal home the time for tears is past; and bids his hearers devote themselves

henceforth to the service of their three new Signori. His delivery of the oration, however, was suddenly cut short

by the court astrologer, as is reported in Sen. m1 1, written to

Boccaccio long afterward: | ,

Having carefully cast a horoscope to determine the exact time **On this passage see Cochin 1, pp. 220-221, and 2, pp. 126-127. There is no reason to think that Petrarch ever wrote any comedy other than the lost Philologia. Cochin suggests that the “dialogue” may have been the Secretum: it is possible also that Nelli may have heard of the beginning of Petrarch’s work on the De remediis. The “compendium” was doubtless the De viris. *’ Hortis 1 prints the oration on pp. 335-340, and discusses it on pp. 135-139. The single MS containing the oration is Magliabechiano xxiv 123.

76 CHAPTER SEVEN , at which it would be most auspicious that the symbols of office should be given to the three illustrious brothers, he interrupted me, who had been requested to speak on this solemn occasion, breaking

into my oration and into the attention of the new Signori and of the audience, saying that the hour had come and that delay would be dangerous. Though I have no interest in such nonsense, I did not wish to stand out against the belief of the foolish majority, and stopped speaking before I was halfway through my oration. _ He hesitated, as if puzzled; said that there was still a little time left

before the arrival of the auspicious moment; and began to urge me to go on. I replied, smiling, that I had finished; that there wasn’t anything left after the end; and that I didn’t think of any pretty fable that I could recite to the people of Milan. He became very much excited, scratching his forehead, while the audience remained silent, some indignant and some laughing; but soon he exclaimed “Flora est”: and then an old soldier, to whom this duty had been > assigned, took in his hands three straight and smooth white staves, such as are now used in palisades, and placed one in the hands of

each of the three brothers, with joyous words and good wishes and happy omens.

In spite of this episode and in spite of his scorn for astrology

Petrarch came to respect the real learning of this astrologer, and to regard him as a friend.

CHAPTER VIII | 1354: From the Advent of the Emperor — to the End of the Year On the death of the Archbishop the Milanese succession passed to his three nephews, Matteo, Bernabo, and Galeazzo, in accordance with the provisions of a decree that had been made in 1339 by the Milanese General Council. Matters of general policy were dealt with by all three brothers, but the city of Milan and the many cities now subject to Milan were divided among the three brothers. Cities to the southeast were assigned to Matteo, cities to the northeast to Bernabo, and cities to the west to Galeazzo. There appears to be no record of the division of Milan itself, beyond the fact that two of the gates of the city were assigned to each of the brothers. Presumably the southeastern gates were assigned to Matteo, the northeastern gates to Bernabo, and the western gates to Galeazzo.

In this case Petrarch’s house close to Sant’Ambrogio would have been in the portion of the city assigned to Galeazzo. Matteo and his brothers followed the precedent set by their uncle in honoring Petrarch and allowing him his desired freedom.

October~November

From October 1354 to June 1355 the main new element in the life of Italy was the presence of the Emperor, Charles IV, who had left Nuremberg on 26 September and reached Gemona,

on Italian soil, on 13 October. He came not with an army, as the Venetians had hoped, but with a bodyguard; and his chief purposes were to reéstablish the prestige of the Empire in Italy and to receive the imperial crown in Rome from a representative 77

78 CHAPTER EIGHT of the Pope. He had been in correspondence with both Venice

and Milan, and had no intention of taking part in their hostilities.*

News that the Emperor had started on his journey must have come promptly to Milan and to Petrarch, who wrote to him, about the middle of October, a brief and exuberant letter — of greeting, Fam. x1x 1, in the course of which he expresses the hope that he may meet the Emperor face to face. The Emperor, after passing through Padua, established him-

self on 7 November in Mantua, where he remained until the end of the year. There he received emissaries from Milan and from Venice; and by the end of November the foundations for

a truce had been laid.

Other welcome news must have reached Petrarch in November: on the 4th day of that month the Genoese fleet had won an overwhelming victory near Porto Longo, at the southwestern tip of Greece.’ December

By December there had set in one of the coldest winters ever known in Europe. In Fam. xix 2, written on the 27th, Petrarch says that the air is “pregelidus”; that the year is “sine exemplo” and that “novitate sui attonitos etiam senes habet”; that all Lombardy is “importunis frigoribus oppressa”’;

and that the intensity of the cold is such as to astonish even the Germans who had come with the Emperor. And he dates the

letter as “scripta torpentibus digitis.” In Fam. xix 3, as will presently appear, he reports his own experiences on a wintry journey. The cold was extreme elsewhere as well: in one of *On this expedition of Charles IV see Porta-Salomon, Werunsky, Der erste Romerzug Konig Karls IV. (Innsbruck, 1878); Bede Jarrett, The Emperor Charles IV (New York, 1935), pp. 144-155; and Cognasso, pp. 368-376. On Petrarch’s relations with the Emperor see Bayley, pp.

323-341. All letters exchanged by Petrarch with the Emperor or with me Chancellor Jan ze Streda are published and discussed in ur imperial 2z. * See Lazzarini, “La battaglia di Porto Longo,” in NAV, vin (1894), 5—45.

1354: TO THE END OF THE YEAR 79 the Vitae of Innocent VI it is said that rivers were frozen for some seven weeks, and that heavily laden wagons crossed the Rhine on the ice.? ©

Early in December Sagremor de Pommiers, a Frenchman of noble birth who was serving the Visconti as a trusted courier and, on occasion, as a diplomatic agent,* and was evidently going back and forth between Milan and Mantua at this time,

brought to Petrarch the Emperor’s request that he come to Mantua. Petrarch accordingly left Milan on Wednesday the 11th, with companions and servants. The seventy-five-mile journey took four days: the roads were a glare of ice, on which

the horse’s hoofs would not hold; and the only safety lay in going through the snow. A dense fog filled the air; and piteous evidences of the devastation wrought by warfare were all about. The first night was spent in a town on the Adda. Waking before daybreak, Petrarch insisted on setting out, despite the protests of his companions: the cold was so intense that it could hardly be endured in the daytime in a closed room and beside a

fire, much less at night and amid snow and ice. Before they had gone very far, a company of riders came toward them. It was still so dark that Petrarch could not see their faces; but he recognized the voice of Sagremor, who had left Cremona in the depth of the night, planning to reach Milan in time to accompany Petrarch throughout his journey to Mantua. He did accompany him on the rest of the journey, and gave Petrarch much good news about the Emperor as they rode along together [ Fam. xix 3 and xxi 7].

Petrarch reached Mantua late on the 15th, and remained there, presumably, for several days: he was back in Milan on

the 27th | Fam. xix 2]. |

In Fam. x1x 3, written in the following February, as will presently appear, Petrarch reports at length the substance of his conversation or conversations with the Emperor:° additional

* Baluze-Mollat, I, 332. | |

*On Sagremor see Piur 2, p. 68 and passim (see Prur’s index); Weiss 1, pp. 82-84 and 134-135; and the index in this book. > Most of this letter is translated by J. H. Robinson and H. W. Rolfe

80 , CHAPTER EIGHT | items appear in two other letters. The Emperor received him with the utmost friendliness, and their private talk was prolonged late into the night. Apparently they talked in Italian: Petrarch speaks of the Emperor, who in his youth had spent two years in Italy, as “lingua et moribus non minus italicus quam

germanus.” [ Fam. xx 2]. Petrarch suggested that the Emperor had brought the intense cold with him so that his German troops might not be troubled by the change of climate [Fam. xxi 7]. The Emperor asked Petrarch for copies of some of his writings, especially the De viris illustribus: Petrarch replied that the De viris was still unfinished; and when the Emperor asked that it be sent to him on completion Petrarch said that he would sent it

“si tibi virtus affuerit, vita michi,” and that he would judge the Emperor worthy to be included among the heroes of the work if he should become famous not only through the splendor of the imperial name and crown, but through deeds and through

greatness of spirit. He gave the Emperor some of his ancient Roman coins (“quas in delitiis habebam,” he says), and made the

likenesses of Roman emperors a text for further stimulation to greatness. At the Emperor’s request Petrarch then told him the story of his life. There followed a lively debate on the relative

merits of the life of solitude and the life of action. Petrarch said that he had written a little book on the life of solitude; the Emperor, jesting, said that he was aware of that fact, and that if a copy ever came into his hands he would burn it; and Petrarch

replied that he would take care that no copy should reach him. _ The Emperor asked Petrarch to go with him to Rome, since he desired to see that city with Petrarch’s eyes as well as with his own—but Petrarch declined.

While in Mantua, which he had visited before, Petrarch doubtless paid his respects to the ruling Gonzaga, and saw some-

thing of his friend Giovanni Aghinolfi, their Chancellor, and something, presumably, of Neri Morando, who accompanied the imperial suite, presumably as a Venetian representative, while in their Petrarch: The First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters, 2d ed.

(New York, 1914), 370-376. ,

1354: TO THE END OF THE YEAR 81 Charles was in Italy [ Fam. xx 1 and 2 and Var. 32]. In Mantua,

also, Petrarch must have met Jan ze Streda for the first time.

On 20 December, perhaps while Petrarch was still in Mantua, perhaps after he had left, Charles, having received from the three Visconti brothers the promise of gifts amounting — in all to 150,000 florins, signed diplomas that constituted them vicars of the Emperor for their dominions.

On his return to Milan Petrarch found waiting for him four letters from Zanobi da Strada, which had been brought from

Naples by a man to whom Petrarch refers only as “iste vir clarus.” “These letters, the first that Petrarch had received from Zanobi for two years, were answers to four letters that Petrarch had written to Zanobi—presumably Fam. xi 9 and 10, xv 3, and XVI 9, written in Provence in 1352 and 1353 (the brief xvi 10 was merely a covering letter for xv1 9). If Petrarch had received Zanobi’s letters a few days earlier he would have written to him

at length; but finding that the “vir clarus” was just about to start back he wrote instead, on 27 December, the brief Fam. xix 2, which is notable for its report on the severity of the winter, for a slight reference to Petrarch’s visit to the Emperor in Mantua, and for a concluding comment on one aspect of Petrarch’s postal difficulties—loss of his letters through interception by admirers who wanted to keep them. It was very possibly in December that Petrarch received a letter in which Boccaccio promised to send him a copy of the Enarrationes in Psalmos of St. Augustine [Fam. xvut 3]. Addenda for 1354

The Venetian league against Milan, constituted in December 1353, but long inactive, was formally renewed on 30 April

by representatives of Venice, Padua, Verona, Ferrara, and Mantua; and indecisive hostilities began in May and continued through the summer and autumn.® Meanwhile a new Genoese

fleet, built and equipped under the authority and with the °Cognasso, pp. 367-368; Werunsky 1, p. 162.

82 CHAPTER EIGHT assistance of the Archbishop, made its way, in the spring or summer, into the Adriatic—the Venetian fleet being at sea in the western Mediterranean; plundered and burned Dalmatian towns; and finally captured and burned Parenzo (just south of Trieste), much to the dismay of Venice, which took extraordinary measures to defend itself against an expected attack that never came: the Genoese fleet withdrew to a concealed position south of the entrance to the Adriatic.’ Probably within the period March—-September, though per-

haps somewhat later, Petrarch’s son Giovanni, who had left Verona in consequence of the February rebellion, came to live with his father: he had apparently been living with him for

- some time when Petrarch in May 1355 wrote Fam. xix 5.

anxiety. ,

Despite Petrarch’s unquestioned paternal affection, the boy’s presence must have been for him a constant source of trial and The range of Petrarch’s Milanese friendships was naturally

increasing. By the end of 1354 it quite certainly included Giovanni de’ Pepoli, who had become or was about to become

the all-powerful minister of Galeazzo Visconti; Luchino del Verme, a high military officer; and a humble admirer, Enrico Capra, a Bergamask goldsmith, of whom in a later letter he

writes at length, beginning thus: | |

In Bergamo there is a man who, though possessing but slight literary competence, has a keen intelligence, which he might have developed if he had applied himself to study in his youth. He is a

goldsmith, and expert in his art; and he has this best of human qualities, that he admires and loves all that which is truly excellent,

despising the gold that he handles every day and all other forms of fleeting wealth, except in so far as they are a matter of necessity. And this man, already advanced in years, having heard of my name

and somewhat of my standing, had been seized at once with a vehement desire to win my friendship—“confestim in amicitie mee studium vehementer exarserat” [Famm. xxt 11].

The letter continues with a lengthy and very attractive account ”Foglietta, pp. 296-297.

1354: TO THE END OF THE YEAR 83 of the goldsmith, who was to figure as host to Petrarch in an interesting later episode.

By the end of 1354, in all probability, and perhaps much earlier, Petrarch had had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with some of the members of the religious community of Sant’ Ambrogio, had gathered some bits of Ambrosian lore from

them, and had become familiar with their archives. This we know from passages that he inserted in the second Book of the De vita solitaria while living in Milan. Thus he writes in his discussion of the solitude of St. Ambrose:

He lived where the circuit of the wall now runs in a remote corner of the city . . . where stands the sacred church established by him... Whenever he was free from his episcopal cares . . . this holy man used to betake himself to a more private solitude in this quarter. There was a wood which though not far away was nevertheless suited for meditation; in the midst of it was a little house, capacious enough for a man who, though surely great, was also humble, and which, small as it was, was converted into the

form of a temple. |

Evidently Petrarch had visited the place in question. A little later, discussing the solitude of St. Martin, he writes: He had formerly passed a considerable time in that very city of Milan... having his dwelling close to the house of Ambrose and the city walls, a place which even now is lonely and remote. Ambrose, who was already bishop, being rejoiced at such a guest, used to go to him alone and in secret and to linger in his company with great fondness as long as he might.

Later still, discussing the life of the Brahmans, he writes: ... the Brahmans, about whom some persons show a book inscribed with Ambrose’s name . . . It does not fully savor to me of the style of Ambrose, yet it appears in the midst of his writings in a huge, venerable, and antique volume of his library which is guarded in the archives of the Ambrosian church in Milan. As far indeed as I can conjecture, on no random suspicions, the book is

the work of Palladius rather than of Ambrose. | At some time before September Petrarch received from ° Prose, pp. 430-432, 436, and 515; Zeitlin, pp. 204, 208, and 259-261.

84 CHAPTER EIGHT Barbato da Sulmona a packet, forwarded from Avignon, which contained six pairs of scissors; and he gave some of them to the _ Archbishop—which indicates that they were of some rarity and

of fine craftmanship, perhaps a specialty of Sulmona industry [ Misc. 11].®

It is quite possible that Szme nom. 16 was written in 1354. It is addressed to a member of the Colonna family—probably Stefano Colonna, Provost of Saint-Omer,?® to whom Petrarch, while in Provence, had written Fam. xv 7—who was about to leave Avignon for Rome. Avignon, called “obscenissimam illam sentinam flagitiorum omnium,” is contrasted with Rome, called

“lam terrarum arcem semirutam sed uerendam” and “‘illud

sacrosanctissimum mundi caput impexa canitie gloriosum.” Petrarch tells of a conversation he had had years before with one whom he terms “pessimorum optimus’—undoubtedly Cardinal Giovanni Colonna—in which he (Petrarch) had prophesied the fall of the Avignonese regime, the Cardinal saying finally “Tace, et si uerum est, non simus auctores”; and now again he prophesies that fall: Iam ad extrema peruentum; iam et Romano et humano generi satis illusum est. Satis diu uirtus et ueritas fuere contemptui, satis exul pietas, calcata religio, satis superque barbarica regnauit indignitas. Omnia, etsi nolint, suum locum repetunt, et illusionum et longeui ludibrii finis adest. Quem cum uidero, satis uixero.

Late in 1354 or possibly early in 1355 Petrarch and Socrates agreed to exchange two of their canonries, Petrarch yielding his canonry at Lombez to Socrates and Socrates yielding to Petrarch the rural church of S. Maria de Capellis in the diocese of ‘Teano,

and a petition requesting the exchange was duly presented, doubtless by Socrates, at the papal court.** *See Wilkins 1, pp. 240-241. *°On whom see Claude Cochin.

See Berliére, Suppliques dInnocent VI, 1352-1362 (Rome, 1911) (= Analecta Vaticano—Belgica, V), p. 256; and Wilkins 2, pp. 25-26. The petition was approved on 4 March 1355.

1354: TO THE END OF THE YEAR 85 A document of 1354 has this entry with regard to the yield of the Parmese archdeaconate and canonry held by Petrarch: Archidiaconatus cum Canonicatu sibi unito in Ecclesia Parmensi, cujus Canonicatus sita est principaliter in terra de Coloreto lib, triginta octo, sold. tredecim, denar. quatuor imperial. L 370.’

Letters Wrongly Assigned to 1354 | _ Sen. x 2, a long letter of reminiscence addressed to Guido Sette, was written, at least in general, within the period beginning with the summer of 1367 and ending a year later.7* A long passage in this letter is devoted to Petrarch’s memories of Vau-

cluse. One of the statements made is that when Petrarch and Guido, as boys, first saw Vaucluse—which must have been within the period 1314-1316—Petrarch’s father and Guido’s uncle were of the same age as Petrarch and Guido are now: “qui ea ferme tunc etate erant qua nunc sumus.” ** Since Petrarch was 65 years old in the summer of 1367 and 66 in the summer of 1368, this would mean that his father was 65 or 66 years old in the period 1314-1316, and that he would therefore — have been born in the period 1250-1253. This statement involves a long-recognized Petrarchan crux: for in Fam. xx1 15 Petrarch says that his father was younger than Dante, which would mean that he was born in 1265 or later.

_ Foresti’s solution is that the Vaucluse portion of Sen. x 2 must have been originally a separate letter, written long before 1368, and specifically in 1354, soon after Petrarch had heard of

the robbers’ raid on Vaucluse.*® Foresti’s theory is that this 2G. M. Allodi, Serie cronologica de’ vescovi di Parma, | (Parma, 1856), 193, n. 1; Wilkins 2, p. 19. *® See Foresti 3, p. 166, and Hans Nachod and Paul Stern, Briefe des Francesco Petrarca: eine Auswahl (Berlin, 1931), p. 376. ** On this and on what follows see Foresti 1, pp. 9-14.

15In that case Petrarch’s age when he wrote the supposed letter would have been 49 or 50, his father’s age in 1314-16 would have been

49 or 50, and his father would have been born in the period 13641367. If the supposed letter had been written in 1355, the ages would have been 50-51, and Petrarch’s father would have been born in 1263—

86 CHAPTER EIGHT originally separate letter had not been included in the collection of the Familiares, but had been kept by Petrarch until he came, in 1368, to the writing of Sen. x 2, and that he then inserted it

(perhaps with some adjusting changes) in Sen. x 2. Foresti maintains that the Vaucluse portion of Sez. x 2 has the appearance of being an insert, since it begins with the words “Unum hic, antequam longius eam, quod me premit dicam” and ends with the words “‘ordinem deserui: sed revertor,” and since if one reads Sen. x 2 omitting the portion thus defined the continuity is perfect. Foresti’s argument, however, is by no means convincing. His theory really amounts to this: that when Petrarch in the writing of Sen. x 2 came to the point at which it was inevitable that he should write about Vaucluse, instead of simply going on

to write de novo about Vaucluse as he was writing de novo about everything else, he “fished out” (Foresti’s word 1s 17pescare) a letter written fourteen years before, and inserted it at this point. This theory seems to me to be glaringly improbable. It is quite true that what Petrarch here writes of Vaucluse covers all of his four periods of residence there, and thus interrupts the orderly sequence of his reminiscences: but it 1s only natural that he should treat his Vaucluse reminiscences in this _ way rather than splitting them into four separated passages, and it is only natural that, having done this, he should say, as he returned to his orderly sequence, “ordinem deserui: sed revertor.” It is probable, as has been said above, that the robber’s raid in question occurred on Christmas Day 1354, and became known to Petrarch only in the early part of 1355. I conclude, then, that the Vaucluse portion of Sem. x 2 was not written as a separate letter in 1354, but was written, with the rest of Sen. x 2, in 1368. The crux remains, and I have no solution for it. It may be noted, however, that there is at least one MS containing this letter in which the words in question, “qui ea ferme tunc etate erant qua nunc sumus” do not appear.*® 1266. If it had been written in 1356, Petrarch’s father would have been born in 1262-1265. On this raid see below, p. 89. *°See Carrara’s edition of the Lettere autobiografiche of Petrarch (Milan, 1928), pp. 99-100.

1354: TO THE END OF THE YEAR 87 One of the several MSS that contain Lombardo della Seta’s remarkable letter to Petrarch, beginning Fervet animus (LAP

71), dates it thus: “Rure 3 Kall. Marti 1354.”17 If I understand Miss Ferrante’s editorial statements correctly, no other MS assigns a year-date to the letter. In any case, the idea that this letter could have been written in 1354 is absurd: Petrarch’s reply, Sen. xv 3, was written in 1373. “7 On Lombardo and his writings see Giuseppina Ferrante, “Lombardo della Seta umanista padovano (?—1390),” in R. Istituto Veneto di

Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Atti, xc (1933-34), Part II, 445-487, especially 475-487. Fracassetti, who thought this letter to be by Petrarch, published the Latin text in Fracassetti 1, pp. 506-513, and an Italian version in Fracassetti 2, 1v, 45—50.

CHAPTER IX

1355: From the First of the Year to the Flight of the Emperor January

The Emperor, who had left Mantua on the last day of De-

cember, entered Milan on 4 January. On the 6th he was crowned in Sant’Ambrogio, as King of Italy, with the iron crown of Lombardy: Petrarch must have been present at the coronation.* On the 8th Charles proclaimed a truce between Milan and the Venetian league, the truce to last until 1 May, and the expectation being that a treaty of peace would be signed

thereafter. In accordance with the express desire of the Emperor Petrarch attended the ceremony at which this truce was proclaimed [Fam, xix 3]. On the morning of the 12th Charles left Milan, beginning his southward journey; and in the course of the day he passed _ through Lodi and Piacenza. Petrarch accompanied the Emperor to a point five miles beyond Piacenza. The Emperor asked him to come to Rome, but he again declined. At the moment of parting a Tuscan officer in the Emperor’s retinue took Petrarch by the hand, turned to the Emperor, and said: | “Ecce, imperator, de quo tibi sepe dixeram, qui siquid laude dignum gesseris, nomen tuum tacitum non sinet; alioquin et loqui didicit et tacere” [Fam. x1x 3].

, 88

To Neri Morando Petrarch entrusted messages to be given in Rome to Petrarch’s friend Paolo Annibaldeschi [Var. 32]. * The oration on this occasion was given by Gabrio Zamorei: see Vattasso 1, p. 44.

TO THE FLIGHT OF THE EMPEROR 89 It may well have been in the latter part of this month that Petrarch received from Vaucluse the distressing news that the village had been attacked on Christmas Day by a band of robbers, and that his own property had suffered. The story 1s told thus, in substance, in Sen. x 2: Not long after I had left—“non multo postquam inde discesse-

- ram’—a small band of robbers, after previous raids, finally on _ Christmas Day attacked the village, carried off everything they could carry, and set fire to the rest, including my house. It did not burn down, however—the robbers had been in too much of a hurry

to set fire to it thoroughly. Before this happened the son of my late overseer, foreseeing that it might happen, had taken the books that I had left there up to the castle [a small structure on the mountainside above the village], which the robbers did not attack, know-

ing that it was too strong to be stormed, but not knowing that it was undefended and empty: thus my books were saved. The books he had left in Vaucluse were about thirty in number, and among them was his manuscript of Plato. After receiving this news—perhaps at once, perhaps somewhat later—he sent for

these books [Var. 25]. February

It was doubtless about the middle of February that Petrarch

received from Laelius a letter written in Avignon, in which Laelius congratulated Petrarch, on the basis of an erroneous report, for having served as a member of the Milanese mission that had been sent to Mantua to lay the foundations for a truce between Milan and the Venetian league, and asked Petrarch to send him a letter of recommendation to the Emperor.

Either through this letter of Laelius or in some other way Petrarch must have learned at or about the same time of the main official plans for the coronation of the Emperor, plans in which

Laelius was directly concerned. Charles, in Pisa, was awaiting the arrival from Avignon of Cardinal Petrus Bertrandi, who as Papal Legate was to perform the coronation ceremony. Laelius, now an officer of the Cardinal’s household, was to arrive in Pisa

90 CHAPTER NINE | in advance of the Cardinal, and to make or confirm some pre-

liminary arrangements.” |

On February 25 Petrarch wrote the desired letter of recommendation and a long covering letter. The letter of recommendation, Fam. xix 4, is addressed to the Emperor. It speaks in the highest terms of the character and qualifications of Laelius, and _ dwells upon the esteem and affection in which he had been held by Stefano Colonna the elder, by Stefano’s grandson Giovanni

Boulogne. |

(who had been a friend of the Emperor’s in his youth), by Clement VI, by the King of France, and by Cardinal Gui de

_ The covering letter, Fam. xix 3, is addressed to Laelius. It opens with a correction of the report that Petrarch had been a member of the Milanese mission to Mantua; continues with the long and remarkable account, already summarized, of Petrarch’s visit to the Emperor in Mantua; tells of Petrarch’s parting with the Emperor beyond Piacenza; and refers at the end to the letter

of recommendation, which is being sent to Laelius, with the

the Emperor. |

covering letter, so that Laelius himself may present it to

At about the same time, probably, as we may infer from Jan ze Streda’s letter beginning Saphire: fundamenti, which is to be considered presently, Petrarch sent also another recommendation, for a person whose identity we do not know.

March |

_ It was probably early in March that Petrarch received from Forese Donati a letter (now lost) lamenting the fact that Petrarch had not answered his letters and had not even mentioned him in letters written to other friends. _ Petrarch replied, on 15 March, with Fam. xvut 6, a gently apologetic letter in which he promises that in the future he will give Forese no cause for complaint. The letter contains this description of a seniculus who was at this time a member of Petrarch’s household:

“See Piur 2, pp. 46-47. |

TO THE FLIGHT OF THE EMPEROR 91 There is living in my house an old fellow who, though born at the very edge of the habitable world, is yet a man, with the spirit

and the appearance of a man: but he is so alien to the common ways of men that when he wants to show affection he either growls like a bear or snarls like a boar. He is so rough and almost barbaric

in his manners that when he would lick he bites; and it might be said of him, in the words of Plautus, that he “‘talks stones’ —bare, hard stones with which he shakes and deafens the brain, afflicting the heavens with his awful thundering.?

A little later, probably, Petrarch received from Jan ze Streda a short letter, beginning Saphirei fundamenti (LAP 65), telling

Petrarch, first, that his main recommendation (certainly his recommendation for Laelius) had been effective, and that the Emperor had been so greatly pleased with Petrarch’s letter that he had been showing it to many persons; and, second, that Petrarch’s other recommendation, unfortunately, could not prevail. On 25 March, probably in 1355, though possibly in a considerably later year, Petrarch wrote to Jan ze Streda a long letter, Misc. 12, in which he expresses his pleasure in the Chancellor’s presence in Italy, his amazement that a man born so far from Helicon could attain such literary distinction, and his congratulations on the Chancellor’s success in elevating the style used in the imperial chancery. Much of the letter is devoted to instances of Roman ingratitude to Roman heroes and Roman appreciation of certain non-Roman rulers.

In the course of the month, in all probability, Petrarch learned that Laelius had reached Pisa at the end of February, that the Legate had arrived on 12 March, and that the Emperor had left for Rome on the 22nd. In the course of the month, also, and probably toward the end of the month, Petrarch received a letter, now lost, from Nelli (Cochin 38). From Fam. xvu1 7, our only source of information about this lost letter, we know that it was written hastily, on the spur of the moment, just after Nelli had risen from a dinner, that in it Nelli apologized for its disadorned style, * As has been noted above, it is possible, but not probable, that the

receipt of Forese’s letter and the writing of the reply took place in

March 1354.

92 CHAPTER NINE | that the gravity of its thought was, in Petrarch’s opinion, appropriate to the times, and that it was brief.

_ Late in March or early in April Petrarch doubtless heard from Socrates that their petition for an exchange of canonries had been approved on 4 March (see above, p. 84). April

On the first day of the new month Petrarch wrote Fam. xvi 7 to Nelli, in reply to the letter just mentioned. In this reply Petrarch maintains that the disadorned style of Nelli’s letter was

very pleasing, even as disadorned dress and appearance may be very pleasing: he cites the instances of Cleopatra, Hippolytus,

Sophonisba, and Lucretia, and in connection with Sophonisba refers to the fact that in his Africa he has mentioned her meeting with Massinissa. He says also that he knows that some of his earlier letters have failed to reach Nelli; that this failure is due

to interception by grasping admirers; and that he is sending copies with the present letter, which he dates “Kal. Aprilis,

propere.” —

In this same letter Petrarch says also that he is sending Nelli another letter, now lost (not in Cochin’s list)—“quicquid hodie yconomicum michi domus attulit, seorsum altera leges papiro”— and that in this other letter he has something to say about books, apparently about works that he desired to obtain.

Fam. xvi 7 1s followed, is followed, in the order of the Familiares, by three other letters addressed to Nelli, Fam. xvi 8-10, that were certainly written in the period April—July 1355, but cannot well be more exactly dated: these letters will be considered presently.

On 5 April the Emperor was crowned in Rome by Cardinal Petrus Bertrandi, acting for the Pope. News of the coronation must have reached Milan promptly, and must have brought to Petrarch great satisfaction and great hope for the future of Italy.

~ On 10 April Petrarch, to his great delight, received from

TO THE FLIGHT OF THE EMPEROR 93 Boccaccio the promised copy of the Enarrationes in Psalmos of St. Augustine, in which, immediately or eventually, he wrote this inscription: Hoc immensum opus donavit michi vir egregius Johannes Boccacii de Certaldo, poeta nostri temporis, quod de Florentia ad me pervenit, 1355, Aprilis 10.4

Fam, xvi 3, written on the following day, is Petrarch’s acknowledgment of this gift, which he had at once shown to friends. He writes with the greatest enthusiasm both of St. Au-

gustine and of the beauty of this particular MS: “Huic tali amicitie tue dono, preter eam quam loquor magnitudinem, et libri decor et vetustioris litere maiestas et omnis sobrius accedit ornatus.”’

By about the middle of April Petrarch had received at least three letters from Neri Morando, who was accompanying the imperial suite. In the letter last recerved—written evidently in Rome early in April—Neri had told of a tragic event: Paolo Annibaldeschi, to whom Petrarch had sent messages by Neri, had died suddenly on beholding the body of his son, who had been killed while fighting in or near Rome. Replying on 20 April, in Var. 32,° Petrarch rehearses at great length instances of classic behavior after the death of a son; and

while expressing his grief for Paolo’s overwhelming distress,

commends rather the fortitude with which certain ancient

~ Romans had borne such losses. Andrea Dandolo had been succeeded as Doge of Venice by Marino Falier, with whom Petrarch was acquainted, though he

does not speak of him as a friend. In the first half of April ‘This MS is now in the Bibliothéque Nationale, as Par. 1989: see Bosco, p. 76. ° On the date of this letter, which certainly cannot have been written

in February 1356, as Fracassetti 2 has it, see L. G. Voigt, “Die Briefsammlungen Petrarcas und der venezianischer Staatskanzler Benintendi,”

in K. Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Abhandlungen der historischen Classe, xvt (1883), Part III, 45.

54 CHAPTER NINE Marino entered into a conspiracy to make Venice an autocracy; the conspiracy was quickly discovered; and Marino, after trial and confession, was executed on the 18th. News of these events

must have reached Milan swiftly; and on the 24th Petrarch reported them in a long letter, Fam. x1x 9, to his friend Guido Sette, who was still in Avignon: He had been made Doge in an evil hour for himself and for the

state. I had known him for a long time, but my opinion of him was mistaken: he was a man of greater courage than prudence... An evil omen marked his entrance into the Ducal Palace; and he was not to serve as Doge even for a full year. For the Venetians, who have always held the office of Doge as sacrosanct, and have regarded the Doge almost as a divinity, have but now beheaded him on the steps of the Palace. The causes of this action. . . are reported variously and confusedly. No one excuses him, all say that he wanted somehow to change the long-established system of government ... It was while he was serving as a legate to the Pope and engaged in peace negotiations that he, without desire or even knowledge on his part, was elected Doge. Returning to Venice,

he had thoughts that no one else had ever had; and he suffered

what no one else had ever suffered, in the most famous and noble and beautiful place that I have ever seen, where ancestors of his had attained high honors in triumphal celebration. There he was brought, and there, amid a throng of nobles, his head was struck from his body, and his blood fouled the doors of the ‘Temple and the entrance to the Palace and the marble steps, so often adorned

for solemn festivals or with the spoils of victory ... The year

was this year of our Lord 1355, and the day ... the 18th of April ... Lhe people, if what is said is true, were right, but I could wish that their vengeance had been less furious and more lenient .. . _ There rests upon him also this calamity, that he will be thought to have been not only wretched but foolish and mad, and that his reputation for wisdom, held for so many years, will be thought

to have rested on false report. |

Farlier in the same letter Petrarch paints this dark picture

of conditions in Italy: |

... uprisings in Pisa and Siena, revolution in Bologna, Florence bearing no fruit, Rome weeping, Naples in dismay, the Terra di ®See Lazzarini, “Marino Faliero, la congiura,” in NAV, xi (1897), 5—107 and 277-374.

TO THE FLIGHT OF THE EMPEROR 95 Lavoro too rightly named, Sicily seething in suphureous hatreds, the actions of Genoa, preparations in Lombardy, the plots of the Emilia and the Marches, the sleepless efforts of Mantua, the fears of Ferrara, the miseries of Verona, barbaric incursions into Aquileia and the Trentino, and worst of all the ravages of the mercenaries that overrun all Italy.

| May ©

On or just before 1 May Petrarch’s son Giovanni, probably at his father’s suggestion or request, wrote to Moggio dei Moggi, whose pupil he had been while still a child, asking him to come to live with them in Milan. On 1 May Petrarch himself wrote to Moggio what is ostensibly a seconding letter, Fam. xix 5. In it he speaks of his son’s letter, and urges Moggio to come and live with them as a friend, foreseeing that he would have a good influence on Giovanni: If the boy shows himself worthy, you will have a good effect both on his morals and on his education. If he does not learn from

you he will never learn from anyone. Even in his childhood he admired you and loved you above all others; and to be well-known, loved, and admired is of great advantage to a teacher.

He suggests also that Moggio, if and when so disposed, might do some copying for him, and might share in his studies. Their manner of life would be simple, but Moggio could be sure of peace and solitude and freedom. This letter, however, as will presently appear, was not sent until the end of the month.

The truce between Milan and Venice having expired on 1 May, a mission from Venice came to Milan at some time in the month to negotiate a treaty of peace. Benintendi dei Ravagnani, who came as a member of that mission, made the most

of his opportunity to see something of Petrarch. Petrarch showed him some of his letters, including his two letters to Cicero and his letter to Seneca; and Benintendi copied the letters to Cicero. Toward the end of the month, apparently—the treaty of peace was signed on the first day of June—Benintendi sent to ©

Petrarch a brief letter, beginning Sz plus debito (LAP 7), in

96 CHAPTER NINE - which he says that he expects to be in Milan about a week more; asks to be allowed to copy the letter to Seneca and anything else that Petrarch may have ready; and says that he would come fre-

quently to see Petrarch were it not for his fear of disturbing

Petrarch’s studies. |

From a later letter of Benintendi, LAP 6, it is clear that while Benintendi was in Milan Petrarch promised Benintendi that he should have a copy of his epistolarium, and Benintendi promised that he would send Petrarch a copy of Andrea Dandolo’s reply—of which Petrarch had no knowledge—to the letter

of Petrarch that had reached Venice only a few days before Dandolo’s death.

On 28 May Petrarch added a short postscript to his letter to Moggio, saying that he had written the letter thinking that Moggio was in Parma. He has just learned, however, that Moggio is now with Azzo da Correggio [probably in Venice]; and accordingly, thinking that his invitation may be out of order, he asks Moggio to disregard it, or to accept it only if it should meet with Azzo’s approval.

In the course of the month Petrarch must have learned of the return of the Emperor to Pisa on the 6th, and something of the difficulties and dangers that beset him there later in the

month. And it must have been either at the very end of the month or very early in June that he heard—certainly with the utmost surprise and with much displeasure—that on 24 May,

in the Pisan Cathedral, the Emperor had crowned Zanobi da Strada as poet. This extraordinary performance, quite unwar- | ranted by any achievements of Zanobi, was presumably due to a

suggestion made by Niccolo Acciaiuoli, who was with the Emperor. Petrarch must have felt that it belittled the signifi-

| June

cance of his own coronation as poet in Rome many years before.

On the first day of the month a treaty of peace between Milan and Venice was signed in Milan. It contained a clause

TO THE FLIGHT OF THE EMPEROR 97 providing for ratification within two months by the other mem-

bers of the Venetian league: no such ratification followed, however, and intermittent warfare was resumed, chiefly around Bologna.”

Cardinal Petrus Bertrandi, in the course of his leisurely journey back from Rome to Avignon, spent Saturday and Sun-

day, 6 and 7 June, in Milan; and while there he went to see Petrarch, taking with him, evidently, Johannes Porta, his chaplain and secretary, who gives this account of the interview: Ibi dictus dominus cardinalis invenit virum unum non solum, de qua natus est, Florentie florem, verum et toto in terrarum orbe notabilem, ymo verius unicum singularem poetam, quo nullus maior natus umquam esse credatur, dominum scilicet Franciscum Petrarcam, iam diu est, per senatum et populum solempnissime laureatum in Urbe, ubi solum poetas huiusmodi laureari fas est absque pape vel imperatoris presentia. Qui de omnibus et singulis Ytalie conditionibus, prerogativis et gratiis, quibus ultra ceteras mundi provincias est dotata, et de cunctis mundi climatibus dictum dominum

cardinalem informat et tanquam devotissimus eius cum quanta ‘potest reverentia eum honorat.®

At or about the same time Petrarch had the great pleasure of receiving a visit from Laelius, who was probably travelling

with the Cardinal. He brought Petrarch greetings from the Emperor, and, as a gift from the Emperor, a Roman coin bearing the likeness of Caesar.

News concerning the Emperor, whether reaching Petrarch through the Cardinal or Laelius, or otherwise, was, from Petrarch’s point of view, very bad. On 27 May Charles, finding it unsafe to remain in Pisa, had moved northward to Pietrasanta, where he was to stay for about a fortnight. There, on 3 June, he granted the imperial vicariate of Pavia to the Marquis of Monferrato and a cousin of his. News of this grant must have been received wrathfully by the Visconti, for the Marquis was a bitter enemy of theirs, and they desired intensely to gain con-

" Cognasso, pp. 375-378. | “See Porta-Salomon, pp. 115-116.

98 CHAPTER NINE trol of Pavia, which, though only some twenty miles south of Milan, was not among their possessions. Now, moreover, the Emperor was preparing to abandon Italy. Leaving Pietrasanta on 14 June, he moved northward, through the territory of the Visconti, but not through Milan. He spent two days in Cremona, and then moved swiftly northward through Soncino, Bergamo, and the Val Camonica, leaving Italy before the end of the month. While the Emperor was still on Italian soil, and apparently when he was already near the Alps—perhaps about the 20th of

June—Petrarch wrote to him his bitterly reproachful Fam. xIx 12: Having attained without toil or the shedding of blood all that your grandfather and so many others had attained with so much toil and so much bloodshed . . . you are abandoning it all, either ungrateful or witless, and returning to your own barbaric realm... If your grandfather and your father should meet you on the Alps, what do you think they would say to you? I believe you can hear them speaking, even if they be not there: “Most nobly hast thou wrought, oh great Caesar, in thy long-delayed entrance into Italy and in thy hasty retreat! Thou bringest with thee crowns of iron and of gold and the sterile name of empire; thou may’st be called Emperor of the Romans: thou art in truth King of Bohemia and

nothing more.” |

The greetings brought by Laelius are more cruel than the point of a sword. If the coined Caesar could have spoken, perhaps he

could have prevented this inglorious, not to say infamous,

retreat. ,

April_July: Correspondence with Nelli Fam. xvii 7, written to Nelli on 1 April 1s followed, in the order of the Familiares, by three other letters, Fam. xvi 8-10, that are not dated. Fam. xvii 8, however, is a supplement to 7, and Nelli’s xu, written on 16 August, refers to the contents of 7 and 10, and perhaps to the contents of 9. It may be inferred

April—July. |

safely, therefore, that 8-10 were written within the period

| TO THE FLIGHT OF THE EMPEROR 99 Fam. xvi 8 assures Nelli that simplicity of style is appropriate in letters addressed to friends, and has much to say about various aspects of friendship. It refers incidentally to the legend of the northern hunter who once found a stag wearing a golden

collar that bore in ancient letters the inscription, due to Julius Caesar, “Nemo me capiat”; and it tells how Petrarch got his Roman coins: When I was in Rome it often happened that a vineyard laborer would come to me holding in his hand a piece of jewelry of ancient workmanship, or a gold or silver coin—sometimes damaged by the

blade of a hoe—either wanting to sell it to me or wanting me to tell him who it was that was represented on the coin.

At the end of this letter Petrarch refers to his “epystolam . . . penultimam” as having been written “‘festinanter.” ‘This

appears to be a reference to xvi 7, which had been dated “propere”; and in this case Petrarch must have written a letter to Nelli after xvim 7 and before xvi 8. This intervening letter may have been (1) the lost letter, mentioned above (Cochin 38),

that is promised in xvi 7; (2) xv 9; (3) the lost covering — letter, presently to be mentioned (Cochin 43), for Met. m 22; or (4) some other lost letter, perhaps that listed by Cochin as 37. Fam. xvi 9 opens with the words “Quod visum fuit epystole

tue reddidi.” The letter from Nelli referred to in these words was presumably the lost letter received by Petrarch in March (Cochin 38), and Petrarch’s reply was presumably xvi 8 or a lost letter, perhaps Cochin 37.

In any case, after Petrarch had written the reply thus referred to he met a Florentine messenger who had come to Milan

with official despatches; he talked with this messenger about Nelli, praising him highly, much to the surprise of the messenger,

who said that he knew Nelli by sight, but that Nelli was not at all well known in Florence; and he gave the messenger the reply in question, asking him to take it to Nelli. All this we learn from the brief xvi 9, which develops the

circumstance. |

idea that not being well known is in itself a very honorable Fam. xvi 10 opens with sentence “O felix letumque con-

100 CHAPTER NINE vivium, quod tales tamque unanimes tres amicos apud te nostri

sub adventum nuntii festa luce contraxerat!” And there is a reference at the end to the joy with which, according to Nelli, Petrarch’s reply had been received. It seems likely that the “nuntius” here mentioned was the one referred to in xvi 9, and that the letter that he brought was the one referred to in xvi 9: it is however not impossible that the “nuntius” and the letter referred to by Nelli are otherwise unknown. In any case, Fam. xvur 10 is an answer to a letter from Nelli

that is now lost (Cochin 41). Taking its theme from Nelli’s report of the festive gathering of the three friends, xvi 10 1s devoted to the exposition, following Varro, of the requirements for a perfect “convivium.” ‘The number of those present should be not less than the number of the Graces and not greater than the number of the Muses. Place and time should be well chosen, and the table should be suitably set. ‘he conversation, a mean — between loquacity and silence, should be in good humor, useful, pleasant, gentle, affable, and free from contention or dispute or

worry or anything else that might be troublesome. Servants should be few, polite, and expert. ‘The host should be generous without ostentation, quietly happy, tactful, gentle, urbane, and alert, able to keep the conversation going, and willing to listen. One letter not now extant, which may or may not have been identical with one of the lost letters already referred to, must have gone from Petrarch to Nelli within this period: for Nelli’s XI, written on 16 August, refers to his receipt of a copy of Met. | 1 22, and that copy must have been sent with a covering letter, now lost (Cochin 43). This metrica, addressed to Nelli, on the theme of Avignon as the Fifth Labyrinth, had been written in Avignon late in 1351, and Nelli had known ever since early 1352 that Petrarch had written it for him;° but only now had Petrarch been able to revise it to his own satisfaction.

An Invective and an Apologia

It was in all probability within the first half of 1355 that *See Wilkins 2, pp. 193-196.

TO THE FLIGHT OF THE EMPEROR 101 Petrarch learned that Cardinal Jean de Caraman had been speaking ill of him in Avignon, disparaging his writings, and calling him a companion and a friend of tyrants. Intensely indignant, Petrarch wrote, almost certainly within the period March—August, the Invective to which he gave the title Invectiva contra quendam magni status hominem sed nullius scientie aut virtutis.° In length it would cover about seventeen

pages of the size of those of this book. The tone of the Invec- _ tive is stinging throughout; the Cardinal’s character and conduct are held up to scorn and ridicule. Dispraise from him is in reality the highest praise. Answering the charge that he has become a companion and a friend of tyrants, Petrarch says first that many men—he cites Socrates, Plato, Callisthenes, Cato, and Seneca— have been in some sense associated with tyrants without loss of their own integrity; and then maintains that the young Visconti are not tyrants, and that he lives and moves in perfect freedom. He refers to the Visconti as “my young men’; says that they are

governors of their fatherland, not tyrants, and as completely without tyranny as the Cardinal is without equity and justice, and continues:

I am with them, but not subject to them; I live in their land, not in their house. There come to me from them only the comforts and the honors that they are continually giving me, as far as I will let them. It is to other men, born for such tasks, that they turn for counsel, for the conduct of public affairs, for financial administration: to me are assigned “otium et silentium et securitas et libertas.” So while others seek the palace, I seek my woods and my solitudes ... The depths of the abyss are no farther from the summit of the heavens than your senile and avaricious pride is from the graciousness and generosity of these young men. You may be sure, then, that they are not tyrants, and that I am completely free.

There is an extended reference to Petrarch’s polemic of about 1344 with Brizio Visconti, whom Petrarch represents as a much more formidable opponent than the Cardinal. 10° On this Invective see Ricci’s “Il Petrarca e Brizio Visconti,” in Leonardo, N.S., xvi (1947), 337-345, and his notes in Prose, pp. 11721173; also Boni, pp. 230-276.

102 CHAPTER NINE There is an incidental reference to a volumen that he has just written, in which, he says, he has replied to calumnies similar to the Cardinal’s. ‘To this same book, apparently, Petrarch refers

- in two letters (see below, pp. 143 and 210), indicating, however, that he has not finished it. It 1s possible that this apologia is to be identified with the incomplete autobiographical Epistola posteritatt.

CHAPTER X

1355: July-December

July After the Emperor had left Italy, probably soon afterward, Petrarch received from Neri Morando a letter written evidently in March, in Pisa—therefore before the letter written in Rome about the first of April, to which Petrarch had replied, on 20

April, in his Var. 32. In his answer, Fam. xx 1, Petrarch refers to the surprising length of time it had taken for the letter to reach him. In this letter Neri had spoken of Laelius (who had reached Pisa on 25 February), of the arrival of a contingent of Milanese troops who were to serve in the escort of the Emperor, and of the negotiations that were being carried on in Pisa between representatives of Florence and the Emperor. These negotiations, begun at the end of January, were concluded on

20 March. The Florentines wanted imperial confirmation of their previously guaranteed independence; and the Emperor was quite willing to grant such confirmation, provided that the Florentines would pay him 100,000 florins, which they finally agreed to do. Petrarch had of course known of these matters long before Ner1’s letter reached him; but he replied courteously, in a letter that opens with a long disquisition on the sad state of the world—

a disquisition written evidently in the mood of dejection that followed the departure of the Emperor—continues with reference to the matters mentioned by Neri, and concludes with an invective against the love of gold, suggested certainly by the Florentine payment exacted by the Emperor, and perhaps also by memory of the 150,000 florins promised to the Emperor by the Visconti.? "When Petrarch, long afterward, prepared this letter for inclusion 103

104 CHAPTER TEN Just after Petrarch had finished this letter, but before he had

sealed it, he received another letter from Neri, which he answered in Fam. xx 2. This second letter of Neri’s evidently spoke critically of the Emperor. It reported an incident in the meeting of the Emperor with Cardinal Petrus Bertrandi (who had arrived in Pisa on 12 March)—the Cardinal’s horse had kicked the Emperor’s—told of the high favor that Laelius had found with the Emperor, and ended with grateful personal memories.

Petrarch’s reply indicates agreement with Nert’s criticism,

remarks that the kicking was perhaps natural in view of the rivalry between the papacy and the empire, and expresses great interest in the affairs of Laelius. Neri’s final personal memories lead Petrarch to say that he will send Neri a separate letter (not extant) on personal affairs: “de famuiliaribus curis, stilo alio et

_ seorsum loquar, ut soleo.” ? ,

| Early in the summer, presumably in July, Petrarch received a letter from a certain Giovanni da Parma, asking on his own behalf and on behalf of Luchino dal Verme, who was then serving in Genoa, how one may best resist summer heat. Their

question is thus reported in Petrarch’s reply, Var. 50: “... quaeritis quid remedii norim adversus Nemaei rabiem Leonis toto nunc impetu Phoebi crines ac faciem accendentis.” In that reply, after referring to the cooling effect of the sight of snow-clad Alps, visible from Milan, Petrarch treats their question as meaning “How best may one resist the onset of passion?”; and he answers by commending the virtues of a cer-

tain rare tree, which he describes at some length. It is tall, in the collection of the Fazniliares he inserted passages in which he says

that he had heard of these matters before receiving Neri’s letter; and in one of these passages he makes it clear that the letter had reached him when the Emperor “non modo coronatus sed velut umbra vel somnium nobis ablatus sit.” See Rossi 1, and Piur 2, pp. 193-196. The passage just quoted shows that Piur is clearly wrong in suggesting that Petrarch’s reply may have been written in April. _ * This letter also was much revised in preparation for its inclusion in the collection of the Familiares: see Rossi 1, and Piur 2, pp. 197-201. On favors shown to Laelius by the Emperor see Piur, pp. 46-47.

1355: JULY - DECEMBER 105 straight, and ever green; its shades are health-giving; its fruits are plentiful and sweet; it grows in difficult and solitary places. It had at first but four great branches, and weary shepherds were wont to gather around it. Then there came an unknown celestial husbandman, who tended it with his hoe and watered it with dew; and the tree has now seven great branches—four dipping toward the earth and three pointing upward—and many lesser branches. Gentle breezes blow about it; white songbirds nest

in it. [he ground beneath it is soft, and decked with varied plants and brightly colored fragrant flowers. A fountain springs in its shade, giving rise to a gently murmuring stream that flows onward between confining banks. Petrarch bids Giovanni and Luchino to seek this tree, which will protect them against the heat that rages under the signs of Cancer and Leo, and to cling to it until the evening.®

Perhaps in July, perhaps a little earlier or a little later, Petrarch received from Zanobi da Strada a letter, probably in verse, in which Zanobi spoke of his coronation, indicated that he desired to follow in Petrarch’s footsteps, and professed

his devotion to Petrarch. |

To this letter, presumably not very long after he received it, Petrarch replied by his Met. m1 8, which begins: O felix cui vel viduam spectare parentem Contigit, atque vagas deserto in monte sorores!

The “sisters” are of course the Muses, and the “parent” is quite

certainly their mother, Mnemosyne, “widowed” because deserted by Jupiter. In this brief (16-line) epistola, Petrarch, after congratulating Zanobi, belittles his own attainments, and welcomes Zanobi’s profession of devotion. This is, as far as we know, the last epistola metrica that Petrarch ever wrote. August-September

By about the middle of August Petrarch had heard, presum® On this letter and on Petrarch’s next letter to Giovanni da Parma see Foresti, pp. 322-326.

106 CHAPTER TEN ably from his Bergamask admirer, the goldsmith Enrico Capra, that a Bergamask teacher, lacopo Domenico de Apibus, commonly known as Crotto, owned copies of a considerable number of the works of Cicero, including some that were rare; and on 21 August he wrote a very tactful letter, Fam. xvi 13, in which he asked Crotto for a share in his Ciceronian possessions. ‘This letter he sent to Crotto by a mutual friend, presumably Capra, __ who was to supplement orally what Petrarch had written.

Very promptly indeed Crotto sent him, with a covering letter a copy of the Tusculans. Petrarch had owned a copy of this work since his youth. He was glad, nevertheless, to have this copy, which, he says, is “ad unguem correctum et alus tullianis

monumentis . . . comitatum’’; and on 1 September he wrote to Crotto a cordial letter of thanks, Fam. xvu 14, which is devoted mainly to eloquent praise of Cicero.*

At about the same time, presumably, Petrarch received Nelli’s x1, written on 16 August. This long letter shows that Nelli had received Fam. xvu1 7 and 10—apparently also xvi 9— and Met. m1 22. In the course of his letter Nelli says that now,

thanks to his friendship with Petrarch, he is more highly regarded in Florence than he had been before. The letter contains also this account of an occasion in Florence (certainly in 1350, when Petrarch, on his pilgrimage to Rome, passed through Flor-

his own): |

ence) when Petrarch read aloud certain carmina (presumably

Memini te, imo reminisci nequeo, que obliuioni non dedi, cum dudum carmina nobis uocem illam uenerandam atque tremendam, _ motus animi disertissima lingua interprete, extulisse,; gestus quoque modestie plenos quos anime affixos teneo, nunc paululum laxando,

nunc contrahendo pro qualitate uerborum, nunc destrorsum aut sinistrorsum membra iactando; sed eo motu eaque temperie, magistra uerecundia, ut nichil aliud quam quesita honestas, et uerborum _assertio atque impressio uideretur. * The August and September dates appear in the missive forms of these two letters: when they were prepared for inclusion in the Familiares the date of the first was dropped, and the date of the second was changed to “Kal. Decembris.” On these letters see Foresti 1, pp. 372-373.

| 1355: JULY - DECEMBER 107 Throughout the month of September Petrarch suffered from a severe attack of his usual September tertian fever [Var. 22].

Death of Matteo Visconti Matteo Visconti died on 28 September, probably as a result _ of his excesses.° It is undoubtedly to his death that Petrarch

refers in Var, 61—written certainly in 1355 and after midsummer—in this passage: Malefida enim voluptatis statio, ad quam velut ad portum mundus iners confluit, ut blandos introitus sic moestos habet ac praecipites

egressus; quod si unquam dubitatum esset, heu! clare nimis ac terrifice non sine meis et multorum lacrimis nuper apparuit.®

The portions of Milan and of the Milanese dominions previously assigned to Matteo were now divided between Bernabo and Galeazzo; but there is no reason to think that this new division mattered to Petrarch.

October ,

About the first of October Petrarch decided to send his factor, Matteo di Pietro, to Naples, on various personal errands,

but chiefly to find out whether there was any prospect that Niccolo Acciaiuoli could provide him with a dwelling-place in which he might live the solitary life that he so constantly desired

to live: “An in Magno Senescallo ... spei aliquid sit ad id quod valde suspirat animus meus, ad solitarie scilicet vite genus,

si forte desuper datum est, ut qui in pelago vixerim, moriar in portu.” Presumably Petrarch wrote a letter on this matter for Matteo to give to Niccolo: but no such letter is extant.’ On 3 October there came to Petrarch a monk, previously

unknown to him, who brought him two letters and a packet * Cognasso, pp. 362-363.

°’The reference of this passage to the death of Matteo has not previously been noted. Fracassetti 2 “suspects” that the reference is to a death mentioned in Fam. 1x 4, which was written within the period 1348—1350.

*On the matters treated in this and the next few paragraphs see Wilkins 2, pp. 240-244.

108 CHAPTER TEN from Barbato da Sulmona. One of the letters, LAP 5, was a brief note of introduction; the other was a long letter beginning

Extremum Olimpiadis; the packet contained another pair of SCISSOFS.

The letter of introduction identified the monk as one Raimondo, of the monastery of Monte Cassino. Barbato’s lost letter bore a superscription designating Petrarch as “poetarum rex”; contained a reference to Barbato’s eagerness to possess works by Petrarch, made particular mention

of the letters of Petrarch, saying that Barbato had gathered a little collection of them, and that he found them all pleasing; spoke of the monk who carried the letter as authority for the statement that in the region where he dwelt Petrarch was referred to as “poetarum rex”; asked for full information as to Petrarch’s health and activities; and reported the admiration of one Francesco Sanita, a man unknown to Petrarch. On the following day, 4 October, Petrarch wrote two letters to Barbato, the first lengthy and substantial, the second brief and

informal. In the first of these letters, Var. 22, Petrarch reports that he has been suffering from his usual September attack of tertian fever, but is now recovering; deprecates Barbato’s admiration for his works; says that he has gathered for Barbato copies of a good many of his letters (meaning evidently his prose

letters); refers to the fact that he has dedicated to Barbato his collection of his epistolae metricae, and states that his inability to send it is due to difficulties with his copyists; disclaims any right to be called “poetarum rex”; and laments the literary poverty of the current age. ‘This letter was to be taken to Barbato through the good offices of the Celestines of Milan, who were evidently able and willing to see to it that it should reach him safely whether he was in Sulmona or in Naples. The second letter, Misc. 11, was to be carried by Matteo, to be given to Barbato if he should find him in Naples. In this letter

Petrarch, after referring to his hope of finding a “harbor” in Naples, thanks Barbato for the scissors; says that Matteo will give him all the personal information he may want; and sends his greetings to Francesco Sanita.

1355: JULY - DECEMBER 109 Probably before the end of October, but possibly somewhat Jater, Petrarch received from Giovanni da Parma a reply to the letter, Var. 50, in which he had advised Giovanni and Luchino to cling to a certain rare tree, which he had described in some detail. With Giovanni's reply there came, much to Petrarch’s pleasure, two colored drawings on parchment, one representing the tree, and the other representing the arena of human life— “huius vitae arenam habitatam mortalibus.” In his acknowledgment, Var. 61, Petrarch gives a detailed exposition of the allegory

of the tree, which of course signifies virtue. The seven great _ branches are the four moral virtues, which are concerned with mundane affairs, and the three theological virtues; the lesser branches are the subdivisions of these seven virtues; the husband-

man is Christ, who tends the tree with his teaching and with his

blood and his continuing grace; the gentle breezes are pious thoughts and holy inspirations, the white songbirds are pure spirits singing unto the Lord; the fruits are the delectable fruits of virtue; the soft ground is the restfulness of a peaceful mind | and a clear conscience; the varied plants are virtuous actions; the flowers are the beauties of morality; the fragrance is good repute; the bright color is the shining quality of virtue; the fountain and

the stream are the inexhaustible succession of the good deeds that spring from virtue, the more widely resonant for surrounding obstructions; the difficult and solitary places wherein the tree grows are the difficulties that beset the attainment of virtue; Cancer signifies the fall of a soul that had tried and failed to rise, and Leo the destructive fire of passion; and the evening signifies the end of life. The concluding reference to the death of Matteo

Visconti has been quoted above. , November

In 1351 Petrarch had received from Lapo da Castiglionchio, as a loan, a volume containing four orations of Cicero, the Pro Milone, the Pro Plancio, the Pro Sulla and the Pro lege manila.

He had taken this volume with him to Provence, intending to have it copied there. He had not succeeded however, and had

110 CHAPTER TEN brought it back to Italy. In Milan, still unable to get it copied— he blames the scarcity of competent copyists—he had finally

transcribed it himself. The task at last finished, he sent the volume back to Lapo, together with a covering letter of thanks and apology, Fam. xvi 12, which was written on 14 November

or shortly before that date. |

He knew that Lapo had gone to study law at the University

of Bologna, but thought it possible that he had returned to Florence in consequence of the disastrous experiences of warfare through which Bologna had been passing. He did not dare to send the volume to Bologna: instead, he sent it to Nelli, in Florence, together with his covering letter to Lapo; and on 14 November he wrote a covering letter to Nelli, Fam. xvi 11, in which he deplores Lapo’s commitment to the study of law, refers to the University as “illa que omnibus fere studiis par est discendi cupidine,” tells Nelli why he is sending the volume in his care,

and asks him to see to it that the volume and the letter to Lapo reach Lapo safely.°

| On the 19th Petrarch, after reading the conclusion of a Latin translation of the Tiaeus in a manuscript that he owned, made at the end this entry: Felix miser, qui hec sciens unde ista nescisti. 1355 nouembr. 19.

The “Felix miser” is of course Plato, whose wisdom, great as it was, came short of the apprehension of Christian truth.’°

It was perhaps in November, though possibly somewhat earlier, that Petrarch wrote to Boccaccio a letter, now lost, in which he referred to Boccaccio as a poet [Fam. xvi 15]. In the late summer and for part of the autumn Boccaccio had been very ill;** and had then gone to Naples, expecting to

° See Foresti 1, pp. 234-237. — ,

tionale, as Par. 6280. |

*° Nolhac, 1, 142. This manuscript is now in the Bibliotheque Na-

See his epistola metrica to Zanobi beginning “Si bene conspexi,”

in Boccaccio-Masséra, pp. 97-99, and the discussions of that epistola by

| 1355: JULY - DECEMBER 111 find Niccolo Acciaiuoli a generous patron. Disappointed in this

expectation, he soon returned to Florence: we do not know just when.** While in Naples, or, more probably, as he began his journey back to Florence, he had visited the monastery of Monte Cassino, which was then under the supervision of Zanobi da Strada (Angelo Acciaiuoli had been made Bishop of Monte Cassino in March 1355, and had appointed Zanobi as his vicar); and in the library there had come into his hands—perhaps called to his attention by Zanobi, perhaps found by Boccaccio himself— an 11th-century manuscript containing a collection of fragments from Cicero and portions of the De lingua latina of Varro. This

manuscript, presumably with the knowledge and consent of Zanobi, he took with him to Florence; and there with his own hand he made a copy of it which he sent to Petrarch. This gift presumably reached Petrarch rather late in November or early in December: he acknowledged it very gratefully in the undated

Fam. xvi 4.1°

December |

_It was probably in December, though possibly in November, that Petrarch received from Barbato da Sulmona a letter begin-

ning In maximis lacrimarum (LAP 4), in which Barbato says that he has received Petrarch’s brief letter (Misc. 11) from the hand of Niccolo Acciaiuoli, but has not yet received the longer letter (Var. 22). ‘The main purpose of Barbato’s letter is to convey to Petrarch the news of the death of their friend Giovanni Barrili. He encloses the letter, written to him by Pietro Piccolo da Monteforte, which had brought the sad news to him; Masséra in his “Di tre epistole metriche boccaccesche,” 1n Gzornale dantesco, xxx (1927), 34-41; by Billanovich 1, pp. 205-206, n. 2; and in The “Epistolae metricae” of Petrarch (for which see n. 5 on p. x),

. 17-18. |

PP See E.-G. Léonard, Boccace et Naples (Paris, 1944), pp. 69-78; and

Billanovich 1, pp. 199-203. , *® See Bosco, pp. 75-77; Billanovich 1, pp. 203-206; and Billanovich,

I primi umanisti e le tradizioni dei classici latini (Fribourg, 1953), pp. 29-32. The MS brought by Boccaccio to Florence is now in the Laurentian Library, as L 10.

112 CHAPTER TEN and at Pietro’s suggestion he asks Petrarch to write an epitaph for Giovanni.**

_ By the middle of the month, Petrarch had received several letters from Boccaccio in which he had given vent to his great unhappiness at the way he was being treated in Naples: he had referred to himself as living in a Syracuse under the tyranny of a Dionysius—by whom, unquestionably, he meant Niccolo Acciaiuoli. He had taken exception, also, to Petrarch’s calling him a poet; and he had said that no word had come to him as to whether Petrarch had received the books that he had sent to him.

On 20 December Petrarch wrote a brief general answer to these letters, Fam. xvii 15. In this letter he reproves Boccaccio for giving way to his discontent, says that he understands his references to Syracuse and to Dionysius; reproves him for objecting to be called a poet, and seems to suggest that such objection may be a reaction to the coronation of Zanobi; says that he has received and acknowledged not only the books sent to him as gifts by Boccaccio but also those that he had loaned to Boc-

- caccio; refers to the frequent loss of his letters; says that the bearer of the present letter, whom he calls “adolescens hic mei amans, tui cupidus,” will tell him all that he (Petrarch) 1s doing and thinking, and what he (Petrarch) thinks that he (Boccaccio)

should be thinking and doing; and ends with the invitation “Sospitem te opto.”

On Christmas Day, or perhaps a day or two earlier, there came to Petrarch a friend from Avignon who was on a pilgrimage to Rome—a man of short stature, called Giovannolo—who had been a member of the household of Cardinal Giovanni Colonna, as Petrarch had been. He was to go through Florence on his way to Rome; and on Christmas Day—“ea luce eaque lucis hora qua mundo tenebris presso cecisque mortalibus, de terra olim viva lux orta est”—Petrarch wrote to Nelli a brief letter of introduction for him, Fam. xx 6. Petrarch told Giovannolo, as ** See Billanovich, “Pietro Piccolo da Monteforte tra il Petrarca e il Boccaccio,” in Medioevo e rinascimento: Studi in onore di Bruno Nardi, 1 (Florence, 1955), 8-10; also Martellotti, “Piramidi,” in SP, v1 (1956), 37-39. There is no evidence that Petrarch ever wrote the desired epitaph.

1355: JULY -DECEMBER > 113 we know from Nelli’s xvi, that he himself was planning to go

to Rome in the coming Lenten season, and to visit Nelli on the way.”®

| | Addenda for 1355 In April Giovanni d’Oleggio, the Milanese governor of Bologna, revolted and set himself up as lord of the city; and the ensuing struggle, in the course of which certain members of the Venetian league gave aid and comfort to Giovanni, lasted well into the autumn. This was a matter of grave concern to the Visconti: to Petrarch, as far as we know, it was a matter of concern only because of its disastrous effects upon the University of Bologna.

_ It was quite certainly before the end of 1355, and perhaps even in an earlier year, that Petrarch acquired another Milanese friend, whom he does not name, though he characterizes him at length in a later letter, Fam. xx 12. This friend, an octogenarian, was a good man, and of noble birth, but not rich. He was fond of arguing endlessly about philosophical and religious

questions, and always insisted that any disputant who took a view different from his was wrong—unless that disputant was Petrarch. When asked where he got all his knowledge and where he kept his books he tapped his forehead: books, he said,

were only a beggarly support for human frailty, invented because of the deficiencies of memory. He usually tried to talk Latin, but his Latin was so full of errors and of barbarisms that it was hard to understand him. He had taken a liking to Laelius (whom he had met, apparently, when Laelius visited Petrarch in

June 1355). He came frequently to dine with Petrarch, who was fond of him: “erat . . . michi et curis meis gratum familiare solatium.”

Probably in 1355, but perhaps a little earlier or a little later, *° Petrarch’s references to their companionship in service (“in eisdem castris militavimus”), to the death of their leader (“duce ... extincto”), and to the court of Avignon (‘“‘dimissis frementis aule fragoribus’”) seem

to me to preclude identification of this Giovannolo with Giovannolo da Mandello.

11¢ CHAPTER TEN Petrarch received from Guido Sette a letter in which Guido expressed his pleasure in being named in letters written by Petrarch—evidently regarding such naming as an assurance of being

remembered in the future. Petrarch, replying in Fam. xix 8, says that he will continue so to name him, and that he wishes only that he were Cicero, so that such naming might be more significant. He adds, nevertheless, that however unworthy his letters may be, Guido will find in them, as his companions, dukes, kings, emperors, popes, and, better yet, philosophers and

poets—and, best of all, good men. |

It was probably before the end of 1355 that Petrarch, know-

ing that there was in Verona a manuscript of the Historia augusta,'® asked that a copy of it be made for him: this was done, as will presently appear, in the following February. At some time in the course of the year, presumably, Petrarch received from Vaucluse the books that had been left there and had been saved at the time when robbers had set fire to his house

(see above, p. 89). Although the books had escaped the fire, they apparently showed signs of misfortune, for he says of them

[in Var. 25]: “pallere nunc etiam et tremere videntur, et turbidum loci statum unde evaserant fronte portendere.”

It was probably in the second half of 1355, or less probably _ early in 1356, that Petrarch inserted this passage in Book II of _ the De vita solitaria, as part of the general survey of the sad state of the world which he appended to his account of Peter the Hermit: Cesar hic noster, rapto dyademate, in Germaniam abiit, patriis latebris et nomine contentus imperii, cuius extrema membra complectitur caput spernens; quem recuperaturum perdita sperabamus,

suum servare non audet, nulloque fugiens persequente, sponse sacros amplexus et pulcre faciem horret Italie, tam nichil est animi nervorum. Arguit eum, fateor, illa calens et temeraria fides mea, que summa etiam perflare non metuit; excusat se, et ecclesie iurasse se iurat ne amplius quam unum diem Rome ageret. O infamem diem, o pudendum fedus! O superi, en iusiurandum, en religio, en pietas!

u, 47—53. 7

- This MS is now in the Vatican Library, as Pal. 899: see Nolhac,

1355: JULY - DECEMBER 115 Romanus pontifex ita Romam suam deseruit, ut eam nolit ab alio frequentari et de hoc cum romano imperatore paciscitur.**

This passage was written, obviously, after the flight of the

Emperor: there is, however, some question as to whether it was written soon after that flight or at a considerably later time, perhaps in 1361 or soon thereafter.

‘The other documents in which Petrarch writes of the departure of the Emperor are Fam. xtx 12, written to Charles in June 1355, Fam. xx 2, written to Neri Morando soon afterward, and Fam. xxut 2, written to Charles in March 1361. The first two of these letters have been discussed above (on pp. 98 and 104); the third will be discussed below (on p. 227). The excited and vituperative tone of the passage in the De vita seems to me to indicate in itself that it was written soon after the flight of the Emperor; and both tone and content seem to me to be much closer to those of Fam. x1x 12 and xx 2 than to those of xxui 2. The two earlier letters deal specifically with the flight of the Emperor; the later letter is essentially an exhortation to the Emperor to return to Italy—its reference to his flight occupies only some fifteen lines out of a total of more than 350.

The very characterization of the Emperor’s departure from Italy as a “flight,” which appears in the De vita passage in the phrase “nullo fugiens persequente” appears in xix 12 in the phrase “hoc tuo tam precipiti digressu fugeque” and in xx 2 in the words “fuga Cesaris,” does not appear in xx 2, in which the words used for the Emperor’s departure are simply “subito in

Germaniam remeasti.” The phrase “rapto dyademate” is closer to the clause “ut dyadema cesareum in sua sede susciperet”

of xx 2 than to the “geminum dyadema sortitus” of xxi 2. “The

phrase “nomine contentus imperii” corresponds to the “refers domum ... sterile nomen imperi” of xrx 12, whereas in xxi 2 Petrarch writes: “Rem omnium maximam transegisti, quo die nomen imperatoris ac titulum suscepisti.” ‘The clause “quem recuperaturum perdita sperabamus, suum servare non audet” 7In 1362 Petrarch replaced the clause “tam nichil est animi nervo-

a iy the innocuous clause “quasi sub celo aliquid sit pulchrius”

116 CHAPTER TEN is of the same tenor as the clause “a nullo unquam principum, tantam spem, tam floridam tam maturam tamque honestam, © sponte desertam” of xx 12. The clause “tam nichil est animi nervorum” corresponds to the “fons actionum omnium voluntas deest” of xrx 12.

The clause beginning “Arguit” might in itself refer either to xx 12 or to xxi 2; but the context indicates that the reproach is for the flight rather than for continued apathy, and reference is therefore more probably to xix 12 than to xxim 2. The De vita refers specifically to the papal requirement that the Emperor should not remain in Rome more than a single day, and inveighs

bitterly against that requirement, calling it a “pudendum fedus.” 7* In xxii 2 Petrarch does not refer to the one-day requirement as such. He does refer to the papal requirement that the Emperor should not remain in Rome, but instead of 1nveighing against it he argues calmly that the Emperor should obtain a dispensation from it. In the summer of 1356, as will presently appear, Petrarch went to Prague on a mission to the Emperor, and was received

by him with a kindness that was often to be renewed. It 1s to my mind all but inconceivable that after that visit Petrarch could have written of the Emperor the words “tam nichil est animi nervorum”—words which, when revising the De vita in 1362, he thought it necessary to remove. The feeling for the

Emperor expressed in the opening pages of xxii 2 is one of

gratitude and esteem.

, Letters Wrongly Assigned to 1355 Fam. xix 11 and 15, both wrongly assigned by certain ~ scholars to 1355, are certainly of 1356 and 1357 respectively: they will therefore be considered in Chapters XI and XIV. Misc. 1 has been assigned by certain scholars to 1355 and by others to 1357. Since the latter date is almost certainly correct, this letter will be considered in Chapter XV. **It was very possibly from Cardinal Petrus Bertrandi or from Laelius, during their visit in June 1355, that Petrarch learned of this requirement, and of the Emperor’s using it as an excuse.

CHAPTER XI

1356: January-May

January |

The early months of the New Year were filled with troubles

for the Visconti. The members (other than Venice) of the former Venetian League were as hostile as ever; letters from

the Emperor urging truce were ineffective; the Bolognese rebellion, which had seemed to be settled, broke out again, fomented by the League; and the Marquis of Monferrato, emboldened by the favor shown him by the Emperor, began in January a campaign to wrest from the Visconti their possessions in Piedmont, and soon took Asti and other cities.? In view of these troubled conditions Petrarch gave up his

plan to go to Rome in Lent [Fam. xix 7]. February

At daybreak on 7 February Petrarch had before him the page that is now f. 147 in V.L. 3196. On this page, many years before, he had written a draft of a ballata beginning thus: Amor, quand’io credea Qualche merito aver di tanta fede,

Tolta m’é quella ond’io attendea mercede.? | Just above the Dallata, apparently as soon as he had written it, he had made this entry: alibi scripsi hoc principium, sed non vacat querere. 1348. sep-_ tembris j. circa vesperas.

Above the entry just quoted Petrarch now made this entry:

117 |

1356. 7. februarij. prima face. hoc est principium unius plebeie *Cognasso, pp. 378-380. “Romano, p. 223.

118 CHAPTER ELEVEN cantionis d(icte). s(upra). Amor quando fioria. Mia spene. e ’l euidardon di tanta f(ede) etc.

Apparently he knew of a popular ballata beginning Amor, quan@io credea, and decided consequently to change the be-

ginning of his own poem.* |

It was doubtless about the middle of February that Petrarch

received a letter, beginning Nerius noster (LAP 6), written to him on 26 January by Benintendi dei Ravagnani. This long letter is a fulsome plea for the favor of a closer friendship. In a postscript Benintendi first reminds Petrarch of his promise

of a copy of his epistolarium, and says that their common friend Marco Resta da Rho will see to the payment of the copyists; and then says that he is enclosing a copy of an answer to a letter from Petrarch to the late Andrea Dandolo— presumably the letter, now lost, that reached Dandolo just before

his death. The answer thus sent by Benintendi may have been either a draft made by Dandolo, or a letter written by Benintendi himself, incorporating ideas and phrases that he knew or thought that Dandolo would have used. Benintendi refers to Dandolo as having been always “appetentissimus pacis,” and asserts that Dandolo, in accordance with the general habit of the Doges of Venice, gloried in service rather than lordship.

Before the end of February, in all probability, Petrarch received Nelli’s xvi, written on 3 February, which answers Fam. xix 6; tells how happy Nelli has been to receive and entertain Petrarch’s pilgrim friend Giovannolo; praises him highly; expresses delight in the prospect of a visit from Petrarch; and comments indignantly on the coronation of Zanobi.

Promptly, no doubt, Petrarch replied in Fam. xix 7, expressing appreciation for Nelli’s kindness to Giovannolo and for

Nelli’s pleasure in the prospect of a visit from Petrarch, and saying that in view of the troubles of Lombardy he has given “A later entry shows that in 1368 Petrarch transcribed this ballata into V.L. 3195, the first two lines being revised as in the entry of 1356.

Romano, pp. xli and 225. , | It stands in the Canzoniere as No. 324. See Appel 1, pp. 98-99; and _

1356: JANUARY - MAY 119 up his plan to go to Rome in Lent, but hopes to be able to go

in the coming autumn. |

March |

Probably in March, though possibly late in February, a Florentine whose first name was Paolo, an acquaintance of Nelli,

came to see Petrarch. In the course of their conversation

Petrarch, as we know from Nelli’s xv, said that he would like to get a Florentine woman to come and act as his housekeeper, and apparently asked Paolo to report this to Nelli.

It was presumably in March that Petrarch received from Verona the copy of the Historia augusta that he had had made there. The scribal explicit reads thus: Fxplicite uite diuersorum principum et tyrannorum a diuo Adriano usque ad Numerianum feliciter. Utere felix. Scriptus fuit sub millesimo ccc° lvj de mense febr. Et scripsit eum frater Iohannes

Amen.® |

de Campagnola Reginensis diocesis. Deo gratias. Amen. Amen.

April ,

In the course of this month, in all probability, Petrarch received two letters from Nelli. In the first, now lost (Cochin 48), Nelli expressed his regret at the postponement of Petrarch’s

journey to Rome—and made the mistake, at one point, of writing “clauum firmissimum” when he should have written “clauus firmissimus.” In the second letter, Nelli’s xv, written on

3 April, he apologizes for the mistake in the preceding letter, and says that he has had a good talk with Paolo. With regard to

the Florentine housekeeper, Nelli reports that he knows of a woman who would, he thinks, give satisfaction: she is over forty-five, of good conduct, clean, and a very good cook. If Petrarch will let him know what the wages would be, he will do his best to persuade her to accept the position. _

as Par. 5816. | ,

*'Nolhac, u 47-53. This MS is now in the Bibliotheque Nationale,

120 | CHAPTER ELEVEN In the spring the Visconti, in spite of their many difficulties,

began a determined struggle to get possession of Pavia.* In the spring also, or perhaps earlier, the Visconti took Pandolfo Malatesta of Rimini into their service as a military commander. The presence of Petrarch in Milan meant much

to Pandolfo, and the coming of Pandolfo meant much to Petrarch. They had never met; but Pandolfo had long been a great admirer of Petrarch—he had once sent a painter to make for him a portrait of Petrarch—and it is probable that they had exchanged sonnets before this time.° May

Hard pressed by their many enemies, the Visconti brothers decided, by the middle of May, to ask the Emperor to act on their behalf; and they requested Petrarch to go as their spokesman, commissioning him to do what he could “pro ligustica pace”— “for the peace of Lombardy.” On the 19th he dated a letter of some length, Fam. xrx 11, written to Benintendi, in reply to Benintendi’s Nerius noster.

He could hardly have composed this entire letter amid the bustle of the final preparations for his journey (to which, in this letter, he makes no reference): it was presumably finished,

however, on the 19th. In it Petrarch speaks appreciatively of Benintendi’s manifest devotion; asks him to refrain hereafter from unwarranted praise; assures him of his warm friendship; says that the bearer will tell him of his (Petrarch’s) wish to satisfy Benintendi’s desire for copies of his letters; states that the bearer is a skillful instrumental musician and that he and his still more skillful son are planning to settle in Venice, where

Petrarch hopes that Benintendi will be helpful to them; ° and * Cognasso, pp. 382-384. | >On Petrarch’s relations with Pandolfo see Weiss 1, pp. 72-102.

°’The older musician may or may not be Floriano da Rimini, to whom Petrarch, while in Avignon, had addressed Met. m 15 and 16: see Quarta, Chi era Confortino?, and Wilkins 2, pp. 117-118. It seems to me highly improbable that the son is to be identified with the “Confortino,” for whom Petrarch had written a ballata in December 1350 (while Petrarch was still in Italy): see Quarta, and Romano, p. 227.

1356: JANUARY - MAY | 121 sends his hearty thanks for the letter written by Andrea Dandolo just before his death.”

On the 19th Petrarch wrote Fam. xix 3 to Nelli: it is

dated “Mediolani, perpropere et inter tumultum sarcinulas stringentium, xIv Kal. Iunias.” This letter tells of Petrarch’s imminent departure on his mission, which will take him,

he says, to the sources of the Rhine and “Prope... ad

arthoum occeanum.” The mission is unwelcome in that it breaks into Petrarch’s freedom, but welcome in _ that it may be productive of public benefit: “pro publico enim bono nullus privatus labor non facilis videri debet.” After discharging his official duties, Petrarch says, he will utilize the freedom of speech that the Emperor has accorded him to reproach the Emperor for his unworthy flight from Italy.

In his making of the collection of the Familiares Petrarch had now reached Book VIII, Letter 9, and in that letter had gone as far as the words “utque abessem ferox fortuna’ —stopping

there in the middle of a sentence. Presumably the copyist employed by Marco Resta for Benintendi was to copy this portion of the Familiares during Petrarch’s absence.® , ” Rossi 2, p. 134, assigns this letter to 1355. Foresti, in a review of Rossi’s study in GSLI, txxvi (1921), 325, assigns it, with convincing arguments, to 1356. Quarta, who had evidently not seen Foresti’s discussion, assigns it, on his p. 10, to 1355. Billanovich 1, pp. 13-14, without

entering into a formal argument as to the date of the letter, shows clearly, by his analysis of the relations between Petrarch and Benintendi, that it must have been written in 1356. *Billanovich 1, pp. 14-16. There are three MSS of the Famiuliares

that end at the point indicated, and the Familiares end with vu 8 in the 15th- and 16th-century editions: see Rossi 1, I, xli—xlv and xciti—xcv1.

CHAPTER XII

The Mission to Prague On the 20th of May, probably, but possibly on the 19th or the 21st, Petrarch set out on his journey, doubtless with several

attendants. Sagremor de Pommiers accompanied him, and Petrarch greatly enjoyed conversing with him, chiefly about the Emperor and the affairs of the Empire [ Fam. xxi 7 and Sen.

x 1]. Petrarch had with him a copy of the Confessions of St Augustine, given to him many years earlier by Dionigi da Borgo San Sepolcro—a small volume, easy to carry and easy to hold in the hand [Sez. xv 7].

He went first to Basel, where for a month he waited in vain for the Emperor. He enjoyed his stay in Basel, however. He calls the city “nobilis illa semilatina urbs,” and speaks of it as “ita... nescio quid itale mansuetudinis preferentem, ut siue

id terrarum uicinitas sit, siue insita suauitas accolarum .. . moram .. . non modo non molestam michi effecerit, sed iocundam.” He met there the Bishop, Johann von Minsingen, * who entertained him “satis honorifice,” and friends whom he

had not seen since they had been fellow students at the University of Bologna, more than thirty years before.? Then he set out for Prague, more than 300 miles away—a journey of some twenty days. Now, at least, another courier, whom Petrarch calls Martinus Theutonus, accompanied him. This was a dangerous journey, which Petrarch, writing to Sagremor long afterward, describes thus: * Eubel, p. 129.

> Reminiscences of Petrarch’s stay in Basel are to be found briefly in

| 122

Sen. x 2 (toward the end of the letter) and more fully in one of the interpolations he made in 1357 in the De otio (see Rotondi, pp. 38-39

and 52-53): there also he states the length of the journey from Basel to Prague.

THE MISSION TO PRAGUE 123 Recall to the eyes of your mind, I pray you, that time when we covered many miles a day through German forests, attended by a band of armed men—footmen with their bows ready, riders with their swords drawn—doubtful even of our own guides, and in great danger from roving robbers ... There were many of us, and that fact gave us some comfort, though it did not avert danger.

At a later time, he says, Martin had been set upon and killed in these same forests [Sen. x 1]. His German experiences led him to appreciate Italy more than ever. Soon after his return he wrote: “orbem terrarum, quo magis ambio, minus amo. Siquid amabile est, nisi amor fallit,

in Italia est” [ Faz. x1x 14]. And a little later: While I was riding through those barbarous regions there came to my mind many and various things that might be said in praise of Italy. So it has befallen that I never knew my own land better

than when absent on a journey; in short, it was in Germany that I learned how beautiful Italy is [Fazm. xrx 15].

He must have stayed in Prague for a month or so; the whole expedition took three months [Sez. xvi 2]. We know nothing as to his efforts “pro ligustica pace”; but we do know that he

held or won the esteem of the Emperor, the young Empress Anna, the Chancellor Jan ze Streda, the Archbishop Arnost z _ Pardubic, and the Bishop of Olomouc, Jan Ocko. The Emperor made him a Count Palatine and a Councillor: his diploma as Count Palatine, however, was sent to him only after his return to Milan. In the letter [Fam. xx1 2] in which he acknowledges

its receipt Petrarch says of the Emperor: “ile me numero palatinorum comitum inseruit et multa superaddidit, que paucis

solet.” Two years later the Empress Anna wrote to him, to announce the birth of her first child [ Faz. xxi 8]. His correspondence with Jan ze Streda continued. Writing to the Archbishop in 1357 Petrarch has this to say: I remember how last year, when I, a stranger unknown to you except by name, had come on a mission to the Emperor, you bound me to yourself by your looks, your spirit, your words, and your kindness. I remember how affectionately you used to say to me: “I am sorry for you, my friend, that you have had to come among barbarians.” But I profess that no one could have been less bar-

124 CHAPTER TWELVE barous or more humane than the Emperor and a number of highly placed men whom I will not list by name—highly placed and distinguished men, worthy of greater fame, as courteous and wellspoken as if they had been born in Attic Athens [Fam. xxi 1].

ofDuring Jan ze Streda. | his stay in Prague Petrarch must have seen someThe Bishop of Olomouc sent his greetings in one of the letters thing, also, of the court apothecary, Angelo of Florence: it was indeed through him that Jan ze Streda had first become interested in Petrarch. Angelo was a man of considerable distinc-

tion and influence: he owned the first botanical garden in Germanic territory, a garden in which the Emperor was much interested.*

since Petrarch had left Milan before the end of May, his statement that he spent three months in his mission must mean that he returned to Milan before the end of August. | ~ *QOn the cultural life of the Imperial court see S. H. Thomson, “Learning at the Court of Charles IV,” in Speculum, xxv (1950), 1-20. “See Ludwig Schlesinger, Geschichte Bobmens (Prague, 1869), p. 264; and Piur 2, pp. lx, 22—23, and 41.

CHAPTER XIII

1356: September-December

September |

On the morning of Monday 12 September Petrarch had before him an autograph sheet,’ now lost, that bore a copy of most (or possibly all) of the first capitolo (Al tempo) of the Triumphus Cupidinis. Looking at the 73rd line, which then, apparently, stood in the form Ma per empir la tua giouinil uoglia,

he decided, apparently, to reverse the order of the tua and the giouimil, and made this marginal entry: La giouenil tua u Lune ante matutinum protho.?

On the 20th Petrarch wrote Fam. x1x 14 to Nelli, to tell him, briefly, of his safe return. In a passage already quoted in part he says that his northern experiences have led him to appreciate Italy more than ever, and that he is planning to write something in praise of Italy: The more I go about the world the less I like it. If any part of it is lovable, that part, unless my own love deceives me, is Italy— whose supremacy all other regions would admit if they could speak, and in their silence do indeed admit—although, sad to say, the passions and jealousies of its inhabitants are corrupting the tranquillity bestowed on it by nature. I have said much in the past in praise of Italy, and if my life continues I shall have much more to say; but *I use the word “sheet” to designate a large. sheet so folded as to make two leaves and four pages. * This we know through transcriptions made in Cas. A. mi. 31: see Appel 1, pp. 126, 142-143, and 186. The w after tua stands for uoglia. The protho designates St. Protus. That the year in question was 1356

| 125

is proved by Appel, p. 186. ,

126 CHAPTER THIRTEEN for the present I have decided to record my fresh memories of various matters that impressed me on my journey and on my return.

_ The letter is being sent by a Florentine friend who will tell Nelli whatever he may want to know about Petrarch’s situa-

tion and activities. , Shortly after sending off this letter, it would seem, Petrarch

received from Nelli a letter, now lost (not in Cochin’s list), in which he said that he had previously written to Petrarch another letter, now lost (Cochin 50), which had been intercepted

and thus had never reached Petrarch. At once, apparently, Petrarch wrote to Nelli another letter, also now lost (not in Cochin’s list), expressing his regret at having missed the intercepted letter. All this appears to be a necessary inference from Nelli’s later xv1, which is to be considered presently.° At some time in the summer or autumn Pandolfo Malatesta,

worn out by his military exertions, was taken seriously ill. Petrarch went to see him every day (this must have been, of course, after Petrarch’s return from Prague); and when Pandolfo

had begun to recover, but was still unable to walk, he had his servants carry him to Petrarch’s house, so that he might see Petrarch in his own proper place, among his books [Sez. 1 6]. In the autumn or early winter Pandolfo, not content with the portrait of Petrarch that he had had painted some years earlier (see above, p. 120), employed another painter to make a second

portrait. Of this painter and his work Petrarch writes thus in Sen. I 6: He came to me without telling me his errand, and while I was intent on my reading he sat down (he was a friend of mine, and had often been in my house before), and began furtively to draw. * Cochin accounts for the intercepted letter, and asserts that it was _ written at the moment of Petrarch’s departure on his northern journey. He may be right, but Nelli’s xvi does not support this inference. Cochin does not account in his list either for the lost letter in which Nelli told of the intercepted letter, or for Petrarch’s lost reply, though he says in a note that Petrarch after his return had doubtless written to Nelli not only Fam. xix 14, but another letter as well. See Cochin 1, pp. 141 and 229, n. 8, and 2, pp. 41 and 128, n. 120.

1356: SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 127 I realized then the trick that was being played on me; but I regretfully let him go ahead and finish his painting. In spite of his

skill, however, it did not turn out well—at least so it seemed to me and to some others.

Pandolfo, however, accepted it, and regarded it as one of his dearest possessions.

October

On 19 September, at Maupertuis, the English under the Black Prince defeated the French under King John, and King John and his youngest son, Philip, were made prisoners. When

the news reached Milan, by or about the first of October, Galeazzo Visconti decided to send letters of sympathy to the Dauphin, Charles of Valois (who had not been captured), and to Cardinal Gui de Boulogne, who was an uncle of the Queen. He asked Petrarch to write the letters for him, and Petrarch accordingly, in the name of Galeazzo, wrote Var. 63 to the Dauphin and Var. 6 to the Cardinal. Both letters are admirably

appropriate to the circumstances. In each Petrarch refers, doubtless in accordance with Galeazzo’s instructions, to the fact that Galeazzo had once been received with great cordiality

by King John’s father [Philip VI], by John, and by Charles himself, then a boy.* The startling capture of the French king made a very deep impression on Petrarch.

When the Emperor returned to Bohemia in June 1355 he had left behind him in Pisa, as a personal agent, Markward von Randeck, Bishop of Augsburg. On 25 July 1356 he had given Markward a more official status by naming him an Imperial Vicar; and in September Markward had moved to Bologna, where he became, in effect, the leader of the opposition to the Visconti. On 1 October he issued a summons to the Visconti, accusing them, in abusive terms, of many misdeeds, and commanding them to appear before him on the 11th. Copies were

sent to several cities.° | *See Novati, p. 39. , ° The summons is printed by F. Filippini in his “La prima legazione

128 CHAPTER THIRTEEN | Galeazzo requested Petrarch to prepare an answer, and Petrarch of course complied with the request. He therefore wrote the letter, dated 9 October, that is preserved as Var. 59. As printed, it is headed “Galeatus Vicecomes Marquardo ut dicitur episcopo augustensi,” and begins with the words “Superbiae imo vero insaniae tuae litteras.” The style is rather that of the chancery than Petrarch’s usual style, and the general content and tone are due, of course, to Galeazzo. The alleged mis-

_ deeds are denied, devotion to the Emperor is asserted, the authority of Markward is impugned, and his conduct is referred to in abusive terms. Galeazzo refuses to appear before Markward, but will send procurators capable of making due response. The abusive language, though violent, is hardly more violent

than that of the summons, or, indeed, than that of Petrarch’s Invectives or that of the Epistolae sine nomine. Many of the thrusts have a keenness that suggests a very able writer; but the only element of the letter that seems specifically Petrarchan is a statement that it would take more than Caesar and Scipio to suppress the troubles of Italy: “‘ . . . motus italicos, quibus vix ipsa hodie vel [uli Caesaris vel Scipionis Africani praesentia, sed nec utriusque sufficeret.” ® Copies of this letter were undoubtedly sent to several cities: it is summarized by Matteo Villani (Book VII, Chapter 24). Markward replied immediately, in a brief and threatening letter.’ Indecisive warfare followed. del cardinale Albornoz in Italia (1353-1357),” in Studi storici, v (1896), 485—491.

°’The question whether Petrarch was indeed the writer of this letter

was debated at length by Agostino Palesa, in his Lettera inedita di Francesco Petrarca a Marquardo vescovo di Augusta e vicario imperiale in Lombardia (Padua, 1857), and Fracassetti 2. Palesa maintained that Petrarch did write the letter, Fracassetti that he did not: Palesa seems to me to have much the better of the argument. Novati, who treats the question briefly on his p. 39, thinks that the style excludes the possibility of Petrarch’s authorship. Weiss 1, p. 137, promises a study of this letter and of a later letter written for Bernabo, Misc. 17. He indicates, p. 84, that he believes Misc. 17 to be Petrarch’s work, and he writes me, under

the date of 11 December 1956, that he believes Var. 59 also to be Petrarch’s work. I agree with him; and in view of his promised study

I refrain from engaging in further discussion. | “An Italian translation of his reply is given by Palesa, p. 11

1356: SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 129 Late in October or early in November Petrarch received Nelli’s xvi, a grateful and affectionate reply to Petrarch’s Fam. xix 13 and 14 and to the lost letter written shortly after xrx 14. Nelli is very thankful to hear of Petrarch’s safe return from his northern journey; welcomes Petrarch’s praise of Italy; mentions Petrarch’s gracious reference to his failure to receive Nelli’s intercepted letter; says that the Florentine friend who had brought xix 14 had given him much information about Petrarch; hopes

that the writing of the longer letter promised by Petrarch in xx 14 may not be prevented by the current regnorum strepitus; regrets to report that the Florentine woman of whom he had thought as a possible housekeeper for Petrarch has refused to enter service “per deos inuictissimos adiurat illa se liberam esse

uelle, nec amplius eo famulatu alicui umquam obsequi, quin per se tela et colo contenta uictum querere”—and says that he will try to find someone else. At the end of October or early in November Petrarch must have heard of the virtual destruction of Basel by an earthquake on 18 October. ‘To this disaster he refers 1n the first interpolation

(written in 1357, as will appear below, on p. 158) in the second form of the De otio; in the De remediis, 1 88 and 1 91;

and in Sen. x 2 (written in 1368). The first and last of these references constitute a curious crux. Petrarch had left Basel for Prague about the end of June and had returned to Milan

before the end of August. Yet in the interpolation in the

De Otio he writes:

in reditu ita urbis illius effigies mirum et miserabilem in modum

uersa erat in nichilum, ut ... mox nichil nisi lapidum montes et silentium et horror spectantium oculis atque animis abuiarent, mutatione tam subita, ut nemo aliud quam somnio lusum se aut falsum uidisse aut uidere falsum crederet.

And in Sen. x 2 he speaks of the earthquake as having occurred a few days after he had left Basel for Prague: “Inde ego paucis

ante dies abieram.” ‘These passages seem to imply that the earthquake occurred between Petrarch’s departure from Basel for Prague and his return to Italy; but there is no question as

— 130 CHAPTER THIRTEEN to the actual date of the earthquake. The clause in Sen. x 2,

written eleven years after the event, is explicable as a telescoping in memory. The “in reditu” of the De otio interpolation presents a greater difficulty: it is explicable, however, as a generalization introduced to make the passage more effec-

tive for the readers of the De otio. It may be noted that in the De otio passage Petrarch does not say specifically that he himself saw Basel after the earthquake—the plurals “spectantium

oculis atque animis” might indeed seem to give indication to the contrary—; also that he did not mention the earthquake in Fam. xix 14, written to Nelli on 20 September 1356, and that he

does not say in Sen. x 2 that he saw its results. Furthermore, it is exceedingly unlikely, as a glance at a map of Europe will show, that Petrarch went through Basel on his return from — Prague to Milan.®

| November Early in this month Petrarch was working, at least occasion-

ally, on the making of the third or “Pre-Chigi” form of the Canzomere, of which he was apparently planning to send a copy to Azzo da Correggio.°

On Friday the 4th he had before him the leaf that is now f. 11 in V.L. 3196, containing the canzone Nel dolce tempo (No. 23). Inthe text 1. 154 then read thus: Vero diro forse e’ parra menzogna.

On the 4th, apparently, in the narrow space between lines 160 and 161 (the last line of the last stanza and the first line of

the commuiato) he made this entry: | Vel I’ narro il vero forse etc. On the 4th, just after those words, he wrote: “See Piur 2, pp. 209-211; Rotondi, pp. 38-39 and 52-53; and Prose, p. 1122. It seems probable that Petrarch was thinking of this earthquake,

also, as he wrote the interpolation in the De vita solitaria that will be

quoted presently, on p. 158. | *See Wilkins 1, pp. 153-154.

1356: SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 131 1356. novembris. 4. sero. dum cogito de fine harum nugarum.?° _

On the 6th, on a sheet now lost, but reflected in Cas. A. 11,

31, containing the sonnet Aspro core (No. 265), he changed the word ripensando in the 9th line to rimembrando, and made this entry above or beside the beginning of the poem: transcriptum in ordine. 1356. dominico in vesperis. 6 novembris.1

Transcription “in ordine” meant at this time transcription into a neat paper manuscript that was to be used later as a basis for transcription into a vellum manuscript. At some time between the 4th and the 10th, apparently, still not quite satisfied with line 156 of Nel dolce tempo, he wrote in the very narrow space between line 160 and the words “forse etc. 1356 novembris” another possible variant, “Vel e forse par”;

and immediately after this the words “alia papiro.” 12 On the 10th he made this entry at the top of f. 11r: transcripta in ordine post multos et multos annos. quibusdam ‘mutatis 1356. Jovis in vesperis. 10. novembris. mediolani.

At the same time, presumably, he cancelled ff. 11r and 15 with

two crossing diagonal strokes, in accordance with his usual practice after transcribing a poem from this manuscript.% On the 11th, after making some changes in the canzone Che

debb’io far (No. 268) as it stood on f. 12° of V.L. 3196, he transcribed it into another manuscript, cancelled it in the usual way, and wrote above it: Transcripta in ordine aliquot mutatis. 1356. veneris XI. novembris in vesperis.*4

Within this month the Visconti suffered two severe reverses: on the 9th the Marquis of Monferrato captured Novara; *° and

five days later a rebellion broke out in Genoa. This rebellion *° Appel 1, pp. 79-80; Romano, pp. xl and 165. * Appel 1, p. 129.

*? Appel 1, p. 79; Romano, pp. 165 and 169. ,

*? Appel 1, p. 71; Romano, p. xxxix. ** Appel 1, p. 85; Romano, pp. xl and 202. ** Cognasso, p. 389.

132 CHAPTER THIRTEEN began as an effort of the Genoese nobles to put an end to the control of Genoa by the Visconti; but the popolano Simone Boccanegra, seeing a chance to regain the power that he had once had and lost, pretended to be a supporter of the Visconti, and on the 15th led the people successfully against the nobles. Then, elected Doge, he not only banished the leaders of the nobles, but joined the Marquis of Monferrato in an alliance

directed against the Visconti.*° | | December

The interpolated passage in the De vita solitaria on the solitude of St. Ambrose contains this sentence, which follows 1mmediately the portion of the passage quoted above (on p. 83): Nunc silva convulsa est, mutatoque loci habitu manet nomen: “Ambrosii nemus” vulgo dicitur, sinistrorsus ad arthoum latus, quod annus hic, magnis undique motibus et multa rerum collisione memorabilis, intra urbem ipsam et extrema rapto molimine aucti ambitus septa conclusit.

This sentence, which appears to be an interpolation within the long interpolation, must have been written in 1356, for it was in that year that the Visconti constructed the defense works here referred to.’” It was indeed a year “magnis undique motibus et multa rerum collisione memorabilis”: as he wrote these words Petrarch was presumably thinking not only of the dangers that in this year had beset the Visconti but also of the capture of King John and of the earthquake that had ruined Basel. The tone of the clause just quoted and the probability that Petrarch was thinking of this earthquake indicates that the sentence in question was written at the end of the year. Correspondence with Prague Between his return from Prague in 1356 and the end of his ** Stella, cols. 1094-1095; Foglietta, pp. 209-301. *7 See Giulini, Part XI, 45-46; and Martellotti’s note in Prose, p. 432. The old editions read ammis instead of annus, and Zeitlin’s translation is accordingly erroneous at this point.

1356: SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 133 residence in Milan in 1361 Petrarch wrote to members of the imperial court several letters that are extant and bear month-and-

day dates. Early in 1357, probably late in February, he wrote to Jan ze Streda and to Arnost z Pardubic; on 25 March 1358

he wrote to the Emperor, to Jan, and to Arnost; on 23 May 1358 he wrote to the Empress Anna; and on 21 March 1361 he wrote to the Emperor and to Jan. In five of these letters it is either specifically stated or made obvious that the letter is being sent by Sagremor de Pommiers. Within the same period

Petrarch received from Jan ze Streda three letters that are extant, but bear no month-and-day dates, and his diploma as Count Palatine. In one of Jan’s letters it is specifically stated, and in another it 1s made obvious, that the letter is being sent by Sagremor.

It is then clear that Sagremor went back and forth not infrequently between Milan and Prague, certainly as a bearer of dispatches (and presumably oral messages) between the Visconti and the Emperor, and that Petrarch’s letters to Prague and the letters that came to him from Prague were usually, perhaps always, carried by Sagremor along with the official despatches. Petrarch’s letters to Prague were usually, and perhaps always, written shortly before Sagremor was to start for Prague; and letters from Petrarch’s correspondents in Prague were usually, and perhaps always, written shortly before Sagremor was to start for Milan. Sagremor’s stays in Prague were at least relatively brief: his stays m Milan may at times have covered relatively long periods. His journeys from Milan to Prague must have taken from a fortnight to a month, depending on weather conditions and local difficulties. The round trip from Milan to Milan, including a brief stay in Prague, must have taken the better part of two months. In one particular year Sagremor made the round trip seven times, as we know from a clause in Sen. x 1: “nisi te scirem anno uno septies, quod uix fier! posse quisquam credat, iter illud tartareum exegisse.” *® These circumstances have a general bearing on Petrarch’s ** Piur 2, p. 213.

134 CHAPTER THIRTEEN correspondence with Prague, and a particular bearing on the date of one of his lost letters. From Fam. xxt 2, written to Jan ze Streda early in 1357, probably late in February, it 1s evident that Petrarch had then just received Jan’s De fecundo pectore (LAP 66), which Jan had presumably written just before Sagre-

mor had started for Milan a month or so previously. In this letter Jan refers to his receipt of a letter from Petrarch of which we have no other knowledge. This lost letter, then, was probably written before the end of 1356. It could not have been written

later than January 1357." oo ** Prur 2, p. 55, supposes that this lost letter was a letter of thanks to Jan for kindness to Petrarch while he was in Prague. It may have _ been; but there is nothing in Jan’s letter that warrants this supposition. It is of course possible that during the autumn of 1356 and indeed during

the entire period in question Petrarch may have written to Prague several letters that are now lost.

CHAPTER XIV

1357: January-May Indecisive warfare between the Visconti and their many enemies—warfare marked by the repeated treachery of mercenary troops—continued throughout 1357. Early in the year the Marquis of Monferrato gained control of Pavia, which he ruled, in effect, through the Augustinian monk Jacopo Bussolari.’ January—March

Petrarch’s lost letter to Jan ze Streda, referred to at the end of the preceding chapter, though more probably written before the end of 1356, may have been written in January 1357. At some time in January Bernabo Visconti, convinced that Pandolfo Malatesta had been interfering with one of his amours, became violently angry with him, was barely prevented from killing him, and threw him into prison. He was released through

the intervention of Galeazzo, and fled from Milan. Now an implacable enemy of the Visconti, he went first to Prague.’ Arriving from Prague, probably toward the end of February, Sagremor brought word to the Visconti that Pandolfo had been doing everything he could to injure them, and that he was likely to try to injure them wherever he went. At the same time Sagremor brought to Petrarch a letter from

Jan ze Streda, and his diploma (LAP 11) as Count Palatine, sent to him by Jan as Chancellor.®

Jan’s letter, De fecundo pectore (LAP 66), a brief but enthusiastic acknowledgment of Petrarch’s lost letter, ends with * Cognasso, pp. 390-395. * Weiss 1, pp. 80-84.

*Piur 2 prints the letters on p. 55 and the diploma on pp. 221-223.

135 ,

136 CHAPTER FOURTEEN the words “dulcis Francisci memoria nunquam separabitur a

Johanne.” , The heading of the diploma reads:

In nomine sancte etc. Venerabili Francisco Petraccho, archidiacono Parmensi, poete laureato, Comiti Palatino, Consiliario et familiari nostro dilecto graciam nostram etc.

The text, a few hundred words in length, is a standard form, which, after a general statement that the recipient of the award is entitled to all the “privileges, rights, graces, immunities, and customs thereunto appertaining,” goes into legalistic detail as to the circumstances under which the recipient may exercise two particular rights: the right to appoint notaries and judges ordinary, and the right to legitimize persons of illegitimate birth.*

To the vellum sheet that bore the words of the diploma there was attached a gold bulla which Petrarch describes thus

in Fam. xxi 2:

On one side is our Caesar, illustrious with diadem and sceptre, seated on a high throne, with the Roman eagle and the lion of his fatherland at his side; on the other is Rome, proud with its temples and its walls, and in the gleam of the gold the sacred image of the queen city delights the eyes. I was surprised and pleased to see... inscribed in golden letters, the words “Aurea Roma.” °

From an exactly corresponding bulla that is still extant we know that the inscriptions on the obverse and on the reverse read: “KAROLVS. OQVARTVS. DIVINA. FAVENTE. CLEMENCIA. ROMANOR. IMPERATOR. SEM. AVGVSTVS. ET. BOEMIE. REX.” and “ROMA. CAPVT. MVNDI. REGIT. ORBIS. FRENA. ROTVNDI.’® Before Sagremor started back to Prague the Visconti evidently instructed him to pursue Pandolfo and to endeavor to

counteract his influences. ,

*On one much later occasion, as noted by Piur 2, p. 224, Petrarch

made use of this second right. - =

>IT quote from the earlier form of the letter: see Rossi 1, 1v, 53.

*See Piur 2, pp. 61-72; and for reproductions and descriptions of the obverse and reverse see Otto Posse, Die Siegel der deutschen Kaiser und Konige, 1 (Dresden, 1910), Plate HI, Nos. 6 and 7, and v (1913),

40 (under No. 6) and 41 (under No. 13).

1357; JANUARY - MAY 137 It was very possibly on or about the last day of February that Petrarch wrote his letter of thanks, Fam. xx1 2, to Jan ze Streda. He speaks first of Jan’s letter, particularly of the affectionateness of its concluding words, and expresses his deep gratitude for all Jan’s friendliness. Then he tells of his great pleasure _

in receiving the diploma; but after speaking in detail of the beauty and interest of the gold bulla he says that while he accepts most gratefully the diploma itself and all that it represents he does not feel that he should accept a gift of gold: he is therefore sending the bulla back, as a gift to Jan, by Sagremor, who will give him the letter also, and will supplement it orally.

On the same day Petrarch wrote Fam, xxt 1 to Arnost z Pardubic. Most of this brief letter is in general terms: its most distinctive feature is the reminiscent passage that has already been quoted (see pp. 123-124). This letter also is to be delivered

and supplemented by a trusty messenger who, though not named, is obviously Sagremor.

These two letters exist in earlier and later forms. In the earlier form each is dated “II Kal. Maias”’; in the later form each 1s dated “III Kal. Matas.” It 1s however impossible that they could have been written at the end of April: for in Fam. xxi 2 Petrarch states that he is sending the bulla back by Sagremor, and there is documentary evidence that Sagremor was in

London by 3 May (see below, pp. 148-149). One of the manuscripts of Fam. xx1 1 reads, in the date, ‘“Martis” instead of “Maias.”* It 1s furthermore very unlikely that the Visconti

would have waited for more than a month to send Sagremor out in pursuit of Pandolfo.

April |

On the afternoon of 4 April Petrarch planted in the garden of Sant’Ambrogio six laurel trees and an olive tree that he had had brought from Bergamo: and added this note to the series of his agricultural notes (see above, p. 39): "Piur 2, p. 57, reports this variant.

138 CHAPTER FOURTEEN Die iiij Aprilis 1357, hora temporis occidui, luna plena uel quasi, solo humido, tempore preter legem anni gelido, profundis scrobibus seuimus vj lauros et unam oleam Pergamo aduectas in ortulo Sancti

Ambrosii Mediolani. Duo uidentur obsistere, et dilatio aliquot dierum et natura soli presertim olee contraria. Fuerunt autem plante

satis ueteres et aliquot tenere, aliquot duriores; omnes cum cau-

dicibus. |

These trees, however, did not live. It was perhaps before the end of the month that Petrarch wrote, below the note in which he had recorded their planting, the words “Omnes penitus

aruerunt.®

— May

At some time before the end of June, and in my judgment probably before, rather than after, the end of May, Petrarch received and set about answering a letter from Guido Sette in which Guido asked for information about Petrarch’s manner

of life: the words “Statum meum vis audire” appear in the second sentence of Petrarch’s reply, Fam. xix 16. This long, thorough, and painstakingly written letter falls rather sharply into two parts: a first part (about three quarters

of the whole) in which Petrarch tells of his manner of life in Milan, and a second part in which he tells of his manner of life in Garegnano, whither, as will presently appear, he went, probably in June, to spend the summer. The first part was certainly written before the end of June, since it contains the words “Quadriennio 1am, ut vides, integro in hac Mediolanensium urbe moram traxi et iam quinti anni limen ingredior,” and, as stated above (on pp. 6-7), Petrarch reached Milan, in 1353, not later than the first days of July. This first part gives every appearance of having been written in Milan. It does not contain anything that would suggest that it was not written there, and there are three minor reasons that suggest Milan rather than Garegnano as the place of its writing.®

* Nolhac, 1, 266-267.

* In the first place, although Petrarch might conceivably have written

_ the words “iam quinti anni limen ingredior” as late as early June, his

1357: JANUARY - MAY | 139 _ Iam therefore of the opinion that the first part was probably written, but not sent, before Petrarch went to Garegnano: he may have held it either because no messenger on whom he could rely was about to leave for Avignon, or simply because he wanted to do more work on the letter before sending it. I shall therefore treat the two parts of the letter separately. After a general introduction, and a reference to the subsidence of the “turbines et flammam” of his youth, he gives the long report of his habits of study and writing that has been quoted in part above (on p. 18). His health, he goes on to say, is good; he lives in a fortunate mean between poverty and riches; he enjoys the good will not only of “this greatest of Italians” *° and his associates but also of the people of Milan in general—so much so, he says, “ut non tantum civibus optimis,

sed terre atque aeri ipsisque quodammodo parietibus urbis ac menibus in perpetuum me teneri arbiter”; the fact that he lives at the edge of the city saves him from unwelcome interruptions; and when he goes out he is greeted with respect: And if I go abroad either for the sake of exercise or to call on my “dominum” there is a silent turning of eyes and bowing to

right and to left, and I move on “salutans salutatusque.” , His meals are frugal, and his sleep 1s brief:

As soon as I feel rested I get up and retreat to my library. I usually rise at midnight, and even if the nights are short, or if I have been keeping a long vigil, I am always up by dawn.

He prefers silence, except with his friends. With them he loves to talk; but he despises the conversation of men to whom he 1s habits of statement with regard to periods of time are such, in my judgment, as to make it probable that if he had been writing as late as early June he would have spoken of himself as having spent five full years in Milan. In the second place, when speaking of his house in Milan, he says: “Ambrosii hospes sum.” In the third place, the transition from the end of the first part to the beginning of the second—at line 170 in Rossi 1—is notably abrupt. , *°In the words “huic .. . Italorum maximo” he is presumably referring to Galeazzo Visconti: he had used the same words, four years earlier, of the Archbishop Giovanni.

140 CHAPTER FOURTEEN not drawn either by friendship or by a common interest in learning.**

Within this month, or just possibly a little earlier, Petrarch

received from Nelli a letter, now lost (Cochin 54), in which Nelli asked him not to forget to write and send his epystola in praise of Italy, as Nelli thought that Petrarch had promised to do.

On 31 May Petrarch replied, in his Fam. xix 15. He disclaims having made such a promise; but says that during his northern journey he had felt as never before the beauty of Italy, and that he had in fact begun such an epystola (presumably an epistola metrica) after his return, but had been too

busy and too anxious to go on with it: | With this idea and with much enthusiasm I began that epystola on my return; but I soon stopped work on it, being oppressed and distracted by a mass and variety of matters. Since that time, indeed, I have had hardly a day’s peace, hardly time enough to sigh: nor will you be greatly surprised at this if you will consider the troubles of Lombardy and the present state of affairs.

Now, however, he says, things have taken a turn for the better. He has written much in the past, both in verse and in prose, in

praise of Italy; and if he writes anything more on this theme he will send it, first of all, to Nelli.?? “* At this point the first part of the letter ends. * Heinrich Friedjung, Kaiser Karl IV und sein Anteil am geistigen _ Leben seiner Zeit (Vienna, 1876), p. 310, and Enrico Proto, “Per la data della canzone ‘Italia mia’ del Petrarca,” in Giornale dantesco, xiv (1906), 178 n., both assign this letter to 1355; but even a glance at the letter shows that it was written after Petrarch’s return from his mission to Prague in 1356. The year must therefore be 1357, as Cochin, without argument, rightly assumes: see Cochin 1, p. 142 and 2, p. 41.

CHAPTER XV

1357: Summer at Garegnano In the spring of 1354 Petrarch had spent some time in the Carthusian monastery at Garegnano, three or four miles west of Milan (see above, p. 62); and now, as the summer was ap-

proaching, his thoughts turned again to Garegnano, as we know from the second part of Fam. xtx 16, and he decided to spend the summer there. He would have liked to live in the monastery itself, and had some reason to believe that the monks

would have welcomed him; but he felt that the servants and horses that he now required would cause too much confusion. He chose, therefore, to live in a house near by, so near that he could come and go freely between the house and the monastery. In this house he lived—unquestionably with occasional trips to the city—until early September." He describes the location thus: The village is on high ground, surrounded by streams which, while not to be compared with our Transalpine Sorgue, are quiet and clear, and wander so pleasantly that one can hardly tell whence _ they come or whither they are going—in such fashion do they approach each other and diverge and approach again, and through

many channels come all into a single river bed. , Of his manner of life, and of the villagers, he writes:

_ Life goes on for me as usual, except that here in the country I have more freedom. Time would fail me to tell how many city cares | escape here, what country pleasures I enjoy, and how the simple villagers vie with each other in bringing me fruit from their *’That he went to Garegnano in June rather than later is to be inferred from a clause in Fam. xix 16 that reads: “imminentem cogitans estatem diversorium amenissimum saluberrimumque adii.” That he left

Garegnano early in September will appear below. 141

142 CHAPTER FIFTEEN trees, flowers from the meadows, fish from the streams, ducklings from the marshes, birds from the nests, young hedgehogs from the — fields, and hares and kids and shoats.

Of the monks he writes: Whenever I so desire, I take part in the observances of this pious family as if I were one of them. The door is always open to

me...I find solace in the conversation of these holy and simple friends of Christ—conversation neither learned nor eloquent, but humble and devout. I share their meals occasionally, their conversation often, and their affection constantly.

It was early in the summer, presumably, that Petrarch wrote the second part of Fam. x1x 16, from which these quotations

are taken, and added it to the previously written first part to make a single letter. It is indeed possible, though hardly probable, that the entire letter was written at this time.’ Early in the summer, or perhaps even earlier, Petrarch received from Benintendi a request, made on behalf of the sons of Andrea Dandolo, for an epitaph in Latin verse for Andrea. But Petrarch, deeply involved in his major literary enterprises, had made up his mind to write no more carmina, and had been refusing all similar requests; and he let Benintendi’s letter lie

unanswered. |

On 12 July Petrarch sent to Boccaccio, from Milan, a copy of the Invective contra medicum, an old book, a map for which Boccaccio had asked, and a letter, Misc. 1. The letter is concerned chiefly with the Invective, which Petrarch says he would

have preferred not to send if it were not that Boccaccio had asked for it urgently, and if it were not that it was already in circulation: “uel illi [libri] in publicum non exissent.” He speaks, defensively, of two features of the Invective: its abusive

language, for which he blames the offending physician from whom he had learned such language, and its mentions of his own fame, which he justifies both on the ground of argumenta“On Petrarch’s habitation at Garegnano see Annoni, and Galli, pp. 359-361. Much that Galli says is excellent, but he is mistaken in saying that it was in August that Petrarch went to Garegnano.

, 1357: SUMMER AT GAREGNANO 143 tive necessity and because some of his friends had urged upon _ him the necessity of defending his fame (it is clear, however, that this friendly urging had reference to Petrarch’s residence in Milan). He cites Zanobi as having written to him “amicissime

. . . efficaciterque” to this effect, and refers thus, in passing, to the coronation of Zanobi. Coenobius noster uir doctus; quem anxonijs [ausoniis] armatum musis barbarica nuper laurus ornauit: deque nostris ingenijs mirum dictu: iudex censorque germanicus ferre sententiam non expauit.

Speaking then of the criticism of his residence in Milan, he says that he has written an apologia—“‘libellum de uitae meae cursu contexui’—which will serve to answer those who have written to him critically (this libellus is presumably identical with the

volumen mentioned in the Invectiva of 1355: see above p. 102). At the end of the letter he refers thus to the old book and the map: Cum quibus & librum istum senio uictum & canum morsibus lacerum simul et uetustissimam meam quam postulas chartam mitto.

There has been much discussion of the date of this letter, but somewhat more remains to be said. Foresti and Billanovich

have argued that it was written in 1357; Ullman, Bosco and Boni have argued that it was written in 1355.° The passages in the letter that have figured in the discussion of its date are the two that have been quoted above. Boccaccio’s receipt of the Invective is referred to thus, after mention of certain other works of Petrarch, in a letter written by him in 1362 to Barbato da Sulmona: *Foresti, “L’egloga ottava di Giovanni Boccaccio,” in GSLI, Lxxvit (1921), 330-331; Ullman 1, p. 122, n. 38; Billanovich 1, pp. 208-210, and “Studi sul Petrarca in America,” in GLSI, cxxv (1948), 60-61; Bosco, “Particolari petrarcheschi. I. Precisazioni sulle ‘Invective contra medicum,’” in SP, 1 (1948), 97-98; Boni, pp. 269-270; and Ull-

man 2, pp. 155-156, n. 41. The date “IV Idus Iulias” is that given in

all the four MSS known to contain the letter (see Billanovich, in GSLI, loc. cit.) and in the collective edition of 1496. The 16th century collec-

tive editions read “Tunias” instead of “Tulias.” ;

144 CHAPTER FIFTEEN Invectivarum IIII libros in medicos, quos ad me petitos tam liberaliter pluribus ante annis Ravennam usque transmiserat.*

It is agreed that Misc. 1 cannot have been written earlier than 1355 (the year of Zanobi’s coronation), and that it cannot have been written in 1356 (in the summer of that year Petrarch was absent from Italy on his mission to Prague); and it has been agreed, also that the “pluribus ante annis” of Boccaccio’s letter of 1362 indicates a date not later than 1357. There is documentary evidence that in 1355 Boccaccio was in Florence, serving as a city official, from May 1 to August 31.° Recognizing this fact, the supporters of the date 1355 assume that the Imvective reached Boccaccio in Ravenna after August 31, presumably in September. The argument for 1355 rests mainly on the Zanobi passage, of which Ullman says that “the reference to Zanobi would have lost its fragrance by 1357,” while Bosco says that the letter “contiene un accenno sdegnoso all’incoronazione avvenuta ‘nuper,’ di Zanobi da Strada,” and continues: — Ma forse piu ancora che il “nuper”’ ci avvicina alla data di quell’-

incoronazione ... il tono con cui il Petrarca parla della “barbarica laurus” di cui si era compiaciuto Zanobi, pur essendo “‘ausoniis armatus musis”: é il tono di chi commenta con un amico consenziente un fatto avvenuto da poco.”

This argument, however, is by no means conclusive: “nuper”

as already noted, is a very elastic word; and the thought of

for many years. | | Zanobi’s coronation may well have rankled in Petrarch’s mind

A second argument for 1355 is that in Fam. xvi 15, written on 20 December 1355, Petrarch thanks Boccaccio for the return of certain books—“‘Libros abs te michi donatos habui et quos remisisti itidem accepi’”—and that these books were pre-

sumably those mentioned at the end of Misc. 1. But this, as Billanovich remarks, is a very risky inference. There is no rea* Boccaccio-Massera, pp. 145-146: For the date see Vattasso 1, p. 24.

° Giuseppe Gerola, “Alcuni documenti inediti per la biografia del Boccaccio,” in GSLI, xxxm (1898), 357-359.

1357; SUMMER AT GAREGNANO 145 son to suppose that the sending of the Invective was the only occasion on which Petrarch loaned books to Boccaccio; and it 1s by no means clear that the objects referred to in the words “Libros . . . quos remisisti” were the old book and the map

referred to in Misc. 1. ,

A third argument is based on the opinion that Boccaccio’s letter to Petrarch beginning Oppinaris, virorum egregie (LAP

55), which was written in Ravenna and bears the date “III

nonas ianuaru,” but no year date, was written in 1355. This letter has been dated as of 1353, 1354, 1355, 1357, 1362, 1366, 1367, and 1368. Foresti’s argument that it was written in 1362 is accepted by Billanovich, and seems to me to be conclusive. In any case, since it was written in a January, and since dates other than 1355 are at least possible, this letter can hardly be used as effective evidence that Boccaccio was in Ravenna in September 1355.° _ A fourth argument, based on Boccaccio’s affection for his

little daughter Violante, born in Ravenna, would if valid indicate only that Boccaccio might have gone to Ravenna in 1355;

but that argument is in all probability invalid.’ | There is indeed no evidence to attest Boccaccio’s presence in Ravenna in 1355.

There is good reason, furthermore, for thinking that Boc- _ caccio did not receive the Invective in Ravenna in that year. If Petrarch had sent the Invective and his cherished book and map to Boccaccio on 12 July 1355, he would certainly have sent them to Florence, and by a reliable messenger. In all probability, therefore, they would have reached Boccaccio in Florence, long before the end of August. In the very unlikely event of their having been delayed until after the end of August, it is furthermore very unlikely that these treasures would have been forwarded to him during an absence from Florence; and the form of Boccaccio’s own statement, “libros in medicos, quos * Boccaccio-Masséra, pp. 330-332; Foresti, “Il Boccaccio a Ravenna

nell’inverno 1361-62,” in GSLI, xcvm (1931), 73-83; Ullman 1, p. 135, n. 47; Billanovich 1, pp. 255-257; and Ullman 2, pp. 159-160, n. 60. ’ Billanovich 1, pp. 201-202, n. 11; and Ullman 2, p. 156.

146 CHAPTER FIFTEEN ad me... Ravennam usque transmiserat,” certainly indicates that the Invective was send by Petrarch directly to Ravenna, rather than that, having been sent by Petrarch to Florence,

it was forwarded to Ravenna. Moreover, a forwarding to Ravenna in September 1355 is specifically improbable in view of the facts that Boccaccio was very ill in the late summer and

part of the autumn of 1355, that he then went to Naples, and that he soon returned to Florence (see above, pp. 110-111): this being the case, any stay in Ravenna before going to Naples would have been so brief that the forwarding of such treasures to him at Ravenna would have been quite unjustifiable.

On the other hand, Boccaccio may well have been in Ravenna in the summer of 1357: Foresti points out that the content of Boccaccio’s Eclogue vim is such as to indicate that it was based on first-hand knowledge of events that took place in Ravenna at that time.

I conclude, accordingly, that Misc. 1 was written on 12

July 1357, |

Perhaps before or perhaps soon after 12 July Petrarch received from Guido Sette a reply to Fam. x1x 16. In this reply

Guido, having apparently heard that Petrarch was now wellto-do, asked him if that were indeed the case; and he asked also about Petrarch’s son Giovanni, who had not been mentioned

in Fam. xx 16. Guido’s interest in Giovanni was doubtless due to the fact that Petrarch and his son, while in Provence in 13511352, had spent some months in Guido’s home in Avignon. Petrarch replied promptly, in Fam. xix 17. He admits that more money is passing through his hands than ever before, but maintains that he has no interest in money, and that he 1s still

living in his usual simplicity. He then writes about his son. Giovanni, he thinks, is intelligent, perhaps even exceptionally intelligent, but he hates books: “librum horret ut colubrum.” Petrarch’s persistent and varied efforts to get him to make better

use of his intelligence had all been in vain. But if he is only good, as Petrarch still hopes he will prove to be, that will be enough: “Sufhicit autem bonum fier.” The letter ends with the words “malo virum sine literis quam literas sine viro.”

1357: SUMMER AT GAREGNANO 147 But before many days or weeks had passed after the writing of this letter there occurred the most tragic event in Petrarch’s

life. Unable longer to endure the presence of his son—now twenty years old—he banished him to Avignon. Our nearest approach to a knowledge of the circumstances of the break comes from Fam. xxi 7, a long, bitterly reproachful and pleading letter written to Giovanni two years later. Even from this

letter it is not clear whether the break came simply because Giovanni's attitude and behavior became worse and worse, or because of some particular wrongdoing. The only suggestion of a particular cause is in a passage in which Petrarch is pleading

for reform: proque effrenata libidine modestiam colas, pro contemptu Dei et hominum, quod tutius fiet, mundum spernas ac te ipsum et hortatricem criminum carnem tuam, qua nil tibi inimicius in te est, cuius consilio et in me, et quod est longe gravissimum atque miserrimum, in Deum tuum nefarie rebellasti.

Benintendi’s letter asking Petrarch to write an epitaph for Andrea Dandolo had been lying unanswered for a long time; but toward the end of the summer, and just as he was starting to write a letter begging to be excused from writing the epitaph,

there came a second letter from Benintendi, renewing the request, and indicating, apparently, that the desirable length of the epitaph would be twelve lines. ‘This second letter overcame

Petrarch’s resistance, and he wrote accordingly an epitaph containing not twelve but fourteen lines, and beginning En domus Andreae Veneti Ducis ultima quanta est? Alta: sed assurgens spiritus, astra tenet. Publica lux iacet hic, et quartum sidus honorum Stirpis Danduleae, gloria prima ducum.

Fach of the next four distichs records one of the glories of Andrea’s dogeship. The last of these distichs and the concluding distich read thus: Hic Genuam bello claram, pelagoque superbam

Fregit ad Algerium, servitioque dedit. Tustus, amans patriae, magnos cui fecit amicos, Ingenio praestans, eloquio omnipotens.

148 CHAPTER FIFTEEN On the afternoon or evening of 1 September, still at Garegnano, he wrote to Benintendi a covering letter, Var. 10, in which he tells of his first reluctance and his final compliance. He bids Benintendi omit any two of the fourteen lines, at his discretion, and sends him also several possible variants: “Ascripsi autem in

margine si quid est ubi vel dubitem, vel res eadem varie dict posse videatur, ut sic electio vestra sit.” The letter is dated thus: Scripta rurali calamo in domo carthusiae Mediolanensis, ubi aestatem ago. Kalendis Septembris ad vesperam. MCCCLVII.

Late in the afternoon or early in the evening of Friday 8 September Petrarch took into his hands the autograph sheet, now lost, that bore most or all of the capitolo Al tempo—the same sheet on which he had made an entry on 12 September 1356 (see above, p. 125), and wrote this note above the first line of the poem: Triumphus cupidinis etc. 1357. veneris hora vesper. 8. sept. hragnani. unde abitum meditor membris fessus occurrit hoc vaganti

valde animo.® ,

He was then planning to leave Garegnano; and in fact he did so within the next two or three days, as will presently ap_ pear. There is no evidence that he ever returned to live at

Garegnano. | |

At some time in the course of the summer Petrarch must have heard exciting news about Sagremor and Pandolfo. Sagre-

mor had followed him from Prague to London; and there he had presented himself to Edward III as a defender of the honor of the Visconti, and had declared himself ready to meet Pandolfo in single combat.

si dictus Pandulphus occasione aliqua quicquam dixerit aut protulerit quod in uituperium et iniuriam status et honoris ipsius Barnabonis posset tendere.

He had presented himself at court on 3 May and on each of the following seventeen days. Pandolfo, evidently, had not

“Appel 1, p. 139. ,

1357; SUMMER AT GAREGNANO 149 responded to the challenge: and on 20 May Edward had signed a formal document setting forth the circumstances of the case.° In the course of the summer or autumn Pandolfo returned to Italy, and went to Venice, where he was honorably received. Under these circumstances Bernabo thought it desirable to warn Aldobrandino d’Este, lord of Ferrara, against Pandolfo; and at Bernabo’s request Petrarch wrote, in the name of Bernabo, the letter of warning, Misc. 17. The style is rather that of the chan-

cery than the usual style of Petrarch; and the content of the letter is undoubtedly due to Bernabo.*° | ° Weiss 1, pp. 82-84 and 134-135. * Weiss 1, pp. 84 and 136-137.

CHAPTER XVI

1357: From Mid-September to the End

of the Year September | On Tuesday 12 September Petrarch was at Pagazzano. ‘This

we know from an entry that he made on 12 September 1358 on the sheet mentioned at the end of the preceding chapter, apparently just below the entry that he had made on that sheet on 12 September 1356. The entry made on 12 September 1358 begins thus: anno sequenti fuit die martis id festum & eram pagaz. ubi sum & hodie mercurij 12. sept. dum hoc scribo . . .*

Pagazzano, certainly not more than a village in Petrarch’s time, is a place on the eastern side of the Adda, about twenty miles east of Milan and about ten miles south of Bergamo. Bernabo Visconti had a castle there; and in 1364, at a time when he was having some other castles demolished, he ordered that this one be spared, for Petrarch’s sake. The order he then

issued reads thus: |

Mafeo de Madiis Volentes complacere honorabili et prudenti viro domino Francischo petrarche [mandamus] tibi quod desistas a destructione fortilizie de pagazano syto in clarea abdue q[uia domum] nostram quam ibidem habemus concessimus domino Francisco predicto.

Datum Mediolani.? | * Appel 1, pp. 142 and 186.

“See G. Riva, “Una villa sconosciuta del Petrarca a Pagazzano,” in ASL, xix (1922), 404-406; Foresti 1, pp. 361-362; and Romano, pp. xlit and xliti. Foresti’s discussion is erroneous, as Romano rightly points

150 ,

out; but Romano himself fails to realize that Petrarch’s entry of 12

1357: TO THE END OF THE YEAR 151 On the very next day, Wednesday 13 September, however, Petrarch was back in Milan. On the afternoon of that day, having decided to make a fresh copy of the portion of the second capitolo (Era si pieno) of the Triumphus Cupidinis that begins with line 46 (evidently he had already made a fresh copy, on a sheet now lost, of lines 1-45), he took into his hands a blank sheet, and made at the top of the first page the notation

.1357. mercurij. 13. septembris. post tertiam ante prandium.

mediolani.

He then began the transcription of the rest of the capitolo, for which he needed all four pages of his new sheet. Each line of the poem, as he copied it, was written on a separate line on

the page, in such a way that the body of the text stood in a column that occupied only the left half of the page. As he copied, however, he made many revisions, putting his new readings either between the lines or in the free space in the right half of the page. The sheet in question is preserved as ff. 17-18 of V.L. 3196. Not all the many revisions that it shows were made at this time: two were certainly made a year later.® Petrarch finished his copying between midnight and dawn

on Saturday 16 September. When he came to the bottom of the last page of the sheet there was no room 1n the left column for the last two tercets of the capitolo: he therefore transcribed

them in the space to the right, beginning a little below the middle of the page; and above them he wrote | die sabati post matutinum Beatricis et Geminiani. 16. septembris. hora recte noctis. 3.

Several of the tercets in the left column of this fourth page

began with the word So. Looking over his work late in the afternoon or early in the evening of the same day, he was moved to add to this series of tercets. He wrote accordingly, in the right half of the page and above the inscription that he September 1358, quoted above, proves that Petrarch was at Pagazzano in 1357 as well as in 1358. | >On Petrarch’s use of this sheet see Romano, pp. 250-272.

152 CHAPTER SIXTEEN had written in the morning, three new tercets, each beginning with the word So; and above them he wrote: insere hoc hic alicubi. sabato. 16. septembris in vesperis.

At some time in the spring Nelli had gone to Avignon to plead the cause of a certain monk of the Florentine monastery of San Salvi whose promised appointment to the abbacy was being unduly contested. When Petrarch first heard of this we do not know; but late in September, or possibly in October, he received Nelli’s xvit1, a long letter written in Avignon on 8 September. It opens with a diatribe against Avignon, quite

in the spirit of Petrarch’s own diatribes. Nelli has visited Vaucluse, now truly “clausam et incola suo viduam.” He tells of his reason for going to Avignon. He has seen Guido Sette, Laelius, Stefano Colonna, and Socrates, and speaks of them in the highest terms. At the end of the letter he writes: Giovanni Petrarca comes to see me frequently, and we talk of pleasant matters. He often tells me things that I did not know, some

of them singularly interesting. Our conversations help to fill up the time and to render the endless waiting at this court more endurable... you will have your own opinions about him, of course, in other respects: I will say that I have found him modest and

well-behaved.

October In the early autumn Cardinal Albornoz was besieging Forli; and in October Petrarch received from Cecco di Meletto Rossi an epistola metrica, now lost, in which Cecco asked Petrarch

to influence the Visconti to come to the aid of Forli. On the 26th Petrarch replied, in Fam. xxt 3. Cecco deserves both an answering carmen and the desired help; but Petrarch is no longer writing carmina—“neque .. . tuvenilis ardor ille pyerius solitis facibus animum accendit”— and is confining his literary activity to the completion of his major works; and any effort to persuade the Visconti to oppose Cardinal Albornoz would be futile. Petrarch’s letter, however, is as friendly and encourag-

ing as it could well be under the circumstances. The letter is

1357: TO THE END OF THE YEAR 153 dated “raptim, ambigua iam luce, VII Kal. Novembris.” 4 Perhaps in October, perhaps somewhat later, Petrarch wrote | his Sime nom. 17 as a reply to Nelli’s xvi. Nearly all of this exceedingly long letter consists of a diatribe against Avignon, a diatribe that assembles and expands much that Petrarch had said in earlier writings. The main portion of the letter opens — thus:

Ecce iam oculis uides, iam manibus palpas, qualis est Babilon illa nouissima, fervens, estuans, obscena, terribilis . . . Quicquid uspiam perfidie et doli, quicquid inclementie superbieque, quicquid impudicitie effrenateque libidinis audisti aut legisti, quicquid denique impietatis et morum pessimorum sparsim habet aut habuit orbis terre, totum istic cumulatum uideas aceruatumque reperias.

There is an incidental reference to Petrarch’s former intention of writing a book about Avignon. At the end Petrarch expresses his pleasure in Nelli’s association with the four friends mentioned in Nelli’s xvim.° “See Weiss 1, p. 89. * This letter is discussed at length, and for the most part admirably,

in Piur 1, pp. 389-401. He proves conclusively that the letter was in fact addressed to Nelli, and that it shows that Nelli had once before been in Avignon. I disagree, however, at two points. From the clauses “Si de mei aduentus tempore queris” and “Si uero causam cupis” in Nelli’s xvi Piur infers that that letter was written in reply to a lost letter in which Petrarch had asked him when and why he went to Avignon; but these very clauses seem to me to indicate that Nelli had not heard from Petrarch. If Nelli had received such a letter as Piur supposes, these clauses would rather have been simply “De mei adventus

tempore queris” and “Causam cupis.” At the end of Petrarch’s letter there is a reference to an epistola metrica of his on Avignon: “Quare permitte, queso, ut quod in animo est, uel in ameno sermone explicem.”

Piur states that three of the Epistolae metricae, mi 22, 23, and 33, concern Avignon, and argues that since Petrarch had sent m 22 to

Nelli in 1355 the sermo of Sine nom. 17 must be one of the other two, and that Petrarch was planning to send it to Nelli at this time. But m1 23 concerns the country around Avignon rather than Avignon itself, and it cannot fairly be said that m 33, which is general in its content, refers to Avignon. I take the meaning of the Quare clause to be simply “Please consider the carmen that I have already sent you as an expression of my opinion.” See Wilkins 2, pp. 193-204. Cochin at first believed this letter to have been addressed to Nelli, and in Cochin 1 he

154 CHAPTER SIXTEEN Petrarch, however, did not send the letter, but kept it on hand. His main and perfectly adequate reason for doing so, as stated two years later in Fam. xx 6, was that its freedom of speech was such that if it had fallen—as it might well have fallen—into hands other than those of Nelli it might have caused

a renewal of hostilities. , November

On Saturday the 25th Petrarch attended a mass in honor of St. Catherine of Alexandria in Sant’Ambrogio; and as he came out of the church he was told of the death of his friend Giacobino de’ Bossi. Soon thereafter he made this entry in the lower right hand part of the recto of the first guard leaf of his Virgil, a page on which he recorded certain deaths that

affected him very much: ,

Dominus Iacobinus Bossius, uir probus et sapiens et mihi carissimus, obiit 1357 Novembris 25, quod mihi redeunti a missa Kath— erine uirginis ab ecclesia [sancti A]mbr[osii] non sine graui uulnere mentis innotuit.®

On Wednesday the 29th, having before him the page that is now f. 7r in V.L. 3196, a page that bore three sonnets, Per mirar Policleto, Quando giunse a Simon, and Que’ che ’n Tesagha (Nos. 77, 78, and 44), Petrarch transcribed them into a manuscript of the Canzoniere (as it then stood) which served as a master copy from which a copyist could make other copies to be sent to friends; and after doing so he drew a can-

celling line, on f. 7r, through the two sonnets, and made this notation in the upper right corner of the page: Transcripti isti duo in ordine. post mille annos. 135 7. mercurlj hora. 3. novembris. 29. dum volo his omnino finem dare ne unquam gave it the number 57 in his list; but he later changed his mind, and in Cochin 2 he omits it, with the result that the letters that in Cochin 1 are numbered 58—82 are numbered 57-81 in Cochin 2. I follow the

numbering of Cochin 1. | ®See Nolhac, u, 284; and Achille Ratti, “Ancora del celebre cod.

ms. delle opere di Virgilio gia di F. Petrarca... ,” in F. Petrarca e la

Lombardia (Milan, 1904), pp. 222-224. |

1357: TO THE END OF THE YEAR 155 amplius me teneant. et iam Jerolimus ut puto primum quaternum scribere est adortus pergameno. pro. d(omino) Az(one). postea pro me idem facturus.’

| December On an 18th of December which was probably that of 1357 _ Petrarch wrote Fam. xx 3, dated in Milan, to Galeotto Spinola, an aged leader of the Genoese nobles, who had been exiled, evidently by Boccanegra (see above, pp. 131-132), and in the course of his exile had come to Milan. Now, it would seem from Petrarch’s letter, an effort was to be made to oust Boccanegra, and it was planned, or at least hoped, that Galeotto would take the leadership of this effort. Petrarch expresses his pleasure that Galeotto’s presence in Milan had enabled him to make Galeotto’s acquaintance—“Et exilio illi tuo brevi gratulor

et gratiam habeo, quod te ad tempus in hanc urbem compulit—

and urges him, despite his age—‘‘Vera virtus senium non sentit’”—to devote himself to the freeing of Genoa: “Illa te vocat, in te sperat, auxilium tuum poscit.”

_ This letter was certainly written after the Genoese rebellion of 14-15 November 1356; and the words “exilio .. . brevi” indicate that it was written not long afterward. It could hardly have been written on 18 December 1356, since there

would not have been time by that date for the formation, among the doubtless scattered exiles, of such a plan to regain

power as the letter assumes; and it could hardly have been written on 18 December 1358 since it is dated from Milan, and

it was probably before 18 December that Petrarch went to Padua and Venice for the winter (see below, pp. 174-175).

Where Galeotto was when Petrarch wrote the letter we do not

know—perhaps still in Milan, perhaps in some other place where a number of Genoese exiles had gathered. It may seem strange,

at first sight, that Petrarch, being with the Visconti, should write such a letter to a Genoese noble, since the Genoese nobility had been hostile to the Visconti. But Galeotto was, or *Romand, p. xxxix. See Wilkins, 1, pp. 153-154. Jerolimus was evidently a copyist.

156 CHAPTER SIXTEEN was to be, engaged in an effort to overthrow Boccanegra, now in control of Genoa, who had allied himself with the Marquis of Monferrato, who was now the bitterest enemy of the Visconti. It is then quite possible that Galeotto should have been

Visconti.® |

a persona at least relatively and temporarily grata to the

| Addenda for 1357

At some time in 1357, as we learn from Nelli’s xx (written in November 1358, soon after Nelli had returned from Avienon), Petrarch was visited by a Florentine whose first name was Francesco, a man to whom nature had given a very short

stature but “virtutem ingentem.” In the course of the visit this Francesco had greatly enjoyed Petrarch’s manner of life and his conversation; had had the pleasure of seeing and handling

Petrarch’s books and of hearing Petrarch talk about them; and had listened to Petrarch’s praises of his friends and especially of Nelli. In the course of the visit, also, the two men had been contented companions on a three-day journey: “Hic se felicem

predicat . . . triduani equitatus ... te comitatum suum... habuisse gratissimum.”

It may well have been at some time in 1357, in April or later, that Sagremor brought to Petrarch a brief letter (LAP 67) from Jan ze Streda, beginning Persuastua dulcedo, and devoted *Fracassetti 2 quite misunderstands this letter. He interprets it as meaning that Galeotto has already been “eletto a reggere e riordinare il Governo di Genova”—an historical impossibility. Fracassetti was appar-

ently misled by Petrarch’s reference to Galeotto as principem in the passage “rempublicam tuam, in qua principem te Deus et virtus et maiorum sanguis faciunt,’ a passage that merely indicates Galeotto’s personal eminence, or by the words “Illa te vocat,” etc., which are nothing more than a vivid phrasing of Petrarch’s urgent hopes. As to the date of the letter Fracassetti 2 remarks that its position in Fam. xx would seem to indicate a date of about 1355 (xx 1 and 2 are of that year, 4 is of 1356 or later, and 5—15 are all of 1358 or 1359); but in Fracassetti 3, p. 137, he indicates only that since the letter is dated in Milan it must have been written at some time during the period of Petrarch’s residence there.

1357: TO THE END OF THE YEAR 157 almost entirely to praise of Petrarch’s style and depreciation of Jan’s own style. Sagremor, Jan says, will supplement the letter orally. ‘This letter may or may not be an answer to Fam. xxi 2.° In April King John, a captive since the preceding September,

was taken to England.*° After Petrarch heard of this, and before the end of 1357, he added these lines to his Twelfth Eclogue, written long before, which deals with the war between France and England (all of these lines except the last are spoken by a messenger, Volucer; the last is spoken by the listening people, Multivolus; Pan is the French king): Timui, fateor, meque inde recepi, Panaque turbatum penitusque per arva liqui Solivagum; mox, ambigua dum mente reflector,

Heu! victum vinctumque gravi sine more catena _ Prospicio trans stagna rapi, non libera celo Brachia, sed meste rorantia lumina frontis Tollentem, ac tales iactantem in nubila questus: “Cernitis hec, superi, seu quidnam intervenit umbre? Ceca rotat fortuna fidem, regit omnia fatum!” I; nunc in rebus spem certam pone secundam.

Before the end of the year, also, Petrarch completed a copy

of the entire Bucolicum carmen (containing the lines just quoted). ‘This copy, in Petrarch’s own hand, is preserved in the Vatican Library, as Vat. Lat. 3358, and bears this explicit: Bucolicum carmen meum explicit. Quod ipse qui ante annos dictaveram, scripsi manu propria, apud Mediolanum, anno huius etatis ultime 1357.11

By the end of the year work on the collection of the Familiares had progressed at least as far as x 4.** Six years or more earlier Petrarch had written Met. 1 1, the

dedicatory epistola, addressed to Barbato da Sulmona, of Petrarch’s collection of his epistolae metricae; but he had been ° See Piur 2, pp. 63-64. *° Delachenal, 1, 315.

“See Avena, pp. 11-21, and Vattasso, I codici petrarcheschi della Biblioteca vaticana (= Studi e testi, 20) (Rome, 1908), pp. 30-31. -™ Billanovich 1, pp. 19-21.

158 CHAPTER SIXTEEN holding it, evidently, until he could revise it to his own satisfaction. At some time in 1357, apparently, he had completed the revision; and finding that a Bolognese acquaintance of his was going to Southern Italy, he gave him, to take to Barbato, a copy of this poem, and a copy of his first Eclogue as well. From Fam. xx 5 we know that his Bolognese acquaintance reached Barbato at some time before the end of the year.” The De otio exists in two forms: the original form, written in Vaucluse in 1347, after a visit to the Certosa of Montrieux, and a later form, made in Milan, and differentiated from the origi-

nal form mainly by the presence of about a hundred interpolations, some of them of considerable length. One of these inter-— polations was certainly made in 1357, for it contains a reference to the Basel earthquake as having occurred “anno qui presentem

preit”. Rotondi, the discoverer of the second form, is of the - opinion that in the making of the second form “non si tratta di aggiunte saltuarie e, vorrei dire, casuali, ma di un rimaneggiamento organico e globale a cui ’opera fu sottoposta”; and he accordingly attributes the entire rimaneggiamento to 1357. The interpolations consist largely of supporting quotations drawn from classical, Biblical, and patristic sources. There are incidental references to three of the other works of Petrarch: the Rerum memorandarum libri (to which Petrarch here refers as a book “cui rerum humanarum nomen indidi’”’), the De vita Solitaria, and the De remedius. Aside from the presence of the — interpolations the second form differs from the first mainly by a change in title—the first form bears the title De otio religiosor-

um, the second the title De otio religioso—and by the fact that whereas the first form is divided into two Books the second

form is divided into eight sections. Rotondi is doubtless right in thinking that Petrarch’s resumption of work on the De otio was related to his familiarity with the Certosa of Garegnano.™ * Wilkins 2, pp. 228-234 and 244-245. “See Rotondi, especially pp. 32-41.

| CHAPTER XVII 1358: January-June The indecisive warfare that had prevailed during 1357 had come to an end by the beginning of 1358, and peace negotiations

were carried on during the first half of the year. January

It was presumably early in January, or perhaps late in the previous December, that Petrarch received from Avignon a letter that he calls a “Tricipitem epystolam,” written by three friends using three different pens and three different colors of

ink: thrice and more than thrice, he says, he read the letter happily. The three friends from whom it came were living in the same honorable house, apparently a house well known to Petrarch—“honesto illo sub lare degentibus’—and they were all men to whom Petrarch had often written individually— “quibus tam multa sepe singulis.” They are not named in Petrarch’s reply: they were probably Socrates, Laelius, and Stefano Colonna, all of whom were connected in one way or another with the Colonna family.’ To this letter Petrarch replied, in his Fam. xx 9, written in * Socrates lived permanently in Avignon; Laelius lived there, as far as we know, from the summer of 1355 to the winter of 1359 (see above, p. 89, and below, pp. 165 and 203); and Stefano Colonna usually lived there: see Claude Cochin, pp. 363-364. The misunderstanding between Socrates and Laelius seems not to have developed until the spring of 1358 (see below, pp. 165-166 and 170). Fracassetti 2 suggests that the

three were Socrates, Guido Sette, and Nelli (who was in Avignon at this time). There is no evidence of any close association of Guido or of Nelli with the Colonna family. Guido had a house of his own (see Wilkins 2, p. 99). While in Avignon Nelli never heard from Petrarch, and it is not likely that Petrarch would have referred to him as one of three persons “Babilone . . . habitantibus.” 159

160 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN haste before dawn on 12 January, by the light of a dying lamp,

while he was weighed down with work, sleepy, cold, and coughing, and had at hand only poor paper and a poor pen. The letter, brief but cordial, expresses Petrarch’s thanks for the triple letter that he has received, and goes so far as to say that it even makes him envious of persons who are dwelling in

Avignon: their home, free from evil, is comparable to the Flysian fields, located in the midst of the pains and miseries

ofIn theAvernus. | same January, evidently, Petrarch received from

Giovanni Aghinolfi a letter in which Giovanni reported that he had retired to a place in the country [outside Mantua], and invited Petrarch to visit him there. Petrarch’s brief reply, Fam. xx 10, was written in haste before dawn on 28 January. In almost the same words that he had used in xx 9 Petrarch says that

he is writing while oppressed by the cold, by sleep, and by the amount of work that he has to do. Lest he be tempted to write at length he is even using paper of a small size. He congratulates Giovanni on his escape from the stormy waves [of political life] and his safety on the shore. As for himself, though still within the storm, he feels secure and calm. He would like to accept Giovanni’s invitations, but cannot do so. The position of Fam. xx 9 and 10 in the collection of the Familiares serves to indicate that both letters were presumably written in 1358 or 1359: Letters 5-8 and 11-15 in Book xx were all written in one or the other of those years. Since both 9 and 10 were dated in Milan in January,” however, they cannot have been written in 1359, for Petrarch, as will appear below, spent most of the winter of 1358-59 in Padua and

1358. }

Venice, and did not reach Milan, on his return, until 9 February.

It is then probable that both 9 and 10 were written in January

| January-April

Before the first of May, and perhaps even before the end “That Milan was the place of writing of xx 9 appears only in the

missive form of that letter. |

1358: JANUARY - JUNE 161 of 1357, the long life of Petrarch’s octogenarian friend (see above, p. 113) came to an end. Of late he had begun to write a book that was to be dedicated to Laelius; and of late he had been dining almost every day with Petrarch, who had been doing everything he could for him. One day, seeming to be in perfect health, he said to Petrarch, sadly: “I am eighty-

five today; how much longer do you think I have to live? Perhaps I might have twenty-five years more—that’s only a short time.” Petrarch replied, smiling: “Don’t be troubled: you

will round out thirty years.” He replied, more cheerfully: “Good, that’s enough.” Three days later he died; and at vesper time Petrarch saw the procession bearing his body to the atrium

of Sant’Ambrogio, where on the next day—Petrarch being present, with tears in his eyes—he was buried honorably in the tomb of his fathers [ Fam. xx 12]. March

Early in 1358 Petrarch’s friend Giovannolo da Mandello and some other men were planning to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; and Giovannolo wanted Petrarch to go with them. He refused, however, being unwilling to undertake again the hardships of travel by sea: it was not death in itself that he feared, but seasickness, together with the fact that dying at sea might be a long process. Giovannolo then asked him, since he would not go, to write a guidebook for him; and this he did. ©

The full title of the little book is Itinerarium breve de Janua usque ad lerusalem et Terram Sanctam: it is commonly

referred to as the Itimerarium syriacum. In length it would cover about twenty-two pages of the size of those of this book. It was written, Petrarch says near the end, in three days. These were probably days in early March: in March because a copy was delivered to Giovannolo on 4 April, as will appear presently,

and because it was written while “tranquilla veris facies _ faventesque . .. aurae” wrere summoning Giovannolo to set forth; and in early March because it would have taken Petrarch

162 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN some time, after finishing and revising it, to have a copyist — make a fair copy of it to be given to Giovannolo.

The little book opens with an introduction in which Petrarch tells of the circumstances under which it was written,

and explains his refusal to join the pilgrims. They were to sail from Genoa; and the body of the book opens, accordingly, with a page on the aspect and the history—legendary and au-

thentic—of that city. Petrarch himself had sailed down the western coast of Italy as far as Naples, and his account of the coast between Genoa and Naples is therefore based upon his own memories. To the riviera just south of Genoa he refers thus: valles amoenissimas interlabentes rivulos, colles asperitate gravissima et mira fertilitate conspicuos, praevalida in rupis oppida, vicos

amplissimos, et marmoreas atque auratas domos, quocumque te verteris, videbis sparsas in litore.

He then mentions, in order, the mountain and the port of Portofino, Rapallo, Sestri, Portovenere, the gulf of Spezia, Monte Corvo, and the mouth of the Magra, which separates Liguria and Tuscany; and he then follows the coast southward, with many names, mentioning the islands that lie to the right (among them Caprera and Elba), past the mouths of the Arno and the Tiber (he refrains from any discussion of Rome), to the bay of Naples. Naples was dear to Petrarch; and he writes in detail of the wonderful bay, naming and commenting on its many points of interest and beauty: Ischia, Procida, Cumae, Cape Misenus, the Lacus Avernus, the Lacus Lucrinus, the Cave

of the Sybil, the Solfatara, Baja, Pozzuoli, Monte Falerno, the Posilipo tunnel (he tells of his own and King Robert’s disbelief in the legend that the tunnel was made by the magic arts of Virgil), Naples itself, Vesuvius, Capri, Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Sorrento.’ In Naples, he says, you must not fail to see Giotto’s frescoes: “Capellam regis intrare ne omiseris,, in qua conter-

‘some of these places. , |

* Many years before he had written in Fam. v 4 of his own visit to

1358: JANUARY - JUNE 163 raneus olim meus, pictorium nostri aevi princeps, magna reliquit manus et ingenii monimenta.” *

Petrarch had never gone beyond the region of Naples: for the rest of the western coast of Italy, for its southern coast, for Greece, for the coast of Asia Minor, for the Holy Land, for the

itself. 7

Sinai desert, and for Egypt, he draws his materials, consequently

—and draws it richly—from literary and Biblical sources, and from maps.° He speaks devoutly and at length of the Holy City The book ends thus:

_ Tibi domi, mihi ad mea studia redeundum, quod ego confestim fecero, tibi vero plusculum negotii superest peragendum Christi ope feliciter. His spectaculis, et hoc duce doctior nobis et sanctior

remeabis.

In March, or perhaps a little earlier, Sagremor, arriving from Prague, brought back to Petrarch the gold bulla that he had sent to Jan ze Streda (see above, pp. 136-137), together with a letter in which, apparently, Jan asserted again the great inferiority of his own style to that of Petrarch, and, playing on the Latin form, Saceramor, of Sagremor’s name, used with reference to him, apparently, the words “amor est.” While in Milan Sagremor evi-

dently told Petrarch that he desired to enter the service of the Emperor. On 25 March, accordingly—doubtless shortly before Sagre-

mor was to leave for Prague—Petrarch wrote for him three letters of recommendation, Fam. xx 5-7, addressed respectively

to Jan, to Arnost z Pardubic, and to the Emperor. In each of the three letters Petrarch praises Sagremor highly, and speaks of his own affection for Sagremor and of Sagremor’s devotion to ‘Nothing remains of these frescoes, which were painted about 1330. °'To his use of books and maps for his own instruction and enjoyment he refers thus in Sem. 1x 2: “Itaque consilium cepi ad eas terras: non nauigio: non equo pedibusue per longissimumque iter semel tantum

sed per breuissiman chartam sepe libris ac ingenio proficisci: ita ut quotiens uellem hore spatio ad eorum litus irem ac reverterer non illesus

modo sed etiam indefessus.” ae ,

164 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN the Emperor. In the course of xx1 7, the letter to the Emperor, Petrarch recalls the circumstances of his first visit to Charles, in Mantua, when Sagremor had brought him the invitation, and, a few days later, had escorted him on the latter part of his wintry way (see above, p. 79), and tells of Sagremor’s companionship on his later journey to Prague (see above, pp. 122-123). In xx1 5 Petrarch stresses Sagremor’s affection for Jan; quotes Jan’s play

on the name Saceramor; maintains that Jan’s praise of his (Petrarch’s) style is excessive, and that Jan’s own style is excellent; and accepts the bulla, not because it is of gold, but as a symbol of Jan’s golden good will. And in xxi 6 he assures the Archbishop

of Sagremor’s affection for him. April

On the 4th, a fair copy of the Itinerarium being ready, Petrarch gave or sent it to Giovannolo da Mandello. An early copy of that copy has at the end this note: “In cuius fine sic notatum erat. Datum domino IJohanni de Mandello seu nuncio

etus III Aprilis 1358.”° On or as of 6 April Petrarch wrote the last of his anniversary poems, the sonnet that stands as No. 364 in the final form of the Canzoniere. The first quatrain reads:

Tennemi Amor anni ventuno ardendo, : Lieto nel foco, et nel duol pien di speme; Poi che madonna e ’] mio cor seco inseme Saliro al ciel, dieci altri anni piangendo.

| In the course of the month, doubtless, Petrarch received Nelli’s brief xrx, written in Avignon on 19 March. Nelli asks why it is that no letter from Petrarch has come to him “babilonicis inuolutum ambagibus, non horrendis modo, sed usque ad sydera detestandis”; asserts his absolute dependence on Petrarch’s friendship; and closes with this defense of

Giovanni: | °Novati, p. 45.

1358: JANUARY - JUNE 165 Do not insist, I beg of you, that even in his youth he should be an old man; do not, I pray you, let your ears be open to every breath of air that is adverse to him. Unless I am mistaken, the stars will show him, if destiny permits, to be almost what you would have him be; and as he here corresponds constantly to my affection, so

I commend him to your leniency. |

Before the end of the month Petrarch had received also three other letters from Avignon, two from Laelius and one from Stefano Colonna, Provost of Saint-Omer. The letters from Laelius indicated that he was gravely depressed. Stefano wrote apparently of the evils of Avignon, and certainly of his friendship for Petrarch. His letter was brought to Milan by a

man whom Petrarch in his reply calls “noster hic Cicero pergamensis arpinatis illus hostis”: evidently the soldier turned

“Bolanus.” * |

monk and messenger whom Petrarch had previously called After dinner on Monday 30 April, having in his hands the - now lost autograph sheet that bore most or all of the capitolo Al tempo (see above, pp. 125 and 148), Petrarch noticed that

the word cos? chanced to appear both in a line (now line 55) that then began “ben fu cosi” and in the fourth line follow-

ing, which began “cosi dissio.” Desiring to avoid the repetition, he decided to change the first three words of the first of the two lines to “e fu ben uero”; and accordingly he made, apparently at the foot of the page concerned, this notation: ben fu cosi etc uel e fu ben uero 1358. lune post prandium Aprilis. 30. hoc placet propter cosi quod est infra proxime.®

In the course of the spring attempts, supported by Petrarch, were made to bring about a reconciliation between the Visconti — and Azzo da Correggio. It is stated that a document preserved

in the archives of Parma shows that on 14 March Bernabo Visconti authorized the restoration to Azzo of property that

he had formerly owned in Parmesan territory; ® and twice in —

**Bigi, Appel 1, pp. 142-143. , p. 237,

See above, pp. 25 and 36-37; and see Foresti 1, pp. 288-289.

166 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 1358, at dates unknown but prior to September, Petrarch sent a servant to Azzo with a letter urging reconciliation, but without result. Var. 28 (for which see below, p. 173) contains this passage: “pro quo bis anno isto, eodem domino permittente, famulum meum cum litteris ad vos misi. Frustra tamen.” May

On the first day of May Petrarch wrote both to Stefano Colonna and to Laelius. In his letter to Stefano, Fam. xx 11, after speaking warmly of their friendship, he has something to say about the evils of Avignon, and prophesies that the time will come when the world will no longer endure them. In his letter to Laelius, Fam. xx 12, Petrarch exhorts him to attain equanimity, and writes at some length of their common octogenarian friend, now recently deceased. Both letters, doubtless, were entrusted to Bolanus to be taken to their addressees in Avignon. Shortly before 23 May Petrarch received from the Empress Anna a letter, written apparently by her own hand—and brought,

doubtless, by Sagremor on his return from the trip to Prague on which he had delivered Fam. xx1 5—7—in which she announced the birth of her first child, a daughter. Petrarch replied on 23 May, in Fam. xxi 8, a long letter of congratulation, which is in effect a little treatise de laudibus feminarum, celebrat-

ing many classic heroines, familiar and unfamiliar, and the

Countess Matilda of Tuscany.” |

_ Perhaps in May, possibly before the end of April, perhaps in June or even later, Petrarch wrote his long Sime nom. 18, which is in a sense a response to Nelli’s xx. The letter opens with the question “Why are you staying on?” and passes soon into a dia-

tribe of the familiar type, featured by an insistence on senile depravity, and pointed by a scandalous story. As in the case of Sine nom. 17 (see above, pp. 153-154), Petrarch did not send this

letter, but kept it on hand. [ am inclined to think that this letter was written not with any idea that it should or could be sent, ** See Piur 2, pp. 81-86. The princess had been born on 19 March, and was named Elisabeth.

| 1358: JANUARY - JUNE 167

| June |

_ but simply as an addition to the collection of the Sine nomine.™

On 8 June a treaty of peace between the Visconti and their enemies was signed in Milan, in the presence of the Burgrave of Magdeburg, representing the Emperor. By one of the clauses of this treaty Novara, which had been

in the hands of the Marquis of Monferrato since November 1356, was restored to the Visconti. Galeazzo desired evidently to do all that could be done to secure the loyalty of the people of Novara, who might well be fearful lest they be punished for

their failure to hold the city against the Marquis: in point of fact the responsibility for that failure seems to have lain with the governor, who had forbidden a resistance that the people were apparently ready to make. Galeazzo decided therefore to refrain from punishment, to make an impressive entrance into the city, and to have Petrarch deliver an oration that should help

to win the desired loyalty. On 18 June, accordingly, Galeazzo _ made his formal entrance, with a considerable company, which included the Burgrave of Magdeburg and Giovannolo da Mandello but without a military escort. An assemblage of the people was convoked in the great cloister of the cathedral; and to that assemblage, late in the afternoon, Petrarch delivered his

oration.??

Considering the occasion a solemn one, Petrarch opens with a scriptural text, “Convertetur populus meus hic.”"* ‘Then, after "1 The narrative art shown in Sine nom. 18 is carefully analyzed by

Ezio Raimondi, “Una pagina satirica delle Sine nomine,” in SP, vt (1956), 55-61. On letters written simply for inclusion in the collection of the Familiares see Rossi, “Sulla formazione delle raccolte epistolari petrarchesche,” in R. Accademia Petrarca di Lettere Arti e Scienze di Arezzo, Annali della cattedra petrarchesca, m (1932), 53-73; Billanovich — 1, pp. 47-53; and Wilkins 2, pp. 311-317.

**See Hortis 1, pp. 166-174; Negroni; Azario-Cognasso, pp. 80-83 and 106-107; and Cognasso, pp. 396-398. Hortis prints the oration on pp. 341-358; and Negroni reprints it with several conjectural emendations and an Italian translation. *® Psalm 72.10 (73.10 in the English Bible).

168 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN invoking the Holy Spirit and saying that he will speak briefly and “ad gloriam et laudem eterni domini nostri ihesu christi ad honorem ac statum temporalis domini presentis ad pacem et requiem huius defesse ciuitatis et populi,” he divides his text into

two parts, “convertetur” and “populus meus hic”; speaks of “convertetur” as indicating the excellence of repentance; and then expounds each of the three words of the second part. Not every group of men can rightly be called a “populus’— not, for instance, the bands of mercenaries that have been laying Italy waste: only a group bound together by the ties of law and justice can rightly be called a “populus,” and the Novaresi de-

serve this appellation. The “populus” of Novara is rightly to be called “meus” from the point of view of Galeazzo, since it has dwelt under the benign lordship of the earlier Visconti—_ Matteo I, Galeazzo I, Azzo, and the late Archbishop—and of the present Galeazzo, “qui ex omnibus suis ciuitatibus hanc singulariter dilexit ac diliget si uos ut sperat suo singulari amore dignos inuenerit.” The hic is taken to be an emphatic pronominal

adjective denoting a preferential affection. Then, with the obvious intention of presenting Galeazzo to the Novaresi as a

truly benevolent lord, he maintains, first, that, error being human, Galeazzo would have forgiven them even if they had offended him; second, that Galeazzo does not even remember any offense received from them; and third, that he considers that they have never in fact offended him: not on the day when the Marquis of Monferrato seized the city, since on that day they had gathered, under arms, to defend it, but had been forbidden to do so; not during the lordship of the Marquis, whose tyranny and craft had made resistance impossible; and not on the

present day, when they have welcomed Galeazzo in words, in aspect, in manner, and in thought, opening to him not only the gates of the city but the gates of their hearts. Finally, quoting

Virgil’s line | | ~ Soluite corde metum Teucri secludite curas,

he bids them lay aside all fear and resume their former sense of security; assures them, in the words of Deuteronomy, that

1358: JANUARY - JUNE 169 their lord “elegit te hodie ut sis ei populus peculiaris,” and closes

with a prayer that God may illumine both lord and people: “et sibi ea tusticia ac consilio preesse vobis ea fide atque obsequio

subesse tribuat ne aut vobis alium statum seu dominum optare aut sibi alum populum plus amare conueniat.” Hortis calls the oration “un vero capolavoro politico.” Its wording is often eloquent; and to those who listened it must have been impressive by the sheer weight of the learning by which its several arguments and assertions are supported; there

are appropriate quotations from St. Ambrose, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Boethius, Cicero, Livy, Sallust, Seneca, Servius, Terence, and Virgil, and from many Books of the Bible.* “ Negroni, pp. 10-15 and 61-62, maintains that it was probably on this occasion that Petrarch first met the physician Albertino da Cannobio.

He may be right, but he does not by any means prove his case: see below, pp. 217-218 and 243.

| CHAPTER XVIII 1358: July-December July

— On 15 July, it would appear, Petrarch finished work on a

manuscript of Terence: a manuscript of that author now in Parma has a subscription, written in 1470 by one Gianluigi Sacca, in which he states that he has copied it | ad quoddam exemplar scriptum et undique reuisum per disertissimum et excellentissimum poetam Dominum Franciscum Petrarcam

de anno mccclviij Tulii XV in sero.* |

At some time in July, evidently, Petrarch learned that Laelius’ unhappiness had been due to his belief that Socrates had

turned against him, and in particular that Socrates had spoken ill of him in a letter to Petrarch. Greatly distressed, Petrarch on 30 July wrote to Laelius a letter, Fam. xx 13, in which, with a fine combination of reasoning, reproachfulness, affection, and adjuration, he denies that Socrates had ever spoken ill of him

in any of his letters, and maintains that Socrates could not possibly have spoken so to anyone, least of all to him (Petrarch).

After a reference to members of the Colonna family who had been benefactors to Laelius, to Socrates, and to Petrarch alike,

the letter culminates in this passage: For the sake of those men, I say, for my sake, and for your own sake I beg you to relieve me speedily of this distress, which weighs me down and burns me and twists me and tortures me; and if you love me, or have ever loved me, then I beg you, before this letter leaves your hands, to seek out Socrates—who is astounded by the change that has come over you and 1s sorely vexed by his own ill fortune—or else to bid him to come to you.

- | 170

* Nolhac, 1, 192. :

1358: JULY - DECEMBER 171 In a later letter, Fam. xx 15, written to Socrates in the following year, Petrarch has this to say of the circumstances under

which he wrote xx 13:

You praise the style of that letter; but my style, always unpretentious, reflected in that case improvisation and confusion, because

of the heat and the time of day [xx 13 is dated “prima face’’] and the impatience of the messenger. And I was so moved and so fired and driven by my affection—as I remember, and as I call God to witness—that while I wrote I could not hold back my tears. You two were before my eyes, together with your friends distressed by your discord and the jealous men who triumphed in it; and my mind was reviewing all the years of our friendship.

Before the end of July, in all probability, Petrarch learned that Guido Sette had been made Archbishop of Genoa;? and promptly, doubtless—perhaps in July, perhaps in August—he

wrote to Guido a brief but eminently appropriate letter of congratulation, Fam. x1x 10.

August

At some time in the summer, probably in August, Petrarch received from Barbato da Sulmona a letter in which Barbato

reported that before the end of 1357 he had received a visit from two men who had represented themselves to him as being friends of Petrarch, one of them a Bolognese (evidently the Bolognese to whom Petrarch had entrusted Met. 1 1 and Ecl. 1 to be given to Barbato: see above pp. 157-158) and the other from beyond the Alps; and that they had asked and received money from him. His letter contained also a pleasant reference to Niccolo Acciaiuoli.

On 27 August Petrarch wrote Fam. xx 5 as a reply to Barbato’s letter. He refers pleasantly to Niccolo Acciaiuols; says that he knew the Bolognese but not Barbato’s other visitor;

cautions Barbato against being imposed upon by men representing themselves as being his (Petrarch’s) friends, reports that the Bolognese had died without returning to Milan, refers >The appointment was made on 2 July: Eubel, p. 281.

172 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN to the fact that the Bolognese was to have delivered the two - poems to Barbato; states that he has been hoping and is still hoping to settle in Rome, and that if he succeeds in doing so he will have some other writings for Barbato, whom he will either call to Rome or, possibly, visit in Sulmona; and sends

his greetings to Francesco Sanita.® |

| September

On Saturday 8 September, as we learn from the now lost marginal notation that is be quoted in full in the next paragraph, Petrarch sent to Parma a man, otherwise unknown, whose given name was Lelio and whose surname apparently be-

gan with the letters Gr, on an errand the nature of which we can only guess from the words, copied from Petrarch’s own notation, “pro militia Ja. Co. de lupi.” + On Wednesday the 12th Petrarch was at Pagazzano (where

he had been also on 12 September 1357: see above, p. 150). _ At some time in the morning he had before him the now lost

autograph sheet, containing part or all of the capitolo Al tempo, on which, on 12 September 1356 (see above, p. 125) he had corrected 1. 73 and had made a related marginal nota-

tion containing the words “Lune ante matutinum protho.”

Below that notation he now wrote: ,

anno sequenti fuit die martis id festum et eram pagaz. ubi sum & hodie mercurij 12. sept. mane dum hoc scribo & ista percurro fastidio potius quam studio nescio quamdiu hic ero. expecto Lelium er [the rest of this word is illegible in the copy] quem parme misi sabato preterito pro militia Ja. Co. de lupi.°

Later on the same day he made corrections on the sheet, containing most of the capitolo Era si pieno, that he had begun to

copy on 13 September 1357 (see above, p. 151). At the foot of the first page of this sheet he now wrote: * On these two letters see Foresti 1, pp. 348-353; and Wilkins 2, p. 245.

‘The word militia is probably used in the sense of “knighthood” or in some related sense. Cf. Du Cange, s.v. miles, at the end. ° Appel 1, pp. 142 and 186. The anno sequenti, as Appel proves, is 1357. The festum is evidently the feast of St. Protus.

1358: JULY - DECEMBER 173, correxi utcumque. 1358. mercurij. circa tertiam ut puto. 12.

septembris. pagazzani. |

And a little later he made this similar notation below the end

of the capitolo on the fourth page of the sheet: | correxi utcumque mercurij puto iam post horam. 3. septembris. 12. pagazzani.®

In September, evidently, and before the 19th, Petrarch received from Azzo da Correggio a letter that gave him great pleasure, since it brought the news that friendly relations be-

tween Azzy and the Visconti were to be resumed. In it, also, Azzo expressed his urgent desire that Petrarch should pay him a visit, and suggested that Petrarch secure permission to accept the invitation. On the 19th Petrarch replied, in Var. 28: he rejoices in the

reconciliation of Azzo and the Visconti; refers to his own previous efforts to bring about such a reconciliation; and says that on the return of his dominus, now absent from Milan, he

will seek permission to visit Azzo.” |

In September, also, and before the 21st, Petrarch learned that Zanobi da Strada had left Naples and had gone to Avignon to take a secretarial position in the papal chancery, and that he was now devoting himself to the study of the Dictamina of Berardo Caracciolo, a work containing hundreds of letters of a type that a man hoping for advancement in the papal chancery

might regard as helpful models. | Moved to intense indignation, Petrarch on the 21st wrote to Zanobi a letter, Sen. vi 6, in which he reproaches him bitterly for going to Avignon and for abandoning his literary occupations to waste his time in an occupation that was not fit for a man of letters. Much of the letter is filled with a scorn* Romano, pp. xlii—xliv.

7 At some time after the reconciliation Azzo came to live in Milan, but the date of his coming is quite uncertain. Since on 19 September _ 1358 Petrarch was planning to seek permission to visit Azzo elsewhere, , it is evident that Azzo had at that time no intention of moving 1mmediately to Milan. It is only from Var. 12, written on 10 June 1362, that we know that Azzo had established himself in Milan before that date.

174 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN ful denunciation of the Dictamina, which Petrarch had once had in his hands and had found very disgusting.*®

November , | On the morning of Sunday 4 November Petrarch took into his hands the now lost autograph sheet, containing part or all of the capitolo Al tempo, on which he had made a notation on 12 September. Looking at line 18, which then read Voito dogni uertute e pien dorgoglio, _ he decided to substitute “valore” for “uertute”; wrote “valore” above the “uertute’, recopied the line, as amended, below the

line as it had stood, and at the foot of the page made this notation: Istud posui potius quam vertutem, hodie 4 novembris dominica mane 1358 dum hunc versum rescriberem littere misse d. franc. Vergell. (?) de curtis hoc dicens.?

December | The winter of 1358-1359 was extremely severe. In Fam. xx

14, written in February 1359, Petrarch says: | The weather, wild beyond anything known hitherto, has made this year one long to be remembered. Never within the memory of man has such a mass of snow fallen between the Alps and the Apennines. Many houses have collapsed in the cities, and many trees have

been blown down in the country .. . Four years ago, at the end of 1354 and the beginning of the following year, it seemed that nothing could be colder, or, so to speak, more utterly wintry . . . but this present year has equalled that year in cold and surpassed

it in snowfall.

Matteo Villani (1x 4) says that in Bologna the snow reached a height of ten braccia (about thirty feet), and that some rich young men held a banquet in a cave dug in the snow. , Petrarch spent most of the winter in Padua and Venice—in

*On this letter see Rossi 2, pp. 211-227. | | | * Appel 1, p. 140. The meaning of the words “littere . ... dicens” and their relation to the first part of the note are not clear.

1358: JULY - DECEMBER 175 Padua “ex negotio” and in Venice “ex otio” (Fam. xx 6 and 14).

He had held a canonry in Padua since 1349; and on his departure for Provence in 1351 he had appointed a procurator to administer the income from the canonry in his absence, and to act for him in other matters as well. Now in Padua again, he approved formally, on 24 December—in a document signed in the palace of Francesco da Carrara, the lord of the city—the administration of the income of his canonry by two successive procurators, Aldrighetto di Olmo and Jacopo di Villarazzo.'°

While in Padua Petrarch saw and examined a manuscript of Homer that was for sale, but he judged it to be inferior to the manuscript that had been given to him by Nicholas Sygeros (see above, pp. 21 and 51), and did not buy it. While in Padua, also, Petrarch, through an unnamed intermediary, met Leontius

Pilatus, whom he supposed to be a Greek and a native of Byzantium." Leontius must have been even then an exceedingly unprepossessing and disagreeable person, as he obviously was later, according to both Petrarch and Boccaccio; but his presence in

northern Italy seemed to open an entrance into acquaintance with Homer, and Petrarch established relations with him on a friendly basis. While still in Padua, presumably, Petrarch received from Leontius a Latin prose translation of the beginning of the Iliad: “quoddam breve, ubi Homeri principrum Leo idem solutis latinis verbis olim mihi quasi totius operis gustum obtulit.” 7?

Addenda for 1358

Work on the third of “Pre-Chigi” or “Correggio” form of the Canzoniere, which had been begun by 1356 (see above, p. ** See Wilkins 2, p. 23, and the references there given.

* Var. 25, written in the summer of 1360, contains the clause “illo agente qui mihi Leonis ipsius amicitiam procuravit.” That Petrarch at first thought Leontius a Byzantine appears from the phrase “quem... ego bizantinum rebar” in Fam. xxiv 12, written in the autumn of 1360. * Quoted from Var. 25. The “olim” proves that the translation in question had been received long before Petrarch wrote that letter.

176 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 130), ended not later than 1358. This form contained 142 poems or thereabouts, identical with the corresponding poems in the final form, except that the ballata Donna mi vene spesso nella mente stood as No. 121 instead of the madrigal by which

it was eventually to be replaced.” |

Although Petrarch had made a fair copy of the Bucolicum carmen in 1357, he made many revisions in it in 1358.**

At some time in 1358 Petrarch, having before him the autograph copy of the Secretuwm that he had been revising, looked at the title he had given it—“De secreto conflictu curarum mearum liber primus incipit, facturus totidem libros de secreta pace animi si pax erit”—and wrote in the margin “Fac de secreta pace animi totidem si pax sit unguam 1358.” *° “See Wilkins 1, pp. 92-106 and 153~158.

“See Avena, pp. 16-17. , *’ See Sabbadini 1, pp. 26-27.

| | CHAPTER XIX

| 1359: January-June _ While on his way back from Padua (just where, we do not — know) Petrarch found in the hands of persons whom he would never have suspected of being interested in literary matters— “quos mirarl ista magis stupeam, quam si talpa speculum mercetur, alas bos, asellus citharam, redimiculum simia, fucum

corvus”—two letters addressed to him by Nelli that he had never received. Agreement was reached that he should take one of the letters, leaving the other to its possessors. [Fam. xx 6]. What these letters were (they are not in Cochin’s list) we do not know. February

He returned to Milan, worn out by the cold and the winds

that had beset his journey, on 9 February. He found many letters waiting for him, among them one from Laelius—whose messenger was waiting also—, one from Socrates, and in all

probability one from Nelli. The letters from Laelius and Socrates brought the good news of the restoration of their friendship, a restoration due directly to the letter, Fam. xx 13, that Petrarch had written to Laelius in the previous summer (see above, pp. 170-171); * and both men spoke in high praise of the

quality of Petrarch’s effective letter. |

Laelius wrote that as soon as he had received that letter he had hastened to Socrates, and that the two men had embraced with deep emotion. Laelius then went on to speak of the death of the apostolic secretary, Francesco Calvo (which must there-

177 ,

* Six years earlier Petrarch had been similarly successful in healing a breach between two other friends, Niccold Acciaiuoli and Giovanni Barrili: see Wilkins 2, pp. 125-127 and 129. ©

178 CHAPTER NINETEEN fore have occurred rather late in 1358), and to say that he hoped that Petrarch might be appointed 1n his place. Apparently

Laelius and some other Avignonese friends of Petrarch had made some efforts toward that end, and had encountered some

difficulty; and apparently Laelius was now asking Petrarch whether he might press his efforts. The letter from Socrates seems to have been a simple letter of gratitude and praise.

Nelli’s letter, xx, had been written on 17 November, soon

after Nelli had returned to Florence: apparently it had not reached Milan until after Petrarch had left for Padua. In this letter Nelli begs Petrarch to send him some reassuring words; and tells of talking with the Florentine Francesco who had

visited Petrarch in 1357 (see above, p. 156). Toward the end of the letter, after reporting the fact that this Francesco had said that Petrarch had spoken of him [Nelli] with high praise, Nelli continues with this tribute to Petrarch’s kindness: Nudus eram, tu me laudibus uestisti tuis; ignotus eram, tu me luminibus produxisti; humilis eram, tu me tam grandi extulisti preconio.

To the letter from Laelius Petrarch replied immediately, in Fam. xx 14. This letter was written under difficult conditions, due to the extreme cold: the pen was stiff, the ink freezing, the paper rough, and Petrarch’s fingers were numb. He wrote at - once, nevertheless, since Laelius’ messenger was very anxious to leave as soon as possible. In this letter Petrarch expresses his

great happiness in the news of the restoration of the broken friendship; and then protests vehemently, even violently, that he would not think of accepting an apostolic secretaryship—or even, under present conditions, a cardinalate—and requests that Laelius and his other friends in Avignon desist, once and for all, from seeking for Petrarch a position that he would certainly refuse even if it were offered to him.” The letter is notable also for *See Wilkins 2, pp. 63-80. Petrarch had refused offers of an apostolic secretaryship in 1347 and in 1351: see Wilkins 2, pp. 16-17. I now agree with Zacour, n. 16 on pp. 688-689, that no offer of an apostolic secretaryship was made to Petrarch in 1359.

1359: JANUARY - JUNE 179 its outspoken anti-Aristotelianism: “Quid enim, Leli, ais an te favente ausim contra Aristotilem mutire? sacrilegio proximum multis forte videbitur, cum forte potius illum pertinaciter in omnibus sequi velle sacrilegium sit.” *

Early—“ante lucem’—on the following day, 10 February, Petrarch answered the letter from Socrates in his brief but affectionate Fam. xx 15. To the letter from Nelli he did not actually reply at once; but it may well be that the news of Nelli’s return from Avignon to Florence led him soon to the writing of Sine nom. 19, the first part of which reads as if it were intended for Nelli: “Euasisti, erupisti, enatasti, euolasti. Bene est.” The letter continues with a reference which, though made without detail or mention of names, is clearly to the desire of Laelius that Petrarch should

return to Avignon as an apostolic secretary. Why should he return to Babylon, he asks:

Vt videam bonos mergi, malos erigi, reptare aquilas, asinos uolare, uulpes in curribus, coruos in turribus, columbos in sterquilinio, liberos lupos, agnos in uinculis, Cristum denique exulem, Anticristum dominum, Belzebub iudicem?

Apparently this letter was composed without any idea that it should actually be sent.*

March

On the 15th of a March that was in all probability the March of 1359 Petrarch wrote Var. 55 to Philippe de Cabassoles * As this letter stands in the collection of the Famuiliares it ends with a section in which Petrarch speaks of his pleasure on hearing that Zanobi

da Strada (for whose presence in Avignon see above, p. 173) had been promoted to an apostolic secretaryship. It is probable, however,

that this section was originally an independent letter, written after Petrarch had learned of Zanobi’s appointment, the date of which 1s not known: see Rossi 1, IV, 43. This presumably independent letter will be considered below, on p. 202. * This seems to have been true also of Sine nom. 17 and 18: see above, pp. 153-154 and 166-167. To Sine nom. 19 as first written there was added

at a later time a conclusion that will be considered below, on p. 202.

180 CHAPTER NINETEEN —the letter is dated “Mediolani, Idibus Martiis’—and at about

the same time, as appears from Var. 55, he wrote a letter of some length, now lost, to Cardinal Talleyrand. Var. 55 refers thus to an effort of friends to have Petrarch made Apostolic

Secretary: |

Mirum: solus ego ex omnibus mortalibus dives fiam, cum pauperum, qui frustra divites fieri volunt, passim tot millia videamus?

Occurrite omnes qui me diligitis huic monstro: non cogar unus, unde tam multi se exclusos dolent, et unde tam cupide omnes fugiunt non excludar. Divitias alii, ego paupertatem appeto.

Apparently Cardinal Talleyrand had been one of the friends thus active (as he had been in 1351 when Petrarch was being pressed to accept the apostolic secretaryship). Fixed though Petrarch was in his determination not to subject himself to the confining duties of such a secretaryship, it would seem that the idea that he might have a position in Provence stirred in his mind

his always latent desire to return there, in some minor position

that would leave him his freedom to study and to write. He had therefore written, or was just about to write, to Cardinal Talleyrand, apparently urging him to desist from any further efforts to burden him with heavy responsibilities and their attendant riches, and asking the Cardinal also to do what he could

to find for him such a position as he desired. | In Var. 55 he asks Philippe de Cabassoles to supplement his letter to the Cardinal by personal conversation, and to do whatever he (Philippe) can do to help in finding a suitable position

for him (Petrarch). The letter is written in a mood of restlessness—‘‘ita distrahor incertis affectibus”—and speaks of Petrarch’s

wish to be near Philippe— “vestramque praesentiam eximuis praecordiis concupisco”—but its main theme is Petrarch’s desire for a modest manner of life that would leave him his freedom: “Divitias alii, ego paupertatem appeto, sed non omnem _ profecto, non sordidam, non tristem, neque solicitam, sed tran-

quillam, sed pacificam, sed honestam.” | Probably Var. 55 and the lost letter to the Cardinal were

sent to Provence by the same messenger.

Fracassetti dates Var. 55 as of 1361, assuming that the at-

1359: JANUARY - JUNE | 181 tempt referred to in it to have Petrarch made Apostolic Secretary was the attempt (which resulted in an actual offer of the posi-

tion) made after the death of Zanobi da Strada, and that Sez. 1 4, addressed to Cardinal Talleyrand, is the letter referred to in Var. 55.° But the first passage quoted above indicates only that an effort had been made by Petrarch’s friends, not that an actual offer of the position had been made to Petrarch; it was in the summer of 1361 that Zanobi died; and Sen. 14 cannot have

been written on or about 15 March 1362 (though Petrarch was then temporarily in Milan) since it refers to Nelli’s willingness to accept the position left vacant by Zanobi’s death, and that willingness was made known to Petrarch by Nelli’s xxrx, which was written in Messina on 16 March 1362.° The only instance within the years 1353-1361 in which Petrarch’s friends had an occasion to attempt to have him made Apostolic Secretary was after the death of Francesco Calvo, late in 1358; and the first passage quoted above seems to reflect a recent experience. It 1s

indeed possible that Var. 55 was written in 1360 or 1361 (though on 15 March 1361 Petrarch had either not yet returned or had only just returned from his mission to Paris: see below, Chapter XXIII); but it is clearly probable that it was

written on 15 March 1359.7 |

On 16 March Petrarch had the joy of welcoming Boccaccio for a visit (this was Boccaccio’s second visit to Petrarch, with whom he had spent some time in Padua in the early spring of 1351): he remained until some days before 11 April. On the afternoon of Saturday, the 16th of March, Petrarch again planted laurel trees; and Boccaccio, just arrived, was with him as he did so. The long entry made thereafter in the series of Petrarch’s planting records (see above, pp. 39 and 137-138) reads in part as follows: Anno 1359, sabato hora quasi nona, Martii die xvj°, retentare °=See Fracassetti 2, v, 444; and Lettere senili di Francesco Petrarca, trans. and ed. by Fracassetti, 1 (Florence, 1869), 31. °See Cochin 1, pp. 128-133, and 2, pp. 31-33 and 35. For previous discussions of Var. 55 see Wilkins 2, p. 71, and Zacour,

pp. 692-693.

182 CHAPTER NINETEEN huiusce rei fortunam libuit. Itaque et lauros Cumo transmissas per Tadeum nostrum profundis itidem scrobibus seuimus in orto Sancte

Valerie Mediolani, luna decrescente; et fuerunt due tenere, tres duriores . . . Inter cetera multum prodesse deberet ad profectum sacrarum arbuscularum, quod insignis uir d. Io. Boccaccii de Certaldo, ipsis amicissimus et mihi, casu in has horas tunc aduectus,

sationi interfuit.® ,

We know of four matters that Petrarch and Boccaccio discussed in the course of Boccaccio’s visit: Petrarch’s continued residence in Milan, his unwillingness to release the Africa, and the poetic merits of Dante, and the presence of Leontius Pilatus

inIn northern Italy. | Var. 25, written to Boccaccio in the following year, Petrarch, after some general considerations bearing on a place of residence, continues:

I recall that we talked of this matter at length last year, when we were together in this city and in this house; and that after a most careful examination of all the circumstances, and taking into account the present state of Italy and of Europe, we finally agreed not only that Milan was more appropriate for me and my interests than any other place, but also that no place other than Milan could be found anywhere in which it would be convenient for me to live,

with the single exception of Padua... In his Ep. x1, a letter about the Africa written to Barbato da Sulmona in 1362, Boccaccio says (referring to his earlier visit to Petrarch in Padua as well as to his more recent visit in Milan): Some years ago, while I was staying with that divine man in Milan and in Padua, I did everything I could, making use of these

reasons .. . to soften and move his sacred heart and to win it to our desire, so that Scipio, adorned with wondrous splendors—as I myself beheld—should be released from his confinement and brought forth to public view; but it was all in vain, since he adduced many arguments to the contrary.®

In a letter written after his return to Florence Boccaccio

* Nolhac, u, 267. The identity of this Taddeo is not known. The tiny church of St. Valeria stood just a little to the east of Sant’ Ambrogio: see Giulini, Joc. cit. in n. 2 on p. 16.

” Boccaccio-Masseéra, p. 144.

1359: JANUARY - JUNE 183 excused himself to Petrarch for having said so much, while in Milan, in praise of Dante. Petrarch’s reply, Fam. xx 15 (which

will be considered in the following chapter) contains this sentence:

_Primum ergo te michi excusas, idque non otiose, quod in conterranei nostri—popularis quidem quod ad stilum attinet, quod ad rem hauddubie nobilis poete—laudibus multus fuisse videare; atque ita te purgas quasi ego vel illius vel cuiusquam laudes mee laudis

detrimentum putem.

One gathers that Boccaccio had gained the impression, in Milan, that Petrarch did not entirely welcome his praise of Dante.

The two friends certainly talked also of Leontius Pilatus and of Homer. Petrarch must have told Boccaccio of his meeting with Leontius in Padua, and must have shown him Leontius’ translation of the beginning of the Iliad. He must have told Boccaccio, also, of the manuscript of Homer that was for sale in Padua, and must have left with Boccaccio the

impression that he (Petrarch) might still buy it [Var. 25]. Doubtless they looked together at Petrarch’s own manuscript of Homer. It was doubtless in the course of their conversa-

tions that they conceived the plan that Leontius should be called to Florence to teach in the university and to translate both the Iliad and the Odyssey. Although Petrarch had in a sense finished his Bucolicum

carmen in 1357 (see above, p. 157) he still felt the need of retouching it; and while Boccaccio was with him he had Boccaccio read parts of it to him, thinking that by hearing it so read he might catch imperfections that he had previously failed

to notice. He implies that he found Boccaccio a “promptum et dulcem .. . lectorem” [Fam. xxu 2]. In the course of his visit Boccaccio made a copy of the Bucolicum carmen for himself; also, almost certainly, a copy of the Itimerarium; and probably copies of some of Petrarch’s recent letters.*° -* For this copying, and for Boccaccio’s visit in general, see Billanovich 1, pp. 211-240.

184 CHAPTER NINETEEN Early in 1359 the Visconti made extensive preparations for a final effort to capture Pavia; and on 25 March Petrarch, presumably at the request of the Visconti, wrote to Jacopo Bussolari,

the monk who by the power of his eloquence had made himself master of Pavia, urging him to cease a resistance that could

lead only to catastrophe. Petrarch was evidently acquainted with Bussolari: even now he addresses him as a friend and as a brother in Christ; and the opening words of the letter state that Petrarch has previously made frequent efforts to persuade Bussolari to take the path of peace. The long and deservedly

famous letter, Fam. xix 18, is true to the tenor of many of Petrarch’s other writings in its proclamation of the cause of peace, so dear to Augustine, to David, to Jeremiah, to Paul, and

to Christ; and it is at the same time comparable to many of Petrarch’s other writings in the stinging satire of its repeated and skilfully varied attacks on Jacopo’s abandonment of his monastic ideals, as in this sentence: Mirum prorsus nec unquam alias visum spectaculum, inter galeas

clipeosque et micantes gladios et tela trementia, venenoso afflatu animos inficiens et verbis incendens bellum, nigra succinctus veste

fraterculus! 11 |

On one of the last days of March or the first days of April, as the time of Boccaccio’s departure drew near, Petrarch at last wrote to Nelli, answering his xx by Fam. xx 6. This letter is devoted mainly to explanation of the apparent cessation of his correspondence; for which, he says, there were four reasons:

his absorption in study and writing; his uncertainty as to Nelli’s whereabouts—that is, whether he was still in Avignon or had returned to Florence; the difficulty of finding reliable

messengers; and the fact that the letters that he had actually written (Sime nom. 17 and 18) were of such a nature that it would not be well for them, by any chance, to come to the knowledge of his enemies in Avignon. He refers to the frequent interception of letters, and to the two letters from Nelli “The latest and best discussions of this letter are that of Rossi 2, pp. 49, and that of Ugo Mariani in his I] Petrarca e gli agostiniani (Rome, 1946), pp. 62-64.

1359: JANUARY - JUNE 185 that he had found in unauthorized hands while returning from Padua; and at the end he mentions the welcome presence of Boccaccio: “preter te unum nichil defuit.” Evidently the letter was to be entrusted to Boccaccio to be given to Nelli. When the time came for Boccaccio to leave, the weather was very bad, and Petrarch, concerned for his friend’s health, did everything he could to detain him, pointing out to him the stormy sky, the black clouds, and the imminence of rain [Fam __

xx 7]. Boccaccio started out nevertheless, taking with him his treasured copies of the Bucolicum carmen and other writings of Petrarch, and the letter to Nelli that Petrarch had just written. But Petrarch, feeling that the Bucolicum carmen still needed retouching, had admonished him not to hasten to make

copies of the copy that he was taking with him, and in particular—pending the receipt of corrections—not to give a copy to Nelli [ Fam. xxu 2].

| April - Within a few days after Boccaccio’s departure Petrarch was relieved to receive a letter from him, written en route after he had crossed the Po and other swollen rivers. On 9 April, having in his hands the autograph sheet that is now f. 5 in V.L. 3196 and bears on its first page drafts of four _ sonnets, of which the first two are Ponmi ove ’] sole (No. 145) and O d’ardente vertute (No. 146), Petrarch wrote at the night of the first sonnet the notation “habet dominus Bernardus hos

duos. 9. Aprilis 1359,” and above the second the notation

‘“‘habet Lelius.” ?? |

Early in April, doubtless, Petrarch received Nelli’s xx1 writ-

ten on 17 March—a very brief letter, in which Nelli asks Petrarch specifically whether he has received two letters of his, and in particular whether he has received the letter beginning “Amic-orum hystoria”—Nelli’s xx. Nelli reports also that he has found 2 Appel 1, pp. 49 and 51, and Romano, p. xxxvui. On the year-date see the reference given in Wilkins 1, p. 158, n. 3.

186 CHAPTER NINETEEN |

silence. | |

in the hands of a friend a letter (now lost) that had been written to him long since, in which Petrarch had complained of Nelli’s

To Nelli’s xxi Petrarch replied promptly, on 11 April, with his Fam. xx 7. Nelli’s question as to whether Petrarch had received his letters will already have been answered, Petrarch says, by the letter that Boccaccio will have delivered to him, and

by Boccaccio’s own oral report. He refers to the letter that Boccaccio had written him ez route, and says that he will not be

entirely relieved until he hears of Boccaccio’s safe arrival in Florence. He states that he is now engaged in the making of a collection of his letters, with the help “curusdam ingeniosi hominis et amici,” ** and that he finds Nelli’s name recurring more

frequently than any other. |

Before the 13th of April Petrarch had received a strange and distressing letter from Agapito di Pietro Colonna, a junior mem-

ber of the great family, who was at this time the discontented archdeacon of the cathedral of Bologna. In Agapito’s youth Petrarch had had some share in his education, and Agapito’s letter began with an expression of gratitude for what Petrarch had then done for him. After that pleasant opening, however, | the letter went on with a series of extraordinary charges: first, that Petrarch, now wealthy, highly stationed, and glorying in the elegance of a fine mansion, neglects and scorns Agapito, to whom fortune has been hostile; second (this is an exact quotation from Agapito’s letter), “damnati iniuste super tunicam innocentem sortes mittere”; and third, that Petrarch had written a description of a tree of vanities on which he had inscribed Agapito’s name.

To this letter Petrarch replied, on 13 April, with Fam. xx 8, a remarkably patient letter. He cannot imagine what Agapito means by his second charge; and he has never written a description of a tree of vanities (in this connection he says that he had once begun a treatise on the vanities of life, but had not gone on #8 ‘Who this friend was is not known. He may or may not have been identical with the friend who read to Petrarch parts of the Bucolicum

carmen: see below, p. 187. | ,

| 1359: JANUARY - JUNE | 187 with it, and that Agapito’s name did not appear in what he had written). Dealing then at length with Agapito’s first charge, he declares that while his income is larger than it had been formerly

his expenses have increased in the same measure, so that he is accumulating nothing; that he lives contentedly in mediocrity; and that the report of his wealth is a slander spread by envious tongues. He then rejects with real resentment the idea that any

superiority in wealth or the inferiority of any friend in that respect could ever be for him a cause for scorn. And he goes on to say that far from dwelling in a luxurious mansion he is living as the guest of St. Ambrose in a corner of the city, that he often hides himself in the country, and that he does not even know what is going on in the town.

During Boccaccio’s visit Petrarch had had Boccaccio read to him parts of the Bucolicum carmen, thinking that he might thus catch previously unnoticed imperfections. This practice having proved advantageous, he continued it, after Boccaccio had left, with the help of another reader, whom in a later letter to Boccaccio (Fam. xx 2) he calls “amicum illum nostrum,”

and characterizes in these passages: |

illo utique viro bono priscique moris et lectore quidem tardo sed non segni amico... Profecto enim sicut quod legitur ut delectet, lepidus expeditus intelligens lector facit, sic ut appareat et vitia detegat, durus hesitans

hebesque prestabit .. . Vidi legente illo quod te legente non videram, et nunc maxime didici, ubi voluptas operum queritur, promptum et dulcem adhibere

lectorem; ubi correctio, tardum atque asperum."* This friend’s reading enabled Petrarch to note cases of words | Te has been thought that this reader was Moggio dei Moggi; but there is no evidence that Moggio’s patron Azzo de Correggio was living

in Milan at this time (see above, p. 173); and certain elements of the passages just quoted—especially the implications that the reader was “durus, hesitans, hebesque” rather than “lepidus expeditus intelligens” and “tardum atque asperum” rather than “promptum et dulcem” do not seem to fit Moggio, the experienced preceptor of the sons of Azzo.

188 CHAPTER NINETEEN repeated too soon, and some other matters that called for a retouching.

On 16 March Petrarch had planted five laurel trees in the garden of St. Valeria. About the middle of April he made this

entry in the series of his planting records: | Jam nunc circa medium aprilem due maiores crescunt; alie uero

| May |

non letos successus spondent. Credo firmiter terram hanc huic

arbori inimicam.?® |

Perhaps just before the end of April, perhaps early in May, Petrarch received a long letter written by Boccaccio after his arrival in Florence.*® From Petrarch’s reply, Fam. xxi 15, we know that in this letter Boccaccio expressed his appreciation for _ Petrarch’s concern for his (Boccaccio’s) health; that he spoke

of many things that did not seem to Petrarch to require response; and that he excused himself, at some length, for having said so much, during his recent visit, in praise of Dante. In the course of his excuse he said that his praise of Dante really implied praise of Petrarch (who writes, in his reply, “quicquid de illo predicas, totum si pressius inspiciam, in meam gloriam verti _ ais’: Boccaccio’s idea was presumably that, since his esteem for Petrarch was greater than his esteem for Dante, the more highly

he praised Dante, the higher, in reality, was his praise of Petrarch), and spoke of the fact that Dante had been an inspiration to him in his youth (Petrarch writes: “quod ille tibi adolescentulo primus studiorum dux et prima fax fuerit”). From Boccaccio’s excuse Petrarch gained the impression that Boccaccio thought that he (Petrarch) was jealous of the fame of Dante: “Ergo ego clarorum hominum laudibus non delecter, imo et glorier? Crede michi; nichil a me longius, nulla michi pestis ignotior invidia est.” With his letter, apparently, Boc** 'Nolhac, u, 267.

** This letter was evidently written and sent before Nelli’s xxi, written on 17 May, which contains the clause “Boccaccium .. . Apennine iuga saluum transiliisse cognoueris.”

1359: JANUARY - JUNE 189 caccio sent a copy of a revised form of his epistola metrica on Dante, addressed to Petrarch and beginning “‘Ytalie iam certus honos,” the original form of which he had sent to Petrarch some years earlier. (Petrarch writes: “carmen illud tuum laudatorium amplector.”’) **

Before the end of May, presumably, Petrarch received Nelli’s xxi, a slight letter, written on the 17th, in answer to Petrarch’s Fam. xx 7. In the course of this letter Nelli remarks that Petrarch will already have heard of Boccaccio’s safe arrival in Florence.

June |

Perhaps in June, though perhaps before the end of May and perhaps after the first of July, Petrarch wrote to Boccaccio his long and famous Fam. xxi 15, already twice referred to in the

present chapter. This letter is devoted almost entirely to a serious effort to set forth in some detail his attitude toward Dante. He denies vehemently that he is jealous of Dante’s fame; praises him highly (though not without certain qualifications),

especially because of his persistence in literary pursuits even under the hard conditions of his exile; praises Boccaccio for praising him; assigns to him preéminence in poetry in Italian— “ut facile sibi vulgaris eloquentie palmam dem”—; and says that when he himself in his youth was writing in Italian he preferred

not to own a copy of the Commedia, but that his only reason for such preference was his desire to avoid imitation, and that he is now glad to have a copy. This letter has been discussed repeatedly, and often ably and at length: the latest discussion, and the most penetrating one known to me, is that of Professor Bernardo, from whose summary I quote: The above considerations show, then, that it is highly likely

that Petrarch’s unenthusiastic attitude toward Dante resulted from something beyond mere dislike of the vernacular or from envy. This was a deeply felt view of poetry that he did not find reflected in the Comedy—a view based on an intense awareness of the need for balancing Classical and Christian literary ideals... ** See Boccaccio-Masséra, pp. 96-97 and 294-296.

190 CHAPTER NINETEEN It remains clear nonetheless that Petrarch’s literary prejudices against Dante indicate a serious shortcoming in his abilities as a literary critic, for, as a result of his humanistic predilections, he failed to recognize Dante’s amazing feat of having conceived a subject matter which was as humanistic as it was theological and of having achieved a poetic form which, at one and the same time, was an earthen vessel as well as a golden platter.**

Petrarch’s letter contains two passages of personal reminiscence: it refers at one point to the fact that Petrarch in his boyhood had once seen Dante, who had been a close friend of his father; and it closes with a passage in which Petrarch speaks gratefully and in some detail of the hospitality extended to him by Boccaccio when Petrarch, in 1350, passed through Florence

onPetrarch hishad way to Rome. , | enemies as well as friends in Avignon, and in _

his absence his enemies were capable of venting their venom on

his less powerful friends. This had happened recently in the case of Socrates, who had so reported, saying that he might be forced to leave Avignon, in a letter that Petrarch received presumably soon after the middle of June. Greatly distressed, Petrarch wrote a letter (now lost) to one of his powerful friends in Avignon, probably Cardinal Elie de Talleyrand, asking him to intervene on behalf of Socrates; and on 23 June he wrote Fam. xxi 9 to Socrates. In this long letter he voices his own distress; urges Socrates, in what is in effect a little treatise on the endurance of ill fortune, to keep up his courage; says that he has written to his powerful friend, and that he himself may come to Avignon—“Interim forte ipse adero”—hoping to put a stop to the venomous attacks; and bids Socrates, if he feels that he must flee from the tempest, to come to live with him in Milan. Both letters were evidently entrusted to a chattering messenger who 1s probably to be identified with ‘Bolanus.” ?°

About the middle of June, or a little later, Petrarch received ** A. S. Bernardo, “Petrarch’s Attitude Toward Dante,” in PMLA, Lxx (1955), 488—517.

*’ See Foresti, 1, pp. 288-291, and Zacour, pp. 691-692. ,

, 1359: JANUARY - JUNE 191 Nelli’s xxu, written on the 8th, a brief letter of recommendation for an unnamed friend.

As spring was passing into summer Petrarch was planning to leave the city at the beginning of July for Pagazzano, where he hoped to finish quickly his revision of the Bucolicum carmen; but there was so much danger of hostile incursion that he decided

not to go. Fam. xxu 2, written early in October, contains this passage, in which the initial reference is to the revision of the Bucolicum carmen: acturum me quod in rem esset paucis horis ex commodo, cum rus commigrassem, quo parabam Kalendis Quintilibus proficisci; sed fefellit opinio. Ligurie enim crebri nimis et iam anniversarii motus me ruris amantissimum et osorem urbium tenuerunt.

That the particular place in the country that he had in mind was Pagazzano rather than Garegnano is indicated by the fact that Garegnano was so close to the western walls of Mulan as to be in little danger from hostile incursion, whereas Pagazzano, on the east bank of the Adda, was exposed to such incur‘sion, and by the fact that it was to Pagazzano that he actually went as soon as he dared to go: the passage just quoted is fol-

lowed by the words “‘novissime, cum periculo metus maior videretur. ... Ardue amnis ad ripam veni.”

CHAPTER XX

1359: July-December

| August

In August, it would appear, Bolanus returned from Avignon bringing letters from Cardinal Talleyrand and from Socrates,

and chattering endlessly about everything in general, and in particular about the generosity of Socrates, who had rewarded him richly. Petrarch then wrote to Socrates the brief and amusing Var. 20, telling of the arrival of Bolanus, who is here called

“illum Ciceronis hostem.” 4 |

In the summer of 1357 Petrarch had banished his son Giovanni to Avignon; and thereafter he had received two letters from Nelli speaking well of Giovanni (see above, pp. 152 and

164-165). There are indications, also, that Guido Sette, Laelius, and Socrates had at least a friendly interest in the young

man (see above, p. 146, and below, pp. 203-204). In the summer of 1359, probably in August, Petrarch received from his son a letter asking for permission to return; and on the 30th Petrarch wrote to him the long, reproachful and pleading Fam. xxi1 7. He rehearses the wrong attitudes and

the wrongdoings that had at last broken down his own affectionate patience and had led to the banishment; blames himself for having been too lenient; and begs Giovanni to repent and to mend his ways, for his soul’s sake. But as the letter approaches its end he writes “misericordia hodie iram vicit”; and while his only hopes are based on Giovanni’s youth and God’s mercy he tells Giovanni that he may return when he is sure that, considering himself in the light of this letter, he is fit to return: *For references see the last note in the previous chapter. 192

1359: JULY - DECEMBER 193 Dum te sanum et qualem esse iubeo, non tam opinaberis quam scies, inque hac pagina quasi in speculo detersam animi tui faciem videbis, tum demum, nec volente me prius, vultum meum, quem serenum tibi ac facilem contempsisti, non ut soles sed ut tibi expedit,

ut me decet, te visurum spera.

| , September In the course of the summer Petrarch had suffered a series of minor injuries that led by September to a serious result. Many

years before he had made for himself a copy of the letters of Cicero. Since the resulting volume was very large—he calls it “ingens’—and since he wanted to have it always at hand, he kept it standing on the floor just by the door of his library—“in _bibliothece ostio, posti innixum.” One day, as he entered the room

absentmindedly, the edge of his gown caught the volume, and it fell over in such a way as to bruise his left leg slightly, just above the ankle. He replaced the volume, with a jocular “Quid rei est, mi Cicero, cur me feris?” But the same thing happened

on the following day, and at least twice thereafter. He then put the volume in a safer place, but the harm to his leg was done:

the skin was broken, and an infection had set in. At first he paid no attention to it, bathing and walking and riding as usual. The leg gradually swelled, however; the flesh was badly discolored; the bruised place developed a poisonous tumor; and the pain became so severe that he could not sleep. Then at last he called in doctors, who visited him repeatedly: their treatment

was very painful, and they told him that the injury to his leg might be permanent. He did not believe them; but he submitted to frequent fomentations, refrained from eating his usual foods, went onto a soft diet, and kept quiet—much to his disgust. But by the middle of October he was able to report (in Fam. xxi 10, in which he tells the whole story) that he was recovering. Late in September, presumably, Petrarch received Nelli’s XXIV, written on an 11 September which was in all probability

that of 1359. Nelli, like Petrarch, is busy with many cares; he has heard a rumor that Petrarch has recently been briefly in Avignon, and hopes that he has returned safe in body and in

194 CHAPTER TWENTY mind; and he reports that the Bishop of Florence, who considers himself a friend of Petrarch, has made him (Nelli) his “comitem ... domesticum,” is treating him honorably, and is making use of his counsel. Toward the end of the letter he makes this reference to Petrarch’s Bucolicum carmen: ‘Medio cursu resisto, nec

quale sit buccolicum Petrarce carmen, nunc dicturus sum, in diem differens, uerum michi quale tota mea complectitur anima.”

Boccaccio, Nelli says, is well. This letter 1s to be taken to Petrarch by a man to whom Nelli refers as “Reuerendus hic lator Nerius,” who was pressing Nelli to give him the letter.* From Nelli’s reference to the Bucolucum carmen one gathers that Boccaccio had allowed Nelli to make a copy of it: Petrarch, to be sure, had requested Boccaccio not to give a copy to Nelli

pending the receipt of corrections; but several months had passed, no corrections had been received, and Boccaccio apparently felt that he was no longer bound by Petrarch’s request.*

October

About the first of October, danger from hostile incursion having passed for the time being, Petrarch left the city for Pagaz-

zano—novissime, cum periculo metus maior videretur, circa Kalendas Octobris, sero quidem sed aliquando moram trepidam vincente fidutia, Ardue amnis ad ripam veni”—and there, on or

about 8 October, he wrote to Boccaccio the long Fam. xxu 2, from which the data reported in this paragraph are derived. Rain and the unseasonable cold weather gave him quiet days, and he went on, as he had planned to do, with the revision of the The bishop to whom Nelli refers was Philippus de Antella, who had held the bishopric of Florence since 1357: see Eubel, p. 250. The Nerius who was to take the letter to Petrarch was probably not Neri Morando, who could hardly have been called “Reverendus.” *See Billanovich 1, p. 214. On the date of this letter see Cochin 1, pp. 123-125, and 2, pp. 28-30. Cochin shows clearly that it must be of either 1359 or 1360, and his reasons for thinking it to be rather of 1359 than of 1360 seem to me sound. One might add the consideration, referred to by Cochin in another connection (Cochin 1, p. 127 n., and 2, p. 31 n.), that the chronological order of the letters in the latter part of Nelli’s epistolarium tends to be more and more exact.

, 1359: JULY - DECEMBER 195 Bucolicum carmen. He was profiting now from the slow read-

ing of the man who had read to him after Boccaccio left (see above, p. 187): perhaps he had simply made appropriate _ notes while still in the city, perhaps he had brought his reader with him to Pagazzano. Two of the corrections that he made at this time are known to us. His Tenth Eclogue contained (in line 288) the words “Solio sublimis acerno”; he now realized that these words echoed too closely the “solioque invitat acerno”

of the Aeneid, VII 178; and he therefore replaced them by the words “e sede verendus acerna.” ‘The same Eclogue contained (in line 128) the words “Quid enim non carmina possunt?”; he now heard in them too close an echo of the Metamorphoses, VII 167; and he therefore replaced them by the words “quid enim vim carminis equet?” In Fam. xxu 2 Petrarch speaks also of the sorrow he had felt when Boccaccio left; reminds Boccaccio that when giving him

a copy of the Bucolicum carmen he had admonished him not to be in any hurry to make an additional copy, and not to give a copy to Nelli; says at some length that he has little difficulty in recalling the authorship of the few excerpts he has made from authors whom he has read only once and hastily, such as Ennius,

Plautus, Martianus Capella, and Apuleius, but that he has so assimilated what he has read repeatedly in Virgil, Horace, Boethius, and Cicero that he is not always sure whether a particular phrase is his own or is from one of those men; and continues with a general discussion of the literary use of material derived from earlier authors, quoting appropriate statements from Juvenal, Horace, Lucretius, and Virgil. With his letter, also, Petrarch enclosed a schedule of all the changes he wanted Boccaccio to make in his copy of the Bucolicum carmen.

On 8 October Petrarch gave three sonnets—In qual parte, Quanta invidia, and Amor che meco (Nos. 159, 300, and 303)— |

to an unidentified Jacopo of Ferrara to take to a certain Thomasio. At the top of the page that is now f. Sv in V.L. 3196

he wrote, above In qual parte, “hoc dedi Jacobo ferrariensi portandum Thomasio. 1359. Octobris. 8”; and on the page

196 CHAPTER TWENTY that is now f. 3v in V.L. 3196, at the right of Quanta invidia (which is followed by Amor che meco) he made this notation: hos duos misi tomasio simul cum illo. In qual parte del cielo etc. Rescripto supra. et dominus Bernardus habet hos. 2. tantum.*

Mention has been made already (see above, pp. 82-83 and 105-106) of Petrarch’s humble admirer, the Bergamask goldsmith Enrico Capra. By the end of 1354, presumably, Capra had achieved his desire to obtain the friendship of Petrarch; and in the succeeding years that friendship had had an extraordinary effect on the humbler friend. His attitude toward Petrarch had become that of a worshipper: he had filled his house with mementos and pictures of Petrarch, and he cherished

copies of many of Petrarch’s writings. Moreover, despite his already advanced age he had given up his goldsmithery and was devoting himself to study, frequenting the gimnasium of Berg-

amo. He had repeatedly begged Petrarch to honor him with a visit; and now, Bergamo being only some ten miles to the north

of Pagazzano, Petrarch agreed to come. On the afternoon of 11 October, accordingly, he set out, escorted by Capra, and accompanied by certain gentlemen who came along out of. curiosity. At the gate of the city they were received by a large throng, including the governor of the province, city officials, and many friends. Petrarch was invited to stay in the city palace or in a noble home, and Capra was very much afraid that he would accept one of these invitations; but he, keeping faith, dismounted at the door of Capra’s house. There great preparations had been made. The dinner was fit for a king; the room in which Petrarch was to sleep was richly decorated; the richly covered bed, Capra swore, had never been slept in, and would never be slept in by anyone else; and books appropriate for a lover of letters were in abundance. Petrarch left Bergamo on the following afternoon, accompanied for a con“Romano, pp. xxxviii-xxxix. On the date see the reference given in Wilkins 1, p. 158, n. 4. This Thomasio was probably Tommaso Bombasi

there given. , ;

of Ferrara, on whom see Mommsen 1, pp. 28-29, and the references

1359: JULY - DECEMBER 197. siderable distance by the governor and many others, and all the way by Capra. He reached Pagazzano as night was coming on. Just after midnight on the night of 14-15 October, Petrarch, still at Pagazzano, having heard recently that Neri Morando had been ill but had now recovered, sat down to write to him; and

between midnight and dawn wrote his two letters, the first, Fam. xxt 10, concerned mainly with the story of his own injury and at least partial recovery, and the second, Fam. xxi 11, with the story of his friendship with Capra and his visit to Bergamo. In the first letter he urges Neri to take better care of himself, and in particular to give up his strenuous official career and devote himself to studious pursuits; and before coming to the story of the injury inflicted by his volume of Cicero he maintains at some length that it is possible at the same time

to be a good Ciceronian and a good Christian. The first letter is dated “Idibus Octobris, nocte media,” and the second, “Scripta

rurali calamo, Idibus Octobris, ante lucem.” A sentence in the first letter shows that Neri had at some time or times been in

its usual place. | |

Petrarch’s house and had seen the volume of Cicero standing in

By October the situation in Pavia had become desperate. The city was now threatened with starvation; and Bussolari, fanatically stubborn to the end, ordered the expulsion of all the needy who could contribute nothing to the defence—“senes, pueros ac mulieres ac debiles” and “omnes pauperes Jesu Christi,”

according to the letter that is now to be mentioned; and he ordered also that all dogs in the city should be killed. This second order, in particular, roused the wrath of Bernabo Visconti, who was a great hunter and very fond of dogs: and at his request Petrarch wrote to Bussolari a scathing letter, Misc. 7, in which he first condemns Bussolari for the wicked inhumanity of his expulsion, saying that the expulsion of Christ’s poor—by

one who had taken upon himself the vow of poverty—was in reality the expulsion of Christ. "Then, concentrating on the order

for the killing of the dogs—although the dog, as he says, is an

“obsequiosum fidumque animal”—he ends thus: _

198 CHAPTER TWENTY Not as an enemy but as a man, we ask you that before you kill all your dogs you send some of them to us, whom they will serve well. This they would themselves ask, if they could speak; and if

die they must, they would rather die by the teeth of boars than by starvation or the sword. The letter 1s signed: Franciscus Petrarcha pro domino Bernaboue Vicecomite Med-

iolani, etc. domino generali.° ,

For some time now Petrarch had been having serious trouble

with his servants, who had been taking advantage of his carelessness about his belongings to steal shamelessly, leaving him little but his body and his books. Finally, on one occasion— perhaps after his return from Pagazzano—they quarreled in his

presence over their spoils, menacing each other with their knives, despite his threats and his entreaties. This was too much; and he discharged them forthwith. This done, he found himself obliged to change his residence, since the house by Sant’Ambrogio was remote, and was so large that without protection it

would have been dangerously lonely [Fam. xx 12]. He decided, accordingly, to move to a small house close to and presumably belonging to the Benedictine monastery of San Simpliciano, just outside the city wall, to the northwest, near the Como gate.° He chose this location because his love of freedom,

solitude, and quiet impelled him to get away from the city | Fam. xx1 14].

November On 3 November Petrarch moved to the house close to San Simpliciano. The house itself was to his liking because it had a door through which he could slip out unnoticed if unwanted visitors should come to see him. Directly in front of the house ° This letter is printed by Novati on pp. 59-61 and translated and discussed on pp. 35-39; and it is discussed by Rossi 2, pp. 9-11.

*See Grulini, Part IX, the map facing p. 158. The church of San Simpliciano, supposed to have been founded by St. Ambrose, but repeatedly rebuilt (see the Storia di Milano, 1 [1953], 612-613 and 1v [1954], 512-514), still stands, a little to the northwest of the Brera.

1359: JULY - DECEMBER 199 there stretched for a mile or more a delightful solitary region, through which there ran an unfrequented grassy path that led through sun and shade in such a way that if he were not still within sight and sound of the city he would think himself in the midst of a forest. Along this path he often walked, alone or with a single companion [Fam. xxi 14]. _ Petrarch’s first thought, after getting into his new home, was to learn more of St. Simplicianus. He went therefore to the monks, who gave him a recent opusculum, which, however, though based on references in the Confessions of St. Augustine, was so careless, confused, and badly written that he laid it aside

in disgust. But he already knew much about his “new host” from the Confessions themselves—in which St. Augustine calls St. Simplicianus his “father” [Fam. xxi 14].

In his new home, at midnight on 13 November, Petrarch wrote to Nelli the long Fam. xx1 12, which is in substance a disquisition on the fleeting of time and on the means of making the best use of time. Much that is said in this letter is wise and good: the opening paragraph on the swift passage of time is eloquent, and reminds one of the Trzumpbhus eternitatis. But the

main interest of the letter lies in its accounts of the ways in which Petrarch himself controlled and spent his time. He allows six hours for sleep and two for inevitable occupations: the other sixteen he calls his own. He recognizes the necessity of recreation, but whether he counts time spent in recreation among the two or among the sixteen hours 1s not made clear. In particular he grudges time spent in sleep, from which his thoughts often wake him (especially, it would seem, toward morning), sometimes to the discomfort of the servant who, presumably because of Petrarch’s fear of syncope,’ slept in the same room: _ It often happens that while my eyes are still closed but my mind is awake, I start up, and, not perceiving the light that regularly burns in my room all night, I stretch out my hand to wake my servant. Sometimes I even put out the light, so that he may not think that he has been unduly roused. "See the passage from the original form of Vergerio’s Vita quoted in Wilkins 1, p. 281.

200 CHAPTER TWENTY He spends all possible time in study and composition. Like Augustus, while he is being shaved or having his hair cut he reads or listens to readers or dictates to scribes. When he is in the country and has no guests pen and paper are always beside his bed, and sometimes, waking, he puts out the light and jots down in the darkness some idea that he fears may escape him

if he does not make a note of it at once—and when daylight comes he often finds it hard to read what he had written. When he is out on horseback he often returns with a bit of verse finished: “sepe . . . equo sedens viam simul carmenque com-_ plevi.” His enthusiasm for his studies is now greater than ever: Through them I am set free from grave cares, I forget the miseries of these times, I am well content and glad to be alive, and

I am hardly aware of ordinary human troubles. Let whoso will, then, delight in riches and pleasures and honors: my studies are my riches, my honors, and my pleasures—“Itaque divitiis alii, alii honoribus aut voluptatibus inhient,; ego in hac studiorum cura divitias meas, in hac honores voluptatesque reposui.”

On 13 November Pavia at last surrendered. The news must have reached Milan on that day or the next. At one point in the campaign against Pavia, when all prepara-

tions for an assault had been made, the astrologers, and in par-

ticular the astrologer who had broken into Petrarch’s commemorative oration for the Archbishop Giovanni Visconti, announced that the assault must be postponed until the arrival of “the fatal hour.” When that hour came the order for the assault was about to be given: but just then—after a drought of many months—the heavens opened, and the rain continued for so many days that the encampment of the besiegers was flooded, and early assault was impossible. Petrarch, afterward, asked his astrologer-friend how it happened that he had not foreseen the disastrous rain. He replied that it was very difficult to predict weather. The conversation then continued thus, as reported by Petrarch, in Sen. mi 1, in direct discourse (Petrarch first asking his long question): — “Facilius ergo est nosce quid mihi vni quid ue alteri post _- annos plurimos euenturum sit: quam quid celo & terre totique rerum nature impendeat: hac ipsa luce uel crastina erupturum

1359: JULY - DECEMBER 201 cum naturaliter quidem ista: supernaturaliter illa contingant: distribuente cuilibet suas sortes deo.” ‘“Facilius haud dubie.”

But as the astrologer replied thus, Petrarch could read in his

face his feeling of shame. | December |

On 28 November Bernardo Anguissola died in Piacenza; and Petrarch soon thereafter made in his Virgil, just below the entry that he had made after the death of Giacobino de’ Bossi (see above, p. 154), an entry of which only this much is still legible:

| Dominus Bernardinus de Angossolis de Placentia, miles egregius et unus de raris et singularibus amicis meis obit 1359... .°

By 7 December Petrarch had received from Nelli, in reply to Fam. xxt 12, a letter now lost (Cochin 71) asking for still more information as to Petrarch’s manner of life, and particularly as to his food and his dress. Answering this letter on 7 December, in Fam. xx1 13, Petrarch says that only in respect to his dress has there been any change: after coming to Milan he had lapsed, under the influence of city custom, into his youthful habit of dressing with some care, but now his dress is becoming simpler, more ordinary,

and more “philosophicum.” ‘The letter is dated “Mediolani, extra muros, VII Idus Decembris.”’

Soon afterward, possibly even on the same day, Petrarch wrote to Nelli another letter, Fam. xx1 14, in which he explains the “extra muros” at the end of the preceding letter by telling the story of his move from Sant’ Ambrogio to San Simpliciano; reports his unsuccessful effort to get new information about St. Simplicianus from the monks; and ends with a brief summary of the life of St. Simplicianus, based on references in the Confessions of St. Augustine. - §Nolhac, u, 284. For the date-and place of Bernardo’s death see Cristoforo Poggiali, Memorie storiche di Piacenza, vt (Piacenza, 1759), 327.

202 | CHAPTER TWENTY

| Addenda for 1359

Probably at some time in 1359 Petrarch, having learned of the promotion of Zanobi da Strada to an apostolic secretaryship, wrote to Laelius a brief letter in which, while expressing pleasure for Zanobi’s good fortune, and pleasure that there should be one friend, at least, among men who are friends neither to

God nor to man, he expresses regret for Zanobi’s abandonment of the Muses, and comments on the inconsistencies that had led Zanobi, who had once criticized Petrarch for living in France rather than in Italy and more recently for living in Milan, to establish himself in the Hell of Avignon. “How he would envy me now,” Petrarch writes, “if, as I see the storms that beset him, he could see the quietness of my life!” It appears

that this letter, originally independent, was appended to Fam. xx 14 when Petrarch prepared that letter for inclusion in the collection of the Familiares (see above, p. 179).

_ It may well have been before the end of 1359, also, that Petrarch added to Sime nom. 19 (for which see above, p. 179) a final section, addressed not to Laelius but (though not by name) to the Emperor, which was evidently written as a conclusion for the collection of the Sime nomine as a whole.

The section, which begins with the salutation “Ad te michi nunc sermo est, inuictissime regum nostri temporis,” is devoted mainly to an urgent plea that the Emperor bring the Pope

back to Rome: Pastorem illum et senio et sopore et mero grauidum nunquam sponte latebris et amatis fornicibus egressurum solus manu prehensum et uerbis increpitum et uerberibus castigatum in antiquum penetrale restitues.

Work on the fourth or Chigi form (the first extant form) of the Canzoniere seems to have been begun in 1359: it continued until after Petrarch had left Milan. Among the first poems that he added to those contained in the third form were those, presumably, on which he had been doing some work in 1359: see above, p. 185.° *See Wilkins 1, pp. 158-163.

CHAPTER XXI

— 1360: January-June January—March

In the midst of a deluge of rain on the late afternoon of a day in January, probably late in the month, Bolanus, bringing a letter from Socrates, appeared at Petrarch’s door, with several companions—Petrarch speaks of them as a turba. Bolanus’ chattering was insufferable; but in view of the rain and the lateness of the hour Petrarch felt that he had to ask them all to spend the night—though his house, “solitari1 hominis tecta,”

was hardly large enough to hold them. Bolanus would have accepted; but one of his companions had more sense, and on the

ground of business elsewhere the invitation, though repeated, was declined, much to Petrarch’s relief [ Faz. xxi 8].

_ Hardly had they left, and as darkness was falling, there came a very different visitor, Laelius, just arrived from Avignon

—and with him came Petrarch’s son Giovanni. |

Giovanni came under good sponsorship: not only had he come with Laelius, but the letter that Bolanus had brought contained an inquiry as to what Giovanni’s reception was to be: “quem mecum exitum invenerit, queris.” But Petrarch had suffered too long and had been too gravely hurt to pardon readily. His interview with his son was evidently one of the most painful and difficult experiences of his life. Giovanni's tearful entreaty for pardon so moved him that he too almost wept, and almost felt himself to be rather a defendant and a suppliant than an offended party. Yet he could not alter his exceedingly severe judgment of his son’s character—he speaks of him as “Homo blandus et fallax, idemque si liceat et violentus

et minax”—; he could not forget his son’s wrong attitudes and wrongdoings; he still held to the opinion that leniency had been 203

204 CHAPTER TWENTY - ONE and would be an encouragement to persistence in wrong attitudes and wrongdoings rather than a means of reform; and he had no confidence in the genuineness of his son’s tears or en_ dearments or entreaties: “quam ficte sunt he lacrime, simulate blanditie, coacte preces,” he asked himself. Nevertheless, he could not continue to resist, and at last the word of pardon was wrung from him, though with the stern proviso “ut dehinc nec amicus nobis ille nec hostis sit” | Fam xxi 9]. Laelius stayed on for several days, to Petrarch’s constant joy, and then left for Florence.

Not long after he left Petrarch wrote to Socrates two letters, Fam. xxu 8 and 9; the first giving an account of the arrivals of Bolanus and Laelius, the second an account—in answer to Socrates’ inquiry—of his reception of his son."

At the end of February or early in March Petrarch received Nelli’s xxv, which had been written on 20 February—a brief

letter that tells of the several days that Laelrus had spent in Florence and of his association there with other friends of Petrarch, and again expresses Nelli’s own admiration.

Early in 1360, in all probability, Petrarch had, as he thought, completed the collection of his Epistolae metricae, and was ready to send it to Barbato da Sulmona, to whom it had long since been dedicated; and at this time also, in all probability,

he wrote to Barbato the brief Fam. xxu 3, which is in effect a preface to the collection. But he seems not to have sent the letter or the collection after all—presumably because, at the last moment, he was unwilling to let it go without some further

retouching.” | There is no evidence that he ever actually completed the

collection. There is no reference to it in either of his two

later letters to Barbato, Fam. xxi 4, which is presently to be considered, and Misc. 9, written on 22 June 1361, or in either of Barbato’s two later letters to Petrarch, LAP 3 and LAP 74, both written in 1361. Barbato died in the summer of 1363. - *On all the preceding portion of this chapter see Foresti 1, pp. 285-288, and Foresti 2, pp. 19-22. * For this paragraph and the next see Wilkins 2, pp. 245-251. —

1360: JANUARY - JUNE 205 Evidence that Petrarch never did actually finish the making

of the collection is indeed afforded by the fact that no discernible plan governs its arrangement of the letters in the second half of Book III, several of which are early letters; * also by the fact that the collection as it stands ends with Met. m1 34, a letter

of no great importance written in 1350 to Guglielmo da Pastrengo, inviting him to accompany Petrarch on his year-of-

Jubilee pilgrimage to Rome. In view of Petrarch’s constant concern for the selection of particularly important letters for initial and final positions, it is virtually impossible that he should have let a finished collection end with such a letter as this.

April

Shortly after the 9th Petrarch went again to Padua and Venice: Fam. xxi 11 was dated in Padua on the 17th; and Fam. xxtt 4 was dated in Venice on the 20th. How long he

9 August. , |

remained away from Milan we do not know: the first evidence of his return is the fact that Fav. xxu 5 was dated in Milan on

_ Fam xxu 11, addressed to Guglielmo da Pastrengo, of Verona, is a letter of recommendation for the Bergamask ex-

goldsmith Enrico Capra, who was evidently about to go to

Verona in search of books, and would need help from Guglielmo. Petrarch speaks of Capra with affection, and with applause for his turning, even late in life, from artisanship to

letters. } |

He thinks of nothing, now, but schools and books and teachers, and to them he devotes busy days and waking hours in the night...

He seeks not wealth nor power nor honor nor . . . pleasures, but books, the one citadel of his freedom and solace of his life.

At the end of the letter Petrarch asks Guglielmo to give his greetings to Rinaldo Cavalchini, from whom he is expecting to receive a copy of the Bucolicum carmen of Calpurnius; and *See Enrico Bianchi, “Le ‘epistole metriche’ del Petrarca,” in R. Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Annali (Lettere, Storia e Filosofia), Ser. II, IX (1940), 256-259.

206 CHAPTER TWENTY - ONE he reminds Guglielmo of his promise to send him the Agricultura (that is, the Res rusticae) of Varro.*

Fam. xxu 4, written to Barbato da Sulmona on 27 April, is a moving expression of nostalgic affection for Barbato, whom Petrarch had not seen for nearly twenty years. Petrarch is still hoping, he says, to visit Rome once more, and to see Barbato there. He sends his greetings to Francesco Sanita. From Barbato’s long-delayed reply, In die nativitatis (LAP 3), received only after Petrarch had left Milan, we learn that Fam. xxu 4 was sent by Petrarch to Boccaccio, who arranged to get

it to Barbato in Sulmona.° |

: May

Before the end of May word must have reached Milan that on the 8th there had been signed at Bretigny a treaty between England and France, according to the provisions of which King

John might reénter Paris on payment by France of 600,000 écus, as the first installment of a much larger total.

Leontius in Florence , During the months following his visit to Petrarch in the spring of 1359 Boccaccio had been working on the plan, presumably formed during that visit, that Leontius should be brought to Florence; and by the end of the spring of 1360 he had succeeded. Leontius by that time was there, he was living with Boccaccio, and arrangements for his teaching had been made, or were in the making. Boccaccio undoubtedly kept Petrarch informed of the progress of his endeavors: Leontius’ presence in Florence appears to have been assumed in the long

letter, presently to be considered, that Boccaccio wrote to

Petrarch early in the summer.° | *On this letter see Foresti 1, pp. 367-369, and Rossi 2, pp. 188-190. °See Wilkins 2, pp. 247-248. , °On Leontius in Florence see Boccaccio, Genealogia deorum, xv,

6 and 7; Hortis, Stud] sulle opere latine del Boccaccio (Trieste, 1879), pp. 502-508 and 543-576; Oskar Hecker, Boccaccio-Funde (Brunswick, 1902), pp. 152, 272-273, and 277-278, Nolhac, u, 156-163; Henri Hauvette, Boccace (Paris, 1914), 361-367; and Billanovich 1, pp. 245-250. See also below, pp. 214-216.

| CHAPTER XXII 1360: July-December When Petrarch, in the previous October, had written to Neri Morando of the sore in his leg caused by repeated blows from his Cicero, he had said that he was recovering; but the recovery did not continue, and by the summer of 1360 he was in a serious condition, which, however, he finally overcame. The story is told thus in a letter written in August (Var. 25, which will be considered presently): For almost a year things had been getting worse and worse, and my aging days were filled with discomforts and pains and doctors and fomentations. Finally, when it had come to be more than an annoyance, and I was getting to be sick of life, I decided to dispense with doctors, whatever the result might be, and to trust

myself to the care of God and of nature rather than to these unguentaries, who were harming me by their experiments. So I dismissed them; and thanks to God and to a servant of mine—who has learned how to be a doctor from my ulcer and at my expense —now, by remembering the fomentations that had seemed to be most beneficial, and by helping nature by eating lightly, I am gradually regaining the health that I had all but lost.

But the scar will remain: ‘“Indelebilem memoriae meae notam et stigma perpetuum Cicero mihi heus affixit.”

| August

Early in August, probably, though perhaps a little earlier, Petrarch received from Boccaccio a letter in which he began

by saying that he had come to the conclusion that Petrarch would continue to live in Milan for the rest of his life—and by refraining from comment indicated his adverse opinion even more effectively than if he had expressed it openly. Later in the

letter Boccaccio, not realizing how serious the vulnus Cice207

208 CHAPTER TWENTY - TWO ronianum had become, referred to it jocosely, and as being particularly reprehensible since Petrarch’s association with Cicero had been so close. Still later in the same letter he told Petrarch a story which was apparently in effect as follows: Some Italian noblemen, on a journey “in extrema terrarum, ”

came, on a stormy winter night, to a certain city, where they hoped to find food and shelter. This was in time of war, and they

were at first refused admittance. They sent word, however, to the lord of the city that they were friends of Petrarch—and were then admitted and honorably entertained.

Either in this letter or in an earlier letter of which we have no knowledge Boccaccio told Petrarch that Leontius Pilatus was now in Florence; and the end of this letter Boccaccio, supposing Petrarch to have bought the manuscript of Homer that he had seen in Padua, and knowing of the manuscript of Homer that Petrarch had received as a gift from Nicholas Sygeros, asked Petrarch to lend him the Paduan manuscript so ~ that Leontius might use it as the basis for a Latin translation, to

be made for the benefit of himself and of certain Florentine

friends [Var. 25]. When Petrarch first read this letter he could not remember

having known the man who, in Boccaccio’s story, had admitted the journeying Italian noblemen to his city.

On 9 August Petrarch, now back in Milan, having learned

that Philippe de Cabassoles had returned to his diocese of Cavaillon after an absence of two years in Germany—where as papal nuncio he had sought unsuccessfully to secure compliance

with a papal demand for tithes on ecclesiastical income '— wrote Fam. xxu 5 to him, urging him never again to desert his own little flock for such an errand, and, if necessary, to resist

papal pressure even by exaggerated statements as to his age and his disabilities. In the last part of the letter, which expresses Petrarch’s longing to see Philippe again, he writes: And perhaps God will grant this cherished desire of mine before ‘See Baluze-Mollat, m, 537, and the references there given.

| 1360: JULY - DECEMBER 209 I die, and I shall be there when you least expect me! Oh if I might

suddenly appear before you among my books, or on the grassy bank of the pure stream, or at the base of the high cliff whence our king of rivers rushes forth with so loud a sound!

About the middle of August Niccolé Acciaiuoli, returning from Avignon to Naples, stopped in Milan to see the Visconti— the whole city, Petrarch says, rejoiced in his presence—and to

see Petrarch. Busy though he was with affairs of state, he twice came all the way out to Petrarch’s house at San Simpliciano,

attended by noble companions and surrounded by an admiring

crowd. He stayed for a long time, and talked with Petrarch about many things and men, including almost certainly the career of Zanobi da Strada, whose patron Niccolé had been, and probably the question of the restoration of Petrarch’s Florentine patrimony. He showed much interest in Petrarch’s books, looking over the collection as a whole and examining some particular books. After he had gone, Petrarch, on the 17th, wrote

to Zanobi Fam. xx 6, a brief but enthusiastic report of Niccolo’s visit.

On the next day, 18 August, Petrarch wrote two letters, one to Boccaccio, and one, now lost, to the man who, in Boccaccio’s

story, had admitted the journeying Italian noblemen to his city: Petrarch had by this trme remembered him as a man whom he had met thirty years before when visiting Bishop Giacomo

Colonna at Lombez, in Gascony.? He now addressed him in care of Boccaccio. The letter to Boccaccio, Var. 25, answers Boccaccio’s recent letter point by point. With regard to his continued residence in Milan he remarks that all his friends, except those who live in Milan, would prefer to have him live elsewhere, but that there

is no agreement among them as to where he should go, some calling him to Padua, some to Avignon, and some to Florence. Vaucluse, though he longs for it, is no longer safe. He reminds

Boccaccio of their talk about this question at the time of - ® This was the visit in the course of which he wrote and sent to Cardinal Giovanni Colonna the delightful descriptive sonnet Gloriosa

Columna (No. 10). |

210 CHAPTER TWENTY - TWO Boccaccio’s visit, and of their conclusion that Milan was on the whole preferable to any other place but that Padua would be a

possibility; and he reports that since that time he has been in Padua, and that he is expecting to go there again soon. He can see no advantage, however, in exchanging one city for another, but if there should appear a “solitudo tranquilla” to which he might retreat he would go there with all speed. He next tells the story of his sufferings from the vulnus Ciceronianum; and then goes on to speak of Boccaccio’s story of the admission of certain Italian noblemen to a certain city on mention of his name. At first, he says, he had been unable to remember the man who, in Boccaccio’s story, had granted such admission, but he had finally placed him as a man whom he had met thirty

years before in Lombez.* He has now written to him, in - Boccaccio’s care, as Boccaccio will have seen.* As to the Paduan manuscript of Homer, he says that he has not bought it, thinking it inferior to his own, but that it should not be difficult to obtain it through the same man who had in-

troduced Leontius to him: Leontius should write to that man, as he (Petrarch) will do also. If it should prove impossible to get that manuscript he will send his own Homer to Florence.

He will not, however, send his Plato now: a translation of Homer is all that should be attempted at this time. This same letter contains also other noteworthy elements: a reference to the damage suffered by the books that he had left at Vaucluse, his Plato among them; a reference to his intention to write a justifying account of his life—“de ratione vitae meae

integro volumine disputem, quod ante me, ut arbitror, fecit nemo”; a reference to his own early study of Greek and to the fact that the death of his teacher (Barlaam) had prevented him from becoming anything more than an “elementarius *In the text of Var. 25 the word “ibi” is so used as to show that the place referred to in Boccaccio’s story was either Lombez or some other

place in the region of Lombez. ,

*Petrarch’s words are “Sibique per literas, ut vidisti, bene merito gratias egi”: evidently the two letters were sent together to Boccaccio, who would therefore have seen the superscription on the letter to the

Man in question. .

1360: JULY - DECEMBER 211 Graius”; and a discussion of the inadequacy of literal prose for the translation of poetry. The main thing at the moment, however, 1s, he says, to get a translation of some sort, even though it may be inadequate: in this connection he refers to the translation of the beginning of the Iliad that he had obtained from Leontius in Padua.

Late in August, presumably, or possibly early in September, Petrarch received Nelli’s xxvi, written on 13 August,

in burning heat, at the urging of a messenger, devoted to Petrarch, who was about to start back from Florence to Milan. The main point of the letter is Nelli’s complaint that fortune has prevented him from visiting Petrarch: “Omnesque uident Petrarcam meum, ego nichil.” He goes on to imagine what they

would talk about if he could visit Petrarch, and mentions in particular the vicissitudes of fortune. He characterizes the messenger in the words “etsi in uulgo positum, extra tamen uulgus suo in genere degentem tuumque predicantem nomen.” September

On 3 September Petrarch took into his hands again the autograph sheet, containing part or all of the capitolo Al tempo, on which he had made notations in September 1356, September

1357, and April, September, and November 1358; and just to the right of the notation that he had made in September 1358 (see above, p. 172) he now wrote: Hoc additum nihil ad rem, nisi quod tunc ista relegebam, 1360 sept. 3. Ita res vadit de septembri in septembrem. Nec incepi hoc

de bona littera scribere.®

On 12 September he made a fair copy of the entire autograph sheet that he had reread on the 3rd; and just to the left of the notation that he had made on 8 September 1357 above the heading of the capitolo (see above, p. 148) he now wrote:

transcriptus totus quaternus sic 1360. 12 sept. , Fam. xx 10, a letter to Nelli written in Milan on an 18 * Appel 1, p. 142.

212 CHAPTER TWENTY - TWO September which was probably that of 1360, begins with this reference to a letter of Nelli’s that is now lost (not in Cochin’s list):

Animadverti ex epystola quadam tua placere tibi quod secularibus sacra permisceam, idque vel Ieronimo placiturum censes; ea varietatis amenitas, is decor ordinis, ea est, ut asseris, vis 1uncture.

Fam. xxu 10 itself, taking its point of departure from this letter of Nelli’s, records a change in Petrarch’s relative estimates

of the values of sacred and secular writings. In this present letter, he says, he will write “de ... affectu novo quidem sed iam valido, quo ad literas sacras stilus animusque meus vertitur.”

Even Apollo and the Muses will approve his passing, in his maturity, to interests that are more mature than those of his youth. Then he had been eager for the “ventosas .. . hominum laudes”: the Jaudes that now concern him are the lauds of his Creator for the recitation of which he rises at midnight. He has loved Cicero and Virgil, Plato and Homer, “Sed iam michi maius agitur negotium, maiorque salutis quam eloquentie cura est.” Huis orators are now Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory; his philosopher is Paul; his poet is David. Yet he 1s not renouncing his earlier loves: “Neque ideo tamen quia hos

pretulerim, illos abicio.” He can love both—“ego utrosque simul amare posse videor”—but turning to one group as models of style, and to the other group for good counsel. The ancients ask of him only that he should not forget them. “Ad orationem”

he will still use Virgil and Cicero, “nec pudebit a Grecia mutuari siquid Latio deesse videbitur”; but “ad vitam,” although

the ancients offer much that is useful, he will turn now for - guidance to authors whose faith and doctrine are beyond any suspicion of error. Chief among them, for Petrarch, will be David, whose Psalms he desires to have ever in his hands and under his eyes by day, and under his head at night and in the

hour of his death. |

This letter records a significant literary and spiritual reorientation, and the question of its date is therefore of some consequence. The only previous discussion of its date is that

1360: JULY - DECEMBER 213 of Cochin,® who shows that it must have been written in 1354, 1355, 1357, 1359, or 1360, and is inclined, despite the position

of the letter in the Familiares, to assign it one of the earlier years. In this part of the Fammiliares, however, the order of the

letters is at least roughly chronological; and the certain or probable dates of the other letters in Fam. xxm are: 1, 1362; 2, 1359; 3-9 and 11-12, 1360; and 13-14, 1361. It seems to me highly improbable, therefore, that this letter should have been

written in 1357 or earlier. As between 1359 and 1360 the

probabilities seem to me to favor 1360 for these reasons: (1) all other letters of the range Fam. xx11 3-12 are certainly or probably of 1360; (2) in September 1359 Petrarch was suffering from his “vulnus Ciceronianum” and from the “‘insueta cor-

poris quiete” ordered by his doctors [Fam. xx1 10]; (3) no other letter of Petrarch’s is known to have been written in Sep-

tember 1359; (4) the clause “nec pudebit a Grecia mutuari siquid Latio deesse videbitur” suggests an expectation of gaining

some utility from a Greek source; (5) I suspect that the reference to Jerome in Nelli’s letter was itself due to Petrarch’s two

references to Jerome in Var. 25, written on 18 August 1359 to

Boccaccio, but certainly shared by him with Nelli; and (6) the tone of the letter suggests the latest possible Milanese date for it. October

In October, or perhaps somewhat earlier, Petrarch began to be troubled by severe pains, from which he was still suffering

in December. In Fam. xxu 12, written on 26 October, he says that he is prevented from accepting an invitation to visit Albertino da Cannobio “‘corporeo et aliis impedimentis”; and in Fam. xxmi 2, written on 1 December to Guido Sette, he says:

“siquidem non minores, puto, quam podagricos dolores perferens te alloquor tuis obsessum oppressumque doloribus.”

Perhaps before the end of September, perhaps on one of °Cochin 1, pp. 147-148, and 2, p. 45.

214 CHAPTER TWENTY - TWO the first days of October, Petrarch received a very long and very remarkable letter which he calls “epystolam magnam multaque continentem sub Homeri poete missam nomine et apud Inferos datam.” This letter was written, in all probability, by Pietro da Muglio, professor of letters in the University of Bologna.’

In this letter Homer (to retain the fiction) told of the men from whom he had learned his art; of the origin of poetry and of the first poets, among whom he mentioned a certain Hercules

and Cadmus the son of Agenor, as well as others with whose names Petrarch was already acquainted; of the variations in opin-

ion that had arisen concerning his birthplace; of his travels in Phoenicia and in Egypt; of the total number of his writings, most of which had been lost; and of the circumstances of his death, which had not been caused, as common report had it, by excessive grief and joy. He said that he had interrupted his peace

in the Elysian Fields in order to present certain complaints, which he then proceeded to set forth: he had suffered from imitators, from ingrates, and from ignorant detractors; Virgil had not deigned to mention his name—“Quid ergo? unum illum tam ingratum patior quem omnibus gratiorem merui? Et cur... nulla eius operis in parte me posuit?” (this is apparently a ver-

batim quotation from the letter); he had been both mangled and insulted by his imitators; whereas his name had been glorified by the jurists and physicians of antiquity it was despised by

present jurists and physicians; a common friend (Leontius), whom he called a native of Thessaly (not of Byzantium, as Petrarch had thought), had compelled him to come to the city of Florence as a stranger and an exile; he had found only three friends there; and he sighed for Bologna. Finally, he asked for

refuge with Petrarch. | , To this letter Petrarch replied, on 9 October, by Fam. xxiv

“The traditional opinion has been that it was written by Boccaccio; but a strong case for the authorship of Pietro is made by Carrara, “Due stelle fiorentine,” in Nuova rivista storica, xxxtv (1950), 342-343, and _ Weiss, “Notes on Petrarch and Homer,” in Rinascimento, w (1953), 267-270. For Pietro see the references given by Weiss in this article, p. 269 n. 2; Carlo Calcaterra, Alma mater studiorum (Bologna, 1948), pp. 137—139; and Foresti 3.

1360: JULY - DECEMBER 215 12, which begins with the salutation “Franciscus Homero graie muse principi salutem,” and is subscribed thus: Apud superos, medio amnium clarissimorum Padi Ticini Ardue aliorumque, unde quidam Mediolanum dici volunt, VII Idus Octobris anno etatis ultime MCCCLX.

In the introductory portion of the letter Petrarch says that the only Latin translations from Homer known to him in the past were “aliquot tuorum principia librorum,” in which, as it were, he saw dimly the approach of a longed-for friend; and that he now rejoices in the fact that “Unus vir nostro te latinum seclo revehit,” and that this man, if he lives, will bring it about “ut non modo divinorum fructu operum eximio, sed tuarum quoque confabulationum ulecebris perfruamur.” “Quarum unius,” he continues, “ad me nuper latinis vasis grecus sapor allatus est.’ ®

Replying then, point by point, to the letter he had received, Petrarch speaks first, with great pleasure, of the new information it contained as to Homer’s life and works. He mentions most of the several items briefly—questioning, incidentally, whether the Hercules stated to have been one of the first poets was the well-known Hercules; discusses at some length the matter of lost works in general; and expresses particular satisfaction in learning the true circumstances of Homer’s death.

The bulk of the letter is devoted to Homer’s complaints, which are severally discussed—most of them at considerable length—and shown to be unwarranted. Imitators, ingrates, and detractors are common pests, and are therefore to be endured patiently: imitation, in particular, is an inevitable consequence of high achievement, and may therefore be regarded as a gratifying sign of such achievement; and Homer is certain of primacy: “primi semper certus loci.” Virgil unquestionably had intended to name Homer at the most honorific point in his >The words “aliquot . . . principia librorum” presumably refer, despite the difference in phrasing, to the prose translation that is referred to thus in Var. 25: “quoddam breve, ubi Homeri principium Leo idem solutis latinis verbis olim mihi quasi totius operis gustum obtulit” (see above, p. 175).

216 CHAPTER TWENTY - TWO work, namely at the very end: “Finem ergo preclarissimi operis expectabat, ibi te suum ducem tuumque nomen altisonis verbis laturus ad sidera. Ubi enim, queso, dignius quam in fine vie dux

laudandus?” But death prevented him. That Homer was reduced to fragments by his imitators was due to the fact that “nemo in totum tanti ingenii capax erat,” and their insults were

really a measure of the greatness of the benefits they had received. That Homer’s name, honored by the lawyers and physicians of antiquity, should be despised by their successors is due to the fact that those successors are quite unlike their predecessors: their scorn 1s in reality something to glory in. That a com-

mon friend should have brought Homer to Florence is due to his love and devotion, and that friend 1s therefore held dear by those who honor Homer’s name: Homer, therefore, has no reason for being displeased with him, but should rather be grateful “quod te nobis ac musis ausoniis ereptum, siqua fors cepto faverit, restituet.”” That there should be in Florence three devotees of Homer 1s more than might have been expected in a city

given over to the pursuit of lucre. Moreover, a fourth may yet be found; and there would be a fifth were it not that the man

in question, though wearing the laurel, had been rapt to the transalpine Babylon. Other devotees are to be found elsewhere in Italy: one in Bologna, two in Verona, one in Sulmona, and

one in Mantua, “nisi illum celum terris abduceret.” There is none in Rome; there would have been one in Perugia had he not |

left to play a lucrative pen in Spain. Others had died, among them one with whom Petrarch had studied eagerly.® Homer had requested refuge with Petrarch: Petrarch is not worthy to receive so noble a guest. Yet he has cherished him in Greek, and, as far as he could, in Latin, and hopes soon to receive him completely in the work of their Thessalian friend. ° Of the Florentines Boccaccio was certainly one; Domenico Silvestri was probably another (see Ricci, “La prima cattedra di greco in Firenze,” in Rinascimento, ui, [1952], 160-161); and the fifth was certainly Zanobi

da Strada. The Bolognese was certainly Pietro da Muglio; the two Veronese were certainly Guglielmo de Pastrengo and Rinaldo Cavalchini; and the Sulmonese was certainly Barbato. Petrarch’s teacher was

Barlaam.

1360: JULY - DECEMBER 217

maior.” | | |

He professes the utmost devotion: “Ad summam amor ad te meus sole clarior ferventiorque est, extimatio ingens ut nullius

The letter ends thus: — | Eternum vale, Orpheaque et Linum et Euripidem ac reliquos comites, cum in tuam sedem veneris, salvere iube.?°

The treaty of Bretigny, signed in May, had provided that King John might reénter Paris on a first payment by France of 600,000 écus. French inability to furnish this entire sum, and Galeazzo Visconti’s desire to contract an alliance with the royal family of France, resulted in agreements whereby Galeazzo was to buy the dower rights of the eleven-year-old princess Isabelle,

who would then marry Galeazzo’s eight-year-old son Guan Galeazzo. The princess, escorted by a large company of nobles, arrived in Milan on 8 October; and the marriage was made the occasion for splendid festivities, including banquets and joust-

ing, which lasted for three days, from the 11th to the 14th. According to Matteo Villani (1x, 103), more than a thousand ambassadors and other guests came from other cities. Petrarch must have witnessed some of these festivities.?*

In the autumn of 1360 the plague was again threatening Milan, though as yet it had made no serious inroads within the city. At some time in October Petrarch received a letter from

his physician-friend Albertino da Cannobio,” urging him to leave Milan and come to Cannobio (on the west shore of Lago Maggiore) and to the “saluberrimas Alpium radices,” and promising to watch over him constantly. In the same letter Albertino

reported that a friend had told him that Petrarch had recently ‘© This letter is translated and amply annotated by Cosenza, pp. 148204. See also Carrara 1, 89-95; Weiss, “Petrarca e il mondo greco,” in Accademia Petrarca di Lettere, Arti e Scienze di Arezzo, Atti, N.S., xxxvi_ (1952-1953), 30-31; and the references given above in n. 7.

** Delachenal, 1, 231-237, and Cognasso, pp. 409-410. , **On whom see Negroni, pp. 10-15 and 61-62; and see above, p.

169, and below, p. 243.

218 CHAPTER TWENTY - TWO refused to extend financial help on the ground that he had nothing left to give to worthy men; and that he (Albertino) had given full credence to Petrarch’s statement of the case.

On 26 October Petrarch replied, in Fam. xxu 12. He first expresses his pleasure that Albertino had given full credence to the statement just mentioned; and in this connection he tells the story of his robbery by his servants and of his consequent change

of residence (see above, p. 198). Now, he says, the servants that he had discharged are begging him to take them back— — “Gam enim fastu deposito, submissi ac deiecti reditum orant’”’—

but that he has no intention of doing so. He is very grateful for Albertino’s invitation, but he is not disposed to flee because of any fear of the plague. The letter at this point becomes a notable _ treatise on the inevitability of death and the right way to face

death: |

To face death cheerfully is a sign of a deep-seated felicity; to face it in fear is a base weakness. To stand unterrified amid the terrible things that one beholds, and to contemplate death with unfaltering eyes, is to hold to the ideal mean and is indeed the part of a true man.

Moreover, while Petrarch grants that medical care may conserve health and cure minor illnesses, it could not suffice to save

one from the plague. He would be most happy to come to Cannobio to visit Albertino not as a physician but as a friend if he were not prevented “corporeo et aliis impedimentis mille.”

| November

By November Petrarch had finished at least a first draft of the De remediis utriusque fortune, to which he refers in this passage in Fam, xx 12, written to Guido Sette on 1 December: — All philosophers, all experience, and truth itself agree in this: that in times of adversity ... the one remedy is patience . . . and that in times of prosperity the one remedy is moderation. I have had it in mind, of late, to write at some length about both these

remedies, and now I have done so.

Guido would have had the book before this, Petrarch adds,

1360: JULY - DECEMBER 219 were it not that he has found it impossible to copy it or get it copied: “Quem libellum habuisses, nisi quia et ego iam scribendi fessus et adiutor nullus.” |

At some time in November Petrarch received from Guido (now in Genoa) a letter in which Guido said that he was suffering from the gout, but was patiently maintaining his equanimity.

He had been greatly helped, he said, by a letter that Petrarch had written many years before (Fam. vi 3, written to Giovanni Colonna di San Vito in 1342), in which Petrarch had striven to help a friend to endure gout, poverty, and old age. Apparently, also, Guido spoke of its being a sadly long time since he and Petrarch had seen each other.

: December

On the first day of December Petrarch wrote Fam. xxi 12 in reply to the letter he had recently received from Guido Sette. He is sorry to hear of Guido’s gout—he himself is suffering greatly from his pains—but glad to know of Guido’s maintenance

of equanimity. On the theme of equanimity when beset with trouble Petrarch writes at considerable length: the greater part of the letter, indeed, is in effect a little treatise much in the vein of the De remediis. When writing of that work and of his inability to get it copied he speaks with great severity of his son, whose help he had evidently sought in vain; but he is resolved to endure patiently even his son’s misconduct. He has no one else to help him: his friends are either absent or too busy— “michi nullus est comes.” He is much pleased to learn that his old letter has been of help to Guido; and he says that he will come to see him as soon as peace prevails. The letter ends with a long series of instances of classic writers whose sons or pupils

failed to profit by their teachings.

Knowing evidently that King John would soon be reéntering Paris, Galeazzo Visconti decided, perhaps early in December,

to send a congratulatory mission to Paris, with Petrarch as its orator.

| CHAPTER XXIII

| The Mission to Paris

1

Before leaving Milan Petrarch must have written at least a draft of the oration that he was to deliver in Paris: for it contains some fifty quotations (the longest is a sixteen-line quotation from the Thyestes of Seneca), and in almost every case the quotation is followed by an exact reference to its source.

As text Petrarch took from II Chronicles, xxxu, 13, the words—there used of the return of King Manasseh from captivity in Babylon—“Exaudivit orationem ejyus, reduxitque eum Jerusalem in regnum suum.” The body of the oration 1s divided into three parts, in each of which a portion of the text 1s applied

to the captivity and the liberation of King John: the first part is based on the words “Exaudivit orationem ejus,’ the second on the words “reduxit eum Jerusalem,” and the third on the words “in regnum suum.” In the first part Petrarch notes that many different opinions have been expressed as to the reality and the nature of Fortune—“an sit aliquid, et quid sit.” He will not express his own opinion now; but he says that there could be no stronger evidence for the reality and the power of Fortune than that afforded by the recent experiences of the King: Sic fidenter hoc dicam, quod nullo modo alio evidentius nostra aetas probare poterat, Fortunam esse magnum aliquid et magnae potentiae, quam in concutiendo statum ac requiem summi regis et r een Omnium maxim.

He then speaks of the prayers for the liberation of the King that had been offered, doubtless by the King himself and cer* On this mission see Barbeu du Rocher; Hortis 1, pp. 205-217; and Delachenal, u, 270-272. On the capture of King John in 1356 and on

the letters of sympathy then written by Petrarch for Galeazzo see above, p. 127. 220

THE MISSION TO PARIS 221 tainly by the people of his nation, and of the prayers that will still be offered for the health and freedom of the King, and for the freedom of the nation. The second part is devoted mainly to Biblical quotations expressing joy after a return from cap-

tivity. Such quotations are represented as being rightly applicable in the present instance:

Nunc nulla civitas, Jerusalem, nullus princeps aut populus, Israel rectius ac verius dici potest, quam haec civitas et hic princeps

et hic populus apud quos, praeter justitiam caeterasque virtutes, semper studia floruerunt verae religionis.

In the third part the amazing reversal of fate manifested in the captivity and restoration of so great an earthly king is taken

to be a sign of the overlordship of the King of Heaven, and the experience of King John is represented as part of a celestial plan for the benefit of the King himself and of his realm: nusquam dubitavi quod, ut caeteras res humanas, sic vestras quoque res ageret aliqua vis caelestis, ad exercitium virtutis ac patientiae vestrae, ad eruditionem vestram et vestrorum, et venturi temporis cautionem;

and again: |

Etsi forte aliquid magnitudini pristinae sit detractum, tamen, de quo nemo dubitat, infinitum quidem experientiae est additum et saplentiae et virtuti, quae vera et stabilis magnitudo regum est.

Just when Petrarch left Milan and just when he returned we do not know. He must have reached Paris at least a day or two before 13 January, when he gave his oration; he was on the way back on 27 January; the first extant letters dated after his return to Milan are dated 21 March; and in Sen. xvii 2, written many years later, he says that the whole mission took three months of his time—“denique ad gratulandum ioanni _francorum regi, britannico tunc carcere liberato, alios tres menses hybernos exegi.”

Petrarch was accompanied by five men, to whom, toward the end of his oration, he refers as “hos quatuor nobiles militares viros” and “hunc virum civilem professorem.” They took with

them, as gifts from Galeazzo to the King, two rings: one was

222 CHAPTER TWENTY - THREE a ring that had been torn from the King’s hand at the battle of Poitiers—this one Galeazzo had eventually succeeded in recovering—and the other was a fine ruby ring of Galeazzo’s own.

As Petrarch travelled through France he was shocked by the deplorable state of the country: It was hard to believe that this was the same realm that I had once beheld, such were now the solitude, the gloom, and the desolation on every hand, so rough and untilled were the fields, so shattered and deserted were the dwellings—save those that had been protected by the walls of cities or of fortresses—so visible everywhere were the sad traces of the English invasion and the fresh and ugly scars of combat . . . Paris itself, the capital, defaced up to its very gates by fire and ruin, seemed to be shuddering in dismay at the fate that had befallen it [Famm. xxu 14].

-His memories of France and Paris as he had seen them in his youth and as he saw them at this time are contrasted thus in Sen. x 2: I recognized hardly anything, seeing a once opulent kingdom turned to ashes... Where now is that Paris that was once so great?

Where are the throngs of students? Where is the fervid life of the University? Where the wealth of the citizens? Where the general happiness? One hears now not the voices of disputation but the din of warfare; one sees piles not of books but of weapons; the sounds of syllogisms and of lectures have given way to those

of soldiers on guard and of battering rams. The rushing clamor

so many perils. of the hunt is no more: the woods are silent and the walls resound . . . nowhere is there such absence of security, nowhere are there

While in Paris Petrarch evidently saw much of Pierre Bersuire, a cleric and writer whom he had known well twenty years before in Avignon.?

The main body of Petrarch’s oration is preceded and fol*On Bersuire, who is also called Petrus Berchorius and Pierre de Poitiers, see Fausto Ghisalberti, “L’ ‘Ovidius moralizatus’ di Pierre Bersuire,” in Studj romanzi, xxut (1933), 5-136; also my “Descriptions

of Pagan Divinities from Petrarch to Chaucer,” in Speculum, xxxu (1957), 511-522, and the references there given. In or shortly before 1342 Petrarch released to Pierre a passage from Book III of the Africa. _ Bersuire made a French translation of Livy for King John.

THE MISSION TO PARIS 223 , lowed by introductory and concluding passages of special character: it seems likely that these passages were prepared, or at least put into final shape, shortly before the oration was to

be delivered. — |

In the introductory passage Petrarch excuses himself for speaking in Latin rather than in French: “Linguam gallicam,” he says, “nec scio, nec facile possum scire.” He knows that King John’s youth was “amantissima litterarum et latinae praesertim eloquentiae studiosa”; and he begs indulgence for his use of Latin even though he realizes that the pressure of royal duties may have prevented the King’s continuance of his early studies.? In his conclusion Petrarch states that he and his five companions have come as messengers of Galeazzo; extends Galeazzo’s congratulations; assures the King of Galeazzo’s devotion and

of his grateful memory of the time when he had come to the French court “peregrinus ac semiexul,” and had been received kindly and honorably by the King; and quotes Galeazzo as speaking thus of Isabelle: quae licet alibi multis in locis potuisset virgo regia locari altius,

nusquam tamen, nisi in judicio rerum suarum valde fallitur, aut videri laetius poterat, aut tractari fidelius, aut reverentius honorari.

He then speaks gracefully of the gift of the two rings; and ends thus, quoting from Psalm cxxiv: In fine autem precor Deum, ut in vestram veram Jerusalem et in vestrum regnum verum fiat illud Ps: “Non commovebitur in

aeternum qui habitat in Jerusalem” On 13 January Petrarch delivered his oration in the royal palace, in the presence of the King, Prince Charles, many court-

iers, doubtless, and his own five companions. While he was speaking of Fortune he noticed that the King and the Prince *In the Rerum memorandarum libri, 1, 37, Petrarch says that when

(in 1341) King Robert asked him whether he had ever gone to the French court he had replied that he preferred to live humbly rather than go where “nec quengquam intelligerem nec intelligerer a quoquam.” Petrarch must have had a good knowledge of the langue d’oc, but there is nO reason to suppose than he ever had more than a reading knowledge

of the langue d’oil. ,

224 CHAPTER TWENTY - THREE were very much interested: “quod ego ipse dum loquerer ex vehementi illorum intentione notaveram: sic erectos et in me oculis animisque defixos ad Fortune nomen vidi” [| Fam. xxi 13].

The form of his reference to his five companions suggests that he accompanied his mention of them by a gesture. As he ceased speaking, doubtless, either he or one of his companions pre-

sented the two rings to the King.* |

The Prince, in particular, had been greatly interested in

what Petrarch had said about Fortune, and wanted to hear more

from him on that theme. Late in the evening before a day on which Petrarch and his companions and other guests, including Bersuire, were to dine at the royal table, an unnamed friend came to Petrarch and told him that the Prince was contriving that at the end of the dinner Bersuire and three learned friends _ of his should get Petrarch to say what he really thought about Fortune. Petrarch, therefore, though he had no desire to speak on this subject, and though he had much to do and had no books _ at hand, put his ideas together as best he could, expecting to say that he thought Fortune to be a nudum et inane nomen, although

he was wont to use the name in accordance with popular cus-

tom, and yet to be so careful in what he said as not to give offence to those who might believe Fortune to be an actual

goddess, controlling human affairs. |

At dinner on the next day, however, the King was so busily engaged in dispensing hospitality that the time when Petrarch might have been called on went by, although the Prince tried repeatedly by words and nods to remind the King of the plan

that had been made—so that Petrarch did not have to speak

after all.

Later, on that same day, Bersuire and his three friends came

to Petrarch’s room; and there they talked pleasantly into the ‘The second ring was given before long to Prince Charles. It is referred to thus in a somewhat later inventory of the Prince’s jewels: “Item, un gros balay [rubis balais] en un anneu d’or que le Roy donna a Monseigneur, et li fut envoyé du seigneur de Milan.” See Delachenal, u, 270, n. Petrarch refers to the first ring in De remediis, u, 37, but gives no additional information about it.

THE MISSION TO PARIS 225 evening of Fortune and of many other things [Fam. xxu 13]. When it came time for Petrarch to start back to Milan, the King tried to detain him “non modo prece fervida sed manu amica pene mihi iniecta” [Fam. xxi 2]. The journey, “per Alpes et glaciem hieme horrida,” was very

hard. Stopping on the way at inns that were unpleasant and uncomfortable, and thinking much of Bersuire and of his interests, Petrarch wrote him a long letter, Fam. xx 14, dated on 27 February, “ex itinere,” that 1s concerned in part with Fortune, but more specifically with the disastrous deterioration of military discipline since the days of ancient Rome. He did not send the letter, however, for lack of a messenger | Fam. xxi 13]. After his return to Milan he must have expanded his original draft of Fam. xxi 14, for it contains many quotations, some of

them lengthy, that Petrarch could not possibly have written from memory. Eventually, but not until the following September, he found a messenger who would take the letter, and he then sent it to Bersuire, with a covering letter, Fam. xx 13,

xvi 2]. |

which recalls many of the circumstances of his recent mission. But before the messenger reached Paris Bersuire had died [Sen. Even after Petrarch’s return to Milan letters came from King John to the Visconti, urging them to send Petrarch back to Paris [ Fam, xxim 2].

, CHAPTER XXIV | | 1361: March-June In the course of these months—the last months of Petrarch’s residence in Milan, and the last of his son’s life—Petrarch had the satisfaction of realizing that Giovanni was making a serious

effort to reform, and was making progress in that effort. One of the most hopeful signs was Giovanni’s great admiration for

Nelli. For Giovanni there was no one else in the world who was worthy to be compared to Nelli. If in a conversation at

which he was present he heard anyone spoken of as comparable to Nelli he would usually hold his peace, as being in the presence of his elders, and would merely look down and smile: but sometimes he was impelled to break his silence, and he then spoke of Nelli in such a way as to make manifest the reverence he had for him and the love he bore him | Sez. 1 2 and 3].

| March

Perhaps during Petrarch’s absence, perhaps soon after his return, letters for him from Charles [V and from Jan ze Streda, were brought to Milan by Sagremor. The Emperor’s letter was occasioned by the fact that Duke Rudolf IV was claiming that Austria was a sovereign state, exempt from the jurisdiction of the Empire, and was basing his claim in part on two brief documents which were ostensibly privileges granted by Caesar and by Nero. The first begins and ends thus: Nos Julius Imperator, nos cesar et cultor deorum, nos supremus

terre Imperialis Augustus . . . Datum Rome capitali mundi die Veneris regni nostri Anno primo et exaccionis auri anno primo.

The second begins and ends thus:

226

1361: MARCH-JUNE 227 Nos Nero, amicus deorum .. . Datum apud Lateranum in die Martis illius Magni Die.?

In his letter to Petrarch the Emperor expressed his indignation, and requested Petrarch to send him a confidential opinion on the

genuineness of the two documents. He also invited Petrarch _

cordially to come to Prague. |

The letter of Jan ze Streda, in which Petrarch was referred to as Jan’s “magistrum et dominum,” was evidently filled with laudation of Petrarch and of his style.

Either through one of these two letters or through report by Sagremor Petrarch learned that the Emperor was rejoicing in the birth of a son and heir (Wenceslaus, born on 26 February). The Emperor’s request that Petrarch give him his opinion on a matter relating to the Empire was bound to lead Petrarch to resume the theme that he had so often treated: the duty of the Emperor to return to Italy and to reéstablish the seat of the Empire in Rome. To this theme he does in fact return in Fam. xx 2, addressed to the Emperor and dated on 21 March. This is the most eloquent and the most powerful of Petrarch’s letters on this subject. Its references to the Emperor’s past negligence are severe, but not vituperative: it is more concerned with future action than with past inaction. It even attempts to realize, and in some measure to respect, the feelings that have hitherto detained the Emperor. Familiar arguments are impressively restated, and some new considerations are adduced. The letter opens with expressions of gratitude for the Emperor’s friendliness and for the invitation to come to Prague.

This invitation, however, Petrarch declines: he feels himself too strongly attached to Italy—“‘sive ea natalis soli sola dulcedo

est, sive rerum extimatio ... nichil omino terrarum sub celo esse quod Italie comparari queat, seu nature seu hominum consideres ornamenta.”” He mentions his recent receipt of a similar

invitation from King John of France, which he had similarly *On these two documents and on Rudolf’s claim see Piur 2, pp. 119-123, and the many references there given. Piur prints both documents.

228 CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR , declined. Then, by a natural transition, he comes to the subject of the Emperor’s neglect of Italy, noting that the Emperor has accorded him the right to speak freely, and has even praised him

for the freedom of his speech. If that neglect continues, Petrarch says, he may so record it in his writings that it may be known to posterity: Et si pergis, scripto etiam, ne non predictum queri possis, te notatum posteris tradere sim ausurus. Quid enim agis, oro te, Cesar? quid moliris, quid cuntaris? unde autem nisi tuo de labore gloriam speras?

All that he has said to the Emperor previously on this score is even more applicable now. The opportunity is passing, life itself is passing. The folly of leaving undone what may then never be done is illustrated by a series of perfectly apposite quotations from Horace, Virgil, Lucan, Statius, Juvenal, and Persius, and

the theme of fatal postponement is developed at length. “In consiliis vitam teris. Consilia vero nisi in actum prodeant, nudi

sunt cogitatus et inanes cure.” The Emperor must render an accounting of his stewardship: he must render such an accounting to himself, to his contemporaries, to posterity, and to the Eternal Emperor. The expedition of 1354-1355 is thus

summarized: |

venisti, inquam, atque . . . invenisti aperta et prona omnia que obstrusa et ardua videbantur. Intrasti Mediolanum, inde Romam, in quibus geminum dyadema sortitus, erectis in spem magnam populis atque urbibus, subito in Germaniam remeasti. Cur autem

aut quis te error seu quis horror perculit? an forte quorundam seditiosorum motiunculas timuisti? . . . Nesciebas quod nullum sine fluctibus mare est, nullus sine ventis mons, nullum sine curis im-

perium? |

If the Emperor maintains that he was drawn back to Bohemia not through fear but through love of his own patria, Petrarch’s answer will be that love of one’s own patria is indeed praise-

worthy, but that nothing is dearer than virtus. Nor need the Emperor be detained longer by unwillingness to leave Bohemia

_ without an heir to the throne: the happy event of the birth of the Emperor’s son removes that difficulty. Moreover the Em-

1361: MARCH - JUNE 229 peror’s true patria is not Bohemia but Rome: “propria Cesarum domus ac vera patria Roma est; quin et comunis omnium est patria, rerum caput, orbis atque urbium regina.” There follows a reference to the pledge given by Charles to the Pope in 1355 that he would not remain in Rome—a pledge that deprived the

Empire of its Emperor, and the Emperor of his freedom. He should therefore obtain a dispensation from observance of that _ pledge, a dispensation that could be granted either by the Pope who exacted the pledge or by a succeeding Pope. This letter has been written, Petrarch says at the end, in accordance with the compulsion of his own thoughts. In a second letter, which is to be confidential, he will state his opinion, as the Emperor has requested him to do, with regard to the Privileges ascribed

to Caesar and to Nero. |

This second letter 1s Sen. xvi 5, dated also on 21 March. Petrarch has no hesitation in pronouncing both documents to be crude falsifications, and gives his reasons. Caesar when speak-

ing of himself used always the first person singular, never the first person plural: this is shown by his surviving letters [preserved in writings of Cicero and Josephus], from which Petrarch quotes extensively to prove his point. Caesar never used the name Augustus. The document refers to an uncle of Caesar: there is no classic reference to the existence of such an uncle. The document has no addressee: Privileges always specify the person or persons to whom they are addressed. The document refers to Austria in the words “Plage orientalis terre”: the adjective “orientalis” is not properly applicable to Austria, especially if considered from the point of view of Rome. It is absurd to suppose that Caesar could have dated an official document in terms of the day of the week rather than in terms of the day

of the month. Caesar never referred to his domination as a “regnum.” The flaws in the document ascribed to Nero are

similar. The Tuesday of this document is as absurd as the Friday

of the other one. And the term “amicus deorum” is flagrantly inappropriate for one whom Suetonius calls “religionum usque-

quaque contemptor.” Finally, the style of both documents is so “rudis ac nouus,” so affected, and so erroneous as to prove _

230 CHAPTER TWENTY - FOUR in itself that the documents, far from being classic, are recent fabrications. The fabricator is referred to as “ille trifurcifer,” “alle bos,” and “hunc asellum importunissime nunc rudentem.” *

It seems probable, on the whole, that a third and undated letter to the Emperor, Fam. xxi 3, was written at this same time. This is a brief but urgent recommendation that the Emperor reward Sagremor substantially for his long and faithful service, and make it possible for him to discontinue his constant hard and dangerous journeying: “fac ut hic vir fidus ac nobilis,

qui luventam suam pro tua gloria tot laboribus atterit, te duce teque auspice possit in senectute quiescere.”’ ° On 21 March, also, Petrarch dated his reply to Jan ze Streda,

Fam. xxi 6. In this brief letter Petrarch disclaims the right to be called Jan’s “magistrum et dominum,” but thanks Jan for his

courtesy. He supposes that Jan will read to the Emperor the long letters that he has written. He sends with this letter a complete copy of his Bucolicum carmen, the first complete copy,

he says, that he has ever given to anyone [the copy that he had given to Boccaccio was not quite complete: see above, p. 183]. * Petrarch’s exclusion of this remarkable letter from the collection of the Familiares was presumably due to the fact that when finishing that collection he still felt bound to regard this letter as confidential: a dozen years later, when finishing the collection of the Seniles, he evidently felt that the need for regarding it as confidential had passed. It is possible, however, that he had simply been reserving the letter for final revision—as he had done in the cases of Sen. xvi 8 and 9, which had been written in 1354. This letter is printed in Piur 2, pp. 114-119. _ * This letter was certainly written within a period beginning with the spring of 1361 and ending with the spring of 1363: see Piur 2, p. 128. Within this period there were at least four occasions—in March 1361, in July 1361, in March 1362, and in March 1363—when Sagremor presumably left Italy for Prague: on each of these occasions Petrarch wrote _ both to the Emperor and to the Chancellor (the letters in question are Fam. xxmt 2 and Sen. xvi 5, and Fam. xxiu 7 and 8, 9 and 10, and 14 and 15). Fam. xxut 3 might have been written on any one of these occasions, or on some other occasion within the period indicated. The rather slight probability that it was written in March 1361 rests on two considerations:

the fact of its position immediately after Fam. xxi 2, and the fact that its opening words, “Tacitus transire decreveram,” suggest that Petrarch had hesitated to add this personal plea to the two major letters that he

was sending to the Emperor at this time. |

1361: MARCH - JUNE 231 He wishes that the carmen might have been accompanied by

an exposition or better by an expositor (himself); but he has no hope of seeing Jan again unless and until the Emperor comes again to Italy. At the end of the letter he speaks warmly of Sagremor. April—June

_ As the spring advanced the inroads of the plague in Milan became more and more serious; and by the beginning of the summer its ravages were becoming catastrophic. Both Galeazzo and Bernabo Visconti took refuge in castles elsewhere in their

dominions.* |

In mid-June or earlier Petrarch went to Padua. Just when he went we do not know: he had apparently been there, however, for some time before 22 June, when he dated a letter, Misc. 9, “Padue, raptim, festinante nunctio, xxi° Tuna.” ® On 5 June—perhaps in Milan, perhaps in Padua—he received from Florence a manuscript containing an anonymous life of Innocent II, anonymous lives of several other popes, of the 9th and later centuries, and the Liber de calamitatibus Siciliae of Hugues Foucaut. After receiving this MS, perhaps immediately, he wrote in it a note, now illegible, which was last read as “Missus de Florentia ubi mee... anno 1361, 5 un ad ues [perum].” °

When he left Milan, and at least as late as 18 July, he expected to resume residence there: Fam. xxui 8, written in Padua

on that date, shows that he still considered himself bound to consult the Visconti before accepting an invitation from the Emperor. In point of fact, though he did return to Milan or to Pavia not infrequently, he never resumed residence in Milan.

His relations with the Visconti remained cordial, however, as

will appear in Chapter XXVI. *Giulini, Part XI, 95-107, and Azario-Cognasso, pp. 145-146. | ° Vattasso 1, pp. 16-17. Foresti 1, pp. 401-402, proves that the letter was written in 1361. ° Nolhac, u, 213-214. This MS is now in the Bibliotheque Nationale,

as Par. 5150. aa

| CHAPTER XXV 1353-1361; Addenda In addition to the several instances, mentioned in previous chapters, in which Petrarch, while in Milan, revised one or another of his earlier writings, or made interpolations in them, there must have been a far greater number of instances of revision or interpolation that we cannot date. The present chapter will be concerned mainly with interpolations that can be identified as made in Milan but cannot be assigned to a particular year,

and to new writings that are of the Milanese period but cannot

be assigned to a particular year within that period. Certain Milanese experiences of Petrarch that cannot be assigned to a particular year will be mentioned at the end of the chapter. The Canzoniere

It seems probable that it was toward the end of Petrarch’s

residence in Milan that he wrote this well known and very

moving sonnet (No. 365): | I vo piangendo i miei passati tempi

I quai posi in amar cosa mortale, , , Senza levarmi a volo, abbiend’ io I’ale, |

| Par dar forse di me non bassi exempi. | Tu che vedi i miei mali indegni et empi, Re del cielo invisibile immortale,

Soccorri a l’alma disviata e frale, | FE ’| suo defecto di tua gratia adempi: | Si che, s’lo vissi in guerra et in tempesta, Mora in pace et in porto; et se la stanza

Fu vana, almen sia la partita honesta. _ | _ A quel poco di viver che m’avanza Et al morir, degni esser tua man presta: Tu sai ben che ’n altrui non 0 speranza. 23200—~O

1353 - 1361: ADDENDA 233 It is quite possible that several of the other poems contained in the latter part of the Canzoniere were written in Milan.

The De vita solitaria The long interpolation in Book II on the solitude of St. Ambrose, quoted in part above, must have been written within the years 1353-1356, since it contains a sentence, apparently an interpolation within the long interpolation, that was certainly written at the end of 1356. The long interpolations regarding St. Martin and the Brahmans were in all probability written in

the same period, but can hardly be more closely dated (see above, p. 83). A long interpolation in Book II, in the section on the solitude

of Peter the Hermit, is devoted to the distressful state of Europe.’ It is obviously possible that its several elements were written and inserted at various times. The three elements that would seem to be fairly closely datable will now be quoted and

discussed. | |

(1) Gallus et Britannus litigant; quinque iam lustra volvuntur, ex quo non Cristus et Maria, sed Mars et Bellona inter illos reges regnant, cumque iam ferrum utrinque lentescat, nichil ferrei animi molliuntur, necdum imber sanguineus tantos irarum lenit ardores. _ Itaque tametsi, quod inopinabile apud nos apud avos ac proavos

inauditum erat, hunc modo longe nostrorum regum maximum multo impar hostis in vincula traxerit, nec fortuna amplius tanti regni pondus ferre potuerit, nullus tamen ideo rerum finis, primogenito capti regis arma retentante. Unde ut vides nunc maxime

bellum tonat, nunc ex integro regii coeunt exercitus, et Cristo refundendus sanguis invidie consecratur. _ | The opening clause, through regnant, is most naturally to be taken to mean that twenty-five years have passed since the beginning of the war between France and Britain. Since the Hundred Years’ War began in 1337, this would seem to indicate that the clause was written in or about 1362. To be sure, the volvuntur is in the present tense, and Petrarch might therefore have used these words without inaccuracy in or after 1357; and * Prose, 486—488; Zeitlin, pp. 241-242.

234 CHAPTER TWENTY - FIVE it is possible also that the time-suggestion of the quinque lustra is intended to be merely general. Nevertheless, the probability

is that this clause was written in or about 1362. It may next be noted that there is an obvious inconsistency between the clause cumque .. . lentescat, which indicates that warfare 1s dying out, and the final sentence, which indicates that warfare is being resumed. King John of France was taken captive in September 1356: that month is then a definite terminus post quem for the two sentences beginning with Itaque. The passage contains no reference to his release from captivity, which resulted from the treaty of Bretigny, signed in May 1360: that month is then a definite terminus ante quem for these two sentences. The King’s son Charles began preparations for a renewal

of the war against England in June 1358; and actual fighting began in October 1359. It is then probable that the last two sentences of the passage quoted were written, at least in substance, late in 1359 or early in 1360; and that the preceding part of the passage was inserted in or about 1362, with the making of some verbal adjustments, but without removing the obvious inconsistency that has been noted.

The Secretum The revised form of the Secretum, finished in 1358, as stated above (on p. 176), contains several passages that are presumably

interpolations, but none, in my judgment, that are definitely assignable to the period of Petrarch’s residence in Milan.® * Delachenal, 11, 92 and 146-147.

*Sabbadini 1, pp. 26-27, thinks that a reference to the raid in which robbers set fire to Petrarch’s house in Vaucluse (see above, p. 89), is to be found in this passage in the latter part of Book II (Prose, pp. 118vo r. Illa ne tibi inaudita est Fortune novercantis immanitas, cum uno die me spesque et Opes meas et genus et domum impulsu stravit impio?

Aug. ... Unum igitur hoc admonuisse sufficiet: si enim non privatarum modo familiarum sed notissimas tibi regnorum ex omnibus seculis recoles ruinas, nonnichil tibi tragediarum lectio profuerit ut non pudeat tuguriolum

tuum cum tot regiis edibus conflagrasse. — - : That raid, however, had no such effect on the fortunes of Petrarch and

1353 - 1361: ADDENDA 235 The De remedius

_ Petrarch had begun the writing of the De remediis—first called De remedus ad utranque fortunam—by the spring of 1354

(see above, pp. 66 and 69-71); and had finished a first form of it by 1360, since in December of that year he wrote to Guido Sette that he (Guido) would have received a copy long since were it not that he (Petrarch) had been unable to copy it or

to get it copied (see above, pp. 218-219). There is ample evidence that the final form of the work (the only form that is available in print) contains elements added in the years 13611366.4

Heitman, who has searched the work with a fine industry, has found only a few passages in it that are even approximately datable; some of these are clearly additions made after Petrarch

had left Milan; and others might either have appeared in the first form or been added in the final form. It 1s however virtually certain that the Preface was written for the first form—probably at a time when Petrarch was finishing his work on that form. It follows that the Preface as a whole and most or all of its elements may be regarded as having been written before 1360. Among its elements are a reference to the

experiences of Azzo da Correggio at the time of the uprising in Verona in the spring of 1354, and a reference to the capture of King John in September 1356. The passages in the body of the work concerning events that took place in the years 1354~-1360—passages that appeared

probably, but not certainly, in the first form of the work—are a reference in I 89 to the death of Cola di Rienzo, which occurred in October 1354; references in I 14, I 37, and apparently his family as is indicated by the words “cum uno die. . . impulsu stravit impio”: the reference is unquestionably to the exile of Petrarch’s father and the confiscation of the family property. Augustine’s “ut non pudeat . .. conflagrasse” is purely metaphorical. In point of fact, although the robbers did set fire to Petrarch’s house, it did not burn: “Testudo vetus incendio restitit,” he says in Sen. x 2 (Prose, p. 1106).

*Heitman, passim. :

236 , CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE | _ elsewhere, to the capture of King John; and references in I 88 and II 91 to the earthquake of 1356. It seems probable also that most of the several references to the Historia augusta were made

after Petrarch acquired his copy of that work in the spring of — 1356. The reference in I 37 to the restitution of the ring that

_ had been torn from the hand of King John at the battle of Poitiers must be later than 1360, but may have been written in 1361 before Petrarch left Milan. In the Preface Petrarch speaks of the work as “paucissimis diebus ceptum perfectumque.” It is of course impossible that a work so massive and so remarkably varied in its contents should

actually have been written in a few days: Petrarch’s phrase, as has been said above (on p. 71), is obviously nothing more than

_ an extreme instance of his habit of making deprecatory references to his own works. That he spent a great many days in the writing and perfecting of the De remediis is beyond question; but in view of his other manifold occupations, and indeed of his general habits of composition and revision, it 1s certain that his work on the De remediis was intermittent rather than continuous.

Part of the work was done in the country, probably at Garegnano in the summer of 1357, though perhaps at Pagazzano. In the Preface to Book II Petrarch writes: “Rure enim nunc Italico habitanti: vnum hoc ex multis estivis tediis esse ceperit. Sic mihi ad uesperam & insultus volucrum: & lapidum collisio: & villici clamor durat.”’

The Collection of the Familiares The preparation of the collection of the Familiares, which had reached a point in Book IV when Petrarch came to Milan and a point in Book X at some time in 1357, continued to and beyond the end of Petrarch’s residence in Milan. This preparation involved a careful revision of the letters concerned, a revision that sometimes included the making of omissions or inter-

_ polations. The character and extent of the changes made may be readily observed by examining, in Rossi’s edition, the differences between the missive form and the final form (the gamma

1353 - 1361: ADDENDA 237 and alpha forms, in Rossi’s terminology) in the limited number of cases in which the missive form is extant. There are about forty such cases in Books V-XVI, the most notable being VI 2, VII 12 and 14, VIII 2-9, IX 1, 4, 11 and 13, XII 8, and XVI 6. There are three cases in which what had been actually a single letter was broken into two or more letters: in one case a single

letter became VIII 2-5, in another case a single letter became VIII 6-9, and in another case a letter was broken into two parts, one of which became XII 8, while the other became Sine nom. 5.

Certain Letters Written in Milan There remain to be considered five letters that were written during Petrarch’s residence in Milan, but are not assignable to a particular year: Fam. xx 4, xxi 4, xxm 13 and xxiv 1, and Var. 52.

Fam. xx 4 1s an answer to letters received from Marco Portonario of Genoa, to whom Petrarch had previously written Fam. ut 12, apparently about 1340, and Fam. xvi 9 (for which

see above, p. 49), probably late in 1353. When Fam. m1 12 was written, Marco, though doing well in governmental service, was troubled by a feeling that he ought to retire from the world and enter a religious order. Now, much later, Marco had turned to the study of law, and in the letters received by Petrarch had

asked for encouragement that would help him to persevere in his new enterprise. It was not easy for Petrarch to comply with

this request, since he himself in his youth had disliked and abandoned the study of the law; but he does the best he can, and writes, in fact, at great length. In ancient times, he says, the law was cultivated from the love of virtue and of justice, and many jurists won glory, especially those who were orators as well. Success such as theirs requires not only great gifts of intelligence and memory, but also the ability to parry the thrusts of legal adversaries and the ability to prepare cases carefully and to state them eloquently. Most modern lawyers, however, are concerned only with money-making; they have no know!ledge of ancient law, and busy themselves only with what the

238 CHAPTER TWENTY - FIVE present law has to say of contracts, decisions, and wills. Having

fallen first “a doctrine multiplicis et celestis arce facundie ad unam equitatis ac civilis scientie disciplinam,” the law has now fallen further “ad loquacem ignorantiam.” If Marco had asked Petrarch’s advice before committing himself to the study of the law, Petrarch would have warned him of the many difficulties and frustrations that would lie in the way of an honorable jurist.

As it is, Petrarch bids him hold to the profession which, after long indecision, he has chosen: “Incipe bona fide, precor, unum velle.” Even under present conditions it is possible for a jurist to deserve and to win praise, if only his purpose, unlike that of most lawyers of the time, is to become a defender of justice, a

preserver of the state, a terror to the audacity of advocates, a curb on the avarice of judges, a harbor for the oppressed, and a rock of refuge for the innocent. The letter is dated in Milan, on a 28 May. Nothing in the

letter itself affords evidence as to the year in which it was written. Fam. xx 1 and 2 are of 1355, 3 is probably of 1357, and all the remaining eleven letters are certainly or probably of 1358 or 1359. On 28 May 1356 Petrarch had started on his journey to Prague. It 1s then probable that Fam. xx 4 was written in 1355, 1357, 1358, or 1359.

Fam. xxi 4 1s a brief but kindly reply to a letter from Bartolomeo da Genova, a student at the University of Bologna, who had written previously to Petrarch, asking evidently that Petrarch write to him, and had now written again wondering why he had received no answer to his previous letter. Fam. xx1 4

has this pleasant opening: “Amicum facie ignotum in literis video; florens atque integra est etas, ardens ingenium expeditum

velox, leta mens et otio abundans, amicitie multa vis.” In the course of the letter Petrarch speaks of his weariness, and points out that while old and young are both travelling along the same road of life they are at very different points on that road: “ubi es fui, ubi sum eris.””» When Bartolomeo is as old as Petrarch is

now, he will realize that a man of such an age is so beset with

cares that he can hardly keep up an active correspondence. Petrarch assures Bartolomeo that he counts him as a friend, but

1353 - 1361: ADDENDA 239 says frankly that he cannot undertake to write to him frequently

or at length. |

While there is nothing in the letter itself that indicates when it was written, its position in the Fammuiliares does afford evidence:

Letters 1-3 and 5-13 of Book XXI stand in the order in which

they were written, thus: |

1-2 30 April 1357 3 26 October ”?

5-7 25 March 1358 910-11 23 15 June 1359 October ” 12 13 November ”

8 23 May ” 13 7 December ”

It is then virtually certain that Fam. xx1 4 was written in the period 1357-1359, and probable that it was written late in 1357 or early in 1358; but there is nothing to indicate whether a date before or after the end of 1357 is more probable. Fam. xxi 13, addressed to Socrates, answers a letter in which Socrates had complained that he was losing the fruits of his own labors. Petrarch’s letter opens with the sentence “Egre fers quod in labores tuos alter irruperit,” and 1s in effect a little treatise on the “Sic vos non vobis” theme. It is not dated, and the only clue

to the time when it was written lies in a sentence which reads in part thus: “Ad id vero quod michi tam obnixe gratias agis, quasi fortunarum tuarum propugnatori unico...” This appears to be a reference to Petrarch’s intervention on behalf of Socrates in June 1359 (see above, p. 190): if so, the letter is presumably of late 1359 or 1360. Fam. xxi 12, which stands just before it, is the long treatise on patience written to Guido Sette on 1 December 1360. Fam. xxim 13, even if written somewhat earlier, might well have been given its place in the collection as a minor

companion to xxi 12. Fam. xxiv 1, addressed to Philippe de Cabassoles, 1s a treatise

on the swift flight of time and the brevity of life. The doctrine that pervades the letter is set forth eloquently, and is illuminated

240 CHAPTER TWENTY - FIVE by apposite quotations from several Latin poets, from Seneca and from Cicero, from Augustine, and from David. The conclusion of the whole matter is that one should hold life lightly, and should accept calmly the thought of its inevitable end. ‘The

continuing interest of the letter lies largely in its reminiscent passages. At the start Petrarch refers to the fact that he had written a letter on the same theme thirty years before—“Ante hos triginta annos”’—to the jurist Raymond Subirani; and that reference leads him to the mention of other experiences and traits of his youth, such as his habit of noting, in the margins of the books he owned, passages relevant to the flight of time. Whatever his looks may then have been—“seu ille oris verus decor seu error esset etatis”—he is of the opinion that his early youth was marked by a definite clarity of intelligence, which, however, was soon dimmed: “fumus rerum hebetavit visum, et - etas impetuosior primevum illud animi lumen extinxit.” He has now regained some measure of understanding—“nunc videre aliquid incipio”—particularly with reference to the flight of time; and he has learned, in consequence, not to be concerned about things that matter much to most men. Considerations of this sort had kept him from marrying, and from the continuance of his study of the law. The letter gives a glimpse into a minor

habit of Petrarch’s: at one point he says that, being uncertain what to say next, he had been tapping on the blank paper with the end of his pen—“hec inter, ut assolet, papirum vacuam inverso calamo feriebam.”

It was doubtless the pervading solemnity of this letter that led Petrarch to give it its place of honor as the opening letter of the last Book of the Fazziliares. Since Subirani died ‘before 8 June 1330, Fam. 1 3 must have been written not later than the summer of 1330, and Fam. xxiv 1 must have been written not later than 1360; Fam. 1 3 may have been written before 1330, and Fam. xxiv 1 may have been written before 1360. The fact

of Petrarch’s youth in 1330 and the fact that only one other extant letter of his, Fam. 1 2, can possibly be of a date earlier than 1330 indicate that Faz. 1 3 can hardly have been written much before 1330. All these facts and the solemnity of Fam.

1353 - 1361: ADDENDA 241 xxiv 1 in its general content and its general tone justify the conclusion that Fam. xxiv 1 was written in 1360 or not long

before that year.° | Var. 52 is a reply to a letter written by Stefano Colonna in

Avignon, to which city he had recently returned from Rome. In this letter Stefano had expressed his regret that fortune had deprived both Petrarch and himself of the otivm that they both desired, and had promised to do anything he could to make solitude and freedom possible for Petrarch. In his reply, dated in Milan on a 30th of July, Petrarch thanks Stefano for his letter, his sympathy, and his promise, but says that he has learned to

attain solitude and freedom even in cities: ‘in mediis urbibus ... mihi solitudinem atque ottum conflare [didici] .. . contraque rerum atque hominum fastidia aures atque oculos et proinde animum obstruere.” He appreciates Stefano’s promise, but does

not think that the promised effort could be successful under present circumstances, “quando boni nihil, omnia mali possunt.” He had heard from Laelius that Stefano had been intending to pass through Milan on his way back to Avignon, and had been

expecting him: now that Stefano has reported his return to Avignon by another route, Petrarch is disappointed, but is glad to know of Stefano’s safe arrival. This letter could hardly have been written in July 1353, but might have been written in any later July during Petrarch’s residence in Milan except that of 1356, when Petrarch was in Prague.*® °On the date of the death of Subirani see Foresti, “Noterelle pe-

trarchesche,” in R. Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere, Rendiconti (Lettere), Lxx1 (1938), 540. I have previously assented to the opinion that Fam. 1 2 was a fictitious letter (see Billanovich 1, pp. 47-53, and Wilkins 1, pp. 311-317); but the reference to Fam. 1 3 in Fam. xx 1 now seems to prove that Fam. 1 3 is an actual letter, though it may well be that it was substantially revised when Petrarch prepared it for inclusion in the collection of the Familiares. Philippe was made Patriarch of Jerusalem on 18 August 1361 (Eubel, pp. 179 and 276): the fact that this letter is addressed to him as Bishop of Cavaillon indicates that it was written before Petrarch heard of Philippe’s promotion, but it does

not in itself suffice to prove that it was written before the end of Petrarch’s residence in Milan.

°This letter is discussed and translated by Henry Cochin in his

242 CHAPTER TWENTY - FIVE There are four other letters, Fam. xxur 1, 11, and 17, and Var. 14, that may have been written either before or after Petrarch left Milan. It seems to me probable that they were written after he left rather than before; and they will therefore not be treated here. Certain Letters Addressed to Petrarch

In one of the last years of Petrarch’s residence in Milan Giacomino da Mantova, a “doctor gramatice” whose home was in Verona, brought him a letter of recommendation beginning Amantissime pater (LAP 76), from Paolo de Bernardo, one of

Petrarch’s Venetian friends. In the course of this brief letter Paolo says that he had thought that Petrarch was still in Padua, but had learned from Giacomino that he had returned to Milan. The letter ends with a request that Petrarch give Giacomino a letter to be brought back to Paolo.’ There were three occasions on which Petrarch returned to Milan after a stay in Padua: in — February 1359 (see above, p. 177); in the spring or summer of 1360 (see above, p. 205); and in January 1362 [Sen.1 3]. In the third case, however, Petrarch had been intending to go to Provence, and his stay in Milan was presumably to have been brief. Giacomino, therefore, could hardly have advised Paolo to address Petrarch in Milan, and could hardly have undertaken to deliver a letter to him in Milan. Paolo’s letter, therefore, is probably either of 1359 or 1360. A letter from Jan ze Streda beginning Stili magistralis ap“Note sur Stefano Colonna,” in Société des Antiquaires de la Morinie, Bulletin, vir (1887), 149-151. It is mentioned also by Claude Cochin, pp. 563-564. Knowledge of Stefano’s movements is so slight that the fact of his return from Rome to Avignon gives no clue as to the date of this letter. * See Sabbadini, ‘““Giacomino da Mantova commentatore di Terenzio”’

in Accademia Virgiliana di Mantova, Atti e memorie, N.S., vil, u (1915), 4-5; and Lino Lazzarini, Paolo de Bernardo e i primordi dell’ umanesimo in Venezia (= Biblioteca dell Archivum romanicum, S. 1, 13,

Geneva, 1930). Lazzarini discusses the letter on pp. 64-66 and prints it on p. 168. Neither Sabbadini nor Lazzarini discusses adequately the

question of the date of the letter.

1353 - 1361: ADDENDA 243 paratus (LAP 68) is devoted mainly to praise of Petrarch and to self-depreciation. Regards are sent from Arnost z Pardubic and from Bishop Ocko, and reference is made to the Emperor’s desire, and Jan’s own desire, to see a copy of the De viris. To Piur there seems to be a slight probability that this letter was written in 1358 or 1359 rather than earlier or later:* he may be right, but as far as I can see this letter may have been written at any time after Petrarch’s mission to Prague in 1356 and before the death of Bishop O¢ko in 1364. It may have been either before or after the end of Petrarch’s

residence in Milan that he received from his physician-friend Albertino da Cannobio an epistola metrica, dealing with the medical profession, which is summarized thus by Negroni:

or dunque scriveva Albertino, che in verita poco era da confidare nella medicina professata e nei farmachi preparati, come allora per solito avveniva, da ciurmadori; ma soggiungeva che a Novara la medicina veniva esercitata secondo una soda e regionevole dottrina, e 1 medicamenti apprestati secondo i dettami della verace

scienza. |

Negroni prints some forty of the quite uninspired lines of the epistola, including these three, with which it ends: Remigibus nautae, cultores ruris aratris, Armis belligeri, messores falcibus uti, Auxiliatores medici1 medicamine prosunt.?

*Prur 2, pp. 94-97. ,

° Negroni, pp. 10-15 and 61-62, indicates, none too clearly, that he found this epistola “in alcune scritture dell’Avvocato Francesco Antonio

Bianchini,” who apparently had found it in a copy of an oration delivered in 1791 in the University of Pavia by Professor Vincenzo Malacarne. Negroni asserts that this was the letter, inviting Petrarch to come

to Cannobio to escape the plague, to which Fam. xxu 12 is the reply (see above, pp. 217-218). He may be right, but the passages that he quotes do not mention the plague; the letter to which Fam. xxu 12 1s the reply contained a comment on Petrarch’s financial status that could hardly have found place in an epistola metrica; and Fam. xxu 12 does

not mention the receipt of an epistola metrica. This epistola should have been accounted for on p. 32 of my The “Epistolae metricae” of Petrarch, a Manual (Rome, 1956): I did not know of its existence when I prepared that manual.

244 CHAPTER TWENTY - FIVE An Astrologer and Two Doctors

Petrarch’s friendship for the astrologer who has been mentioned in earlier chapters (see pp. 75-76 and 200) continued; and Petrarch—whose scorn for astrology was mingled with his liking for this man, respect for his real learning, and pity for his need to support a large family—reproached him often for his professional practice. But one day the astrologer

ur 1]. : | said, as if he were waking from sleep, and sighing deeply, “Nihil amice hac in parte sentio nisi quod tu. Sed ita viuere oportet.” Thereafter Petrarch ceased his reproaching [Sez.

In a letter written after he had left Milan [Sen. m1 8] Petrarch contrasts thus the manners of two doctors who attended him during a Milanese illness: One of them came quietly to my bedside, and after carefully feel-

ing my pulse went into the next room and gave the appropriate directions to my servants: he then came back into my room, spoke encouraging words to me, and left. . . . The other sat down as soon as he came in, stayed on as if he were rooted there, and stunned me

with his flow of words, doing his utmost to seem eloquent... . In order to get rid of him I had sometimes to pretend that something had happened to me.

Needless to say, Petrarch preferred the first doctor: he would have dismissed the other were it not that he did not want to hurt the man’s reputation.

CHAPTER XXVI | A Summary of Petrarch’s Life and Work After Leaving Milan 1361-1362: First Residence in Padua

1361. Throughout the second half of the year Petrarch remained in Padua, living in the cathedral close. He was on very friendly terms with Francesco da Carrara, the lord of the city. In July word came to him that his son Giovanni had died of the plague, in Milan. In July, also, having received from the Emperor an invitation to visit him in Prague, he replied that he

would come in the autumn if he could arrange to do so. In August he heard of the death of Socrates; and soon thereafter he learned of the death of Zanobi da Strada. Innocent VI then offered him the apostolic secretaryship left vacant by Zanobi’s death; but he declined the offer, suggesting Nelli as a candidate. Toward the end of the year he decided to go to Provence, for the sake of being again in Vaucluse, and in the hope of being able to promote Nelli’s candidacy. 1362. He started his journey in January; but after reaching Milan he found that warfare made the roads to the west unsafe.

He remained in Milan at least until the latter part of March; and while there he received another urgent invitation from the Emperor, which he promised to accept. In May he was back in Padua. He had planned to start thence for Prague; but warfare prevented him from undertaking the journey. In the course of the summer he wrote to the Venetian Senate offering

to bequeath his books to Venice, as the nucleus of a public library, if the Senate would provide him with a house in Venice.

It was perhaps within this period that Petrarch’s daughter Francesca married Francescuolo da Brossano. 245

246 CHAPTER TWENTY - SIX In this period, as in each of the later periods, he wrote many letters; within this period he virtually finished the collection of his Familiares (he was to make a few later insertions) and he initiated the collection of his Seniles; and within this period

he did some work on the De vita solitaria. ) 1362-1367: Residence in Venice 1362. In September the Venetian Senate accepted Petrarch’s proposal and assigned him a house on the Riva degli Schiavoni,

and he moved at once to Venice. Throughout his residence _ there he went not infrequently to Padua (only about twenty miles away). In the autumn of 1362 he received word of the death of Azzo da Correggio. In the autumn, also, Innocent VI died, and was succeeded by Urban V, who almost immediately ~ endeavored—in vain—to get Petrarch to return to Avignon. It

| was perhaps in 1362, though perhaps in one of the two following years, that Petrarch’s first grandchild was born—a girl to whom the name of Petrarch’s mother, Eletta, was given. Work on the fourth or “Chigi” form of the Canzoniere, begun by 1359, ended not later than 1362, perhaps earlier. 1363. In the late spring and summer Boccaccio spent three months with Petrarch. Leontius Pilatus was also with Petrarch

at this time, but left soon after Boccaccio did. In the course of the spring and summer death took three more of Petrarch’s dearest friends, Nelli, Laelius, and Barbato da Sulmona. Since the capture of Pavia in 1359 Galeazzo Visconti had been spend-

ing much time there; and, wishing to have Petrarch near him again, he offered him the occupancy of a house at the edge of the city. To Pavia, accordingly, Petrarch went in the autumn of 1363. Returning to Venice about the Ist of December, he found the city much concerned over a rebellion in Crete, where Venetian forces had just suffered a serious defeat; and he—a Venetian for the time being—shared in that concern.

1364. The Doge, who was trying to get Luchino dal Verme as commander of the Venetian forces, requested Petrarch

to write to Luchino urging his acceptance, and Petrarch did

AFTER LEAVING MILAN 247 so. In the spring Petrarch went to Bologna to pay his respects to Cardinal Androin de la Roche, who had come to Italy as papal legate; and from Bologna he went on to the Casentino to visit Roberto di Battifolle.t Luchino dal Verme took command of the Venetian forces; his expedition to Crete was successful; and in the summer the victory was celebrated in Venice, first with religious observances, then with various spectacles, and finally with displays of horsemanship and jousting, held in the great Piazza. The Doge watched from the loggia over the door of St. Mark’s; and for two days Petrarch, on the Doge’s invitation, sat at his right hand—thereafter excusing himself on the ground of his many occupations. Through most of the summer Bartolomeo Carbone dei Papazurni, newly appointed Archbishop of Patras, was his house guest. In

the late summer Petrarch took into his service the brilliant

young Giovanni Malpaghini, who helped him in various ways with his literary work, and was like a son to him. Early in the autumn, suffering greatly from the itch, Petrarch went to Abano, near Padua, and took the baths there.

1365. In this year Petrarch went to Pavia before the end of the summer, and remained there until December, going once

or twice, at least, to Milan. In the latter part of the year—or possibly very early in 1366—he learned of the death of Leontius

Pilatus. , 1366. In the early part of the year Petrarch’s daughter Fran-

cesca was living in his house in Venice; and there, in January _ or February, her second child, Francesco, was born. It was in all probability early in this year that Petrarch at last received from Boccaccio copies of Leontius’ translations of the Iliad

and the Odyssey. Early in June he finally sent to Philippe de Cabassoles—by Sagremor de Pommiers—a finished copy of

the De vita solitaria. Late in June he wrote to Pope Urban V a letter of extraordinary length—the letter that constitutes the entire Book VII of the Seniles—urging him to return to Rome. _ +¥For this item see my article, “Petrarch and Roberto di Battifolle,” forthcoming in SP.

248 | CHAPTER TWENTY - SIX In July he went to Pavia, where he remained into December. The autograph manuscript of the De remediis was subscribed in Pavia on 4 October. By the end of that month Petrarch, with the help of Giovanni Malpaghini, had virtually completed the collection of the Familiares; and toward the end of the year Giovanni began the writing of V.L. 3195, the manuscript— autograph in its later portions—of the final form of the Canzoniere. At some time in the course of the year four Venetian devotees of Aristotle expressed the opinion that Petrarch was a “virum bonum, immo optimum,” but “illiteratum prorsus et idiotam”: Petrarch was grievously hurt. 1367. By this year Petrarch’s son-in-law had been appointed

to a minor civic office in Pavia. In or before March Petrarch learned that Sagremor had become a Cistercian monk: much pleased, he wrote to him at great length, sending with his letter a copy of his Penitential Psalms. In April Giovanni Malpaghini came to Petrarch and declared that he was unwilling to remain in Petrarch’s service, giving no reason except that he was sick of writing. Petrarch bade him give up his writing and remain as son and student only, but Giovanni refused to remain without employment, and left, saying that he intended to go to Avignon. In May Petrarch set out for Pavia, travelling by boat up the Po; and on the way he began the writing of his De sui ipsius et mul-

torum ignorantia, his bitter and brilliant invective against the four Aristotelians whose expressed opinion had so stung him. When he reached Pavia he found Giovanni Malpaghini waiting for him, miserable and repentant. In May Petrarch must have been greatly rejoiced by the news that Urban V had left Avignon for Rome. In June several cardinals, on their way from Avignon to join the Pope, passed through Pavia, and one of them

at least, Pierre Roger, talked there with Petrarch. In October he was spending some time “in Mediolanensi rure,” as he pre_ sumably did also on other visits to Pavia. In this year his visit to Pavia apparently lasted well into November. During this period Petrarch engaged from time to time in the revision of his Italian lyrics and of the Triumphs. Transcription of the final manuscript of the Canzomiere, begun by

AFTER LEAVING MILAN 249 Giovanni Malpaghini late in 1366, continued until Giovanni’s rebellion in the following spring. Within this period Petrarch made several insertions in the already supposedly finished Bu-

colicum carmen; finished the De remediis and—as he then thought—the De vita solitaria; and began the De sui ipsius et multorum ignorantia. Perhaps in this period, and certainly in one or both of the two later periods, Petrarch made insertions

in his Epistola posteritati, which he intended to place as the | concluding Book of the Seniles.

1368-1370: Second Residence in Padua 1368. At the very end of 1367 or early in 1368 Petrarch left Venice for Padua. There he continued his work on the Canzoniere and the transcription into V.L. 3195 that had been left unfinished by Giovanni Malpaghini in the previous spring. By May he had entered about a dozen poems in that manuscript— among them two sonnets, Nos. 194 and 197, that he composed at this time as companion pieces to No. 196. Early in 1368, having learned that certain cardinals were bitterly opposed to the reéstablishment of the papacy in Rome, Petrarch wrote another exceedingly long letter, Sen. 1x 1, to Urban, urging him to hold fast to his righteous resolution, and attacking the dissident cardinals. At some time in the spring Giovanni Malpaghini finally left the service of Petrarch, who, now reconciled to his

departure, gave him letters of recommendation. Late in April the Emperor entered Italy with a considerable body of troops, _ in agreement with the enemies of the Visconti; and Petrarch,

with Francesco da Carrara and the Bishop of Padua, went to | Udine to greet him. From Udine, early in May, Charles moved southward, passing through Padua, where Petrarch saw him again. The Visconti now requested Petrarch to come to them, thinking that he might be of service in negotiations with the Emperor. Late in May, accordingly, Petrarch went to Pavia. There, on his arrival, he learned with the utmost distress of the death of his two-year-old grandson, who had been the delight of his aging heart. He wrote a brief and touching epitaph for him, in elegiac distichs; and had it incised on a marble slab which |

250 CHAPTER TWENTY - SIX was placed on an inner wall of the church of San Zeno, above the point of burial.” Early in June he went to Milan as a guest at the celebrations attending the marriage of Galeazzo’s daughter Violante to Lionel, Duke of Clarence. He remained in Milan

nearly a month, suffering from serious trouble in one of his legs. He returned to Pavia early in July, and left by boat for Padua about the middle of the month. His journey took him through regions that were overrun by soldiers; but on learning who he was they brought him gifts of food and wine. Soon after he reached Padua he received a letter from the Pope inviting him to come to Rome; he replied that he would endeavor

to do so. In the late summer Boccaccio visited him again. In September Petrarch must have been very glad to learn that under the auspices of the Emperor a peace treaty had been signed that

was not unfavorable to the Visconti. In the autumn he continued his work on the Canzoniere, and entered about a dozen

more poems in V.L. 3195. 1369. Early in this year Petrarch was having a modest house built in Arqua (about ten miles from Padua, in the Euganean Hills), and was planting trees and bushes and vines around it.’ As yet, however, he continued to live in Padua, in the cathedral close. Early in the year he must have learned, with great satisfaction, that Philippe de Cabassoles had been made a Cardinal. In the late spring and early summer he made a brief visit—his last—to Pavia. After his return, and for all the rest of the year, he suffered from a persistent fever, and was therefore unable to accept a renewed invitation from Urban V. In midsummer the Emperor returned to Bohemia: news of his departure must have brought renewed disappointment to Petrarch. In the course of the year he entered some thirty additional poems in V.L. 3195; and once at least, probably oftener, he made a revision in one of the Triumphs. Work on the Canzoniere and on the Triumphs continued, from time to time, through the rest of his life. *'The church no longer stands. The slab bearing the inscription is

now in the Museo Civico of Pavia. * Nolhac, u, 267.

AFTER LEAVING MILAN 251 1370. On 4 April, in Padua, Petrarch made his Will.* A few days later he set out for Rome; but in Ferrara he suffered an apoplectic stroke, and lay unconscious for more than thirty hours. When he was able to move he returned, by boat, to Padua; and from Padua he wrote to the Pope, telling him of his attempted journey and of its failure. It was presumably within this period that Francesco da Carrara, greatly interested in the general idea of the De viris illus-

tribus, learned apparently that although the work as it stood contained biographies of only twenty-four Roman and Greek heroes Petrarch intended to add twelve more Roman biographies, decided to have a hall in his palace decorated with fresco portraits of the thirty-six; and asked Petrarch to complete a form of the De viris consisting of the biographies of the thirtysix. Petrarch, accordingly, resumed work on the De viris; gave it a new title, Quorundam clarissimorum heroum epithoma; and wrote a new preface, dedicating the work to Francesco; but he

never wrote any of the twelve new biographies that had been planned. Later—perhaps in this same period, perhaps in the next—Francesco asked Petrarch to make a Compendium consisting of short biographies of the same thirty-six heroes: but Petrarch prepared only fourteen of these biographies.®

1370-1374: Residence in Arqua

1370. By late June Petrarch had returned to Arqua, which continued to be his place of residence for the rest of his life, though he was often in Padua. Weakness and ill health beset him now: from time to time he suffered severe attacks, from which however he soon recovered sufficiently to resume at least his literary activities. Late in June he finished the transcription of a copy of the now complete De sui ipsius et multorum ignor*On which see Mommsen 1.

°Both the Epithoma and the Compendium were completed, after Petrarch’s death, by Lombardo della Seta. On the fresco portraits, which

are not extant, see Mommsen, “Petrarch and the Decoration of the Sala Virorum Illustrium in Padua,” in The Art Bulletin, xxx1v (1952),

95-116.

252 CHAPTER TWENTY - SIX antia. In the course of the summer he learned that Urban was thinking of returning to Avignon, and wrote him a letter of

protest. In September Urban did return to Avignon: Petrarch was indignant and distressed. In November he was having an addition to his house built. 1371. News of the death of Urban and of the succession of Pierre Roger, as Gregory XI, must have reached Petrarch early in January. Before long there came to him an invitation from Gregory; but his persistent ill health made journeying impossible. On an evening in May he suffered an attack so severe

that the doctors thought that he would not live through the night; but when they came in the morning they found him writing. He was maintaining a considerable household: a ven-

erable priest lived with him; and he kept servants and three copyists. Guests were frequent: Francesco da Carrara came often to see him. Probably before the end of the year, but possibly quite early in 1372, Petrarch’s daughter and her husband

and their little Eletta came from Pavia to live with him. In

December 1371 war broke out between Padua and Venice. 1372. At some time before May—perhaps even in 1371— Petrarch, having learned that St. Romuald, the founder of the -Camaldulensian Order, had been a devotee of solitude, wrote a long chapter about him for insertion in the De vita solitaria. In 1371 Philippe de Cabassoles had been sent as Papal Legate to Umbria, with residence in Perugia. Petrarch so greatly desired to visit him that—apparently early in 1372—he tried the experiment of riding for a mile, to see whether he could undertake such a journey as would be needed: he found that he would not be able to stand it. In the autumn he must have learned of

Philippe’s death. By November the incursions of Venetian troops into Paduan territory had become so menacing that Arqua was no longer safe; and in that month Petrarch and his family moved into Padua. By the end of 1372 he had entered some fifteen more poems in V.L. 3195. 1373. In January Petrarch sent to Pandolfo Malatesta a copy of the Canzoniere in its then form, which contained about 320 poems. In January, also, there was brought to Petrarch a copy

AFTER LEAVING MILAN 253 of an Invective written by Jean de Hesdin three or four years earlier as a reply to the letter (Sen. rx 1) in which Petrarch had inveighed against the French Cardinals who were then trying to get Urban V to return to Avignon. Petrarch immediately set about writing a counter-reply; and by the end of February he had finished his last Invective, directed Contra eum qui male-

dixit Italie (known also as Apologia contra cuiusdam anonymi Galli calumnias). A letter written in Padua in February ts dated “in egritudinis mee strato.” Before the end of April Petrarch made his translation of Boccaccio’s novella of Griselda. The Paduan-Venetian war dragged on into the summer, when further Paduan resistance became impossible. The peace conditions

imposed by Venice included the requirement that Francesco da Carrara should appear before the Ducal Council to render homage and ask pardon, or should send his son, Francesco Novello, to do so. He sent his son, with Petrarch to serve as orator. On this mission—his last—Petrarch was absent for about

a week: he spoke before the Ducal Council on 2 October.® Thereafter he returned, with his family, to Arqua. There, in November, he wrote for Francesco da Carrara a long and detailed treatise on government, in the form of a letter (Sen. xiv 1, sometimes entitled De republica optime administranda).

1374. On 15 January Petrarch began the making of an autograph copy of the Triumph of Eternity, which he finished on 12 February, though he made some revisions thereafter. By June—perhaps earlier—he had brought the number of poems entered in V.L. 3195 up to 366: he intended to add a few more poems at the end of the first of the two Parts of the Canzomiere, but he never did so. On 8 June he wrote, to Boccaccio, the last

July. |

of his dated letters (Sen. xvut 4), which ends with the words “Valete amici. Valete epistole.” He died in the night of 18-19

* The Latin text of his oration is not extant: a contemporary Italian summary is printed by Vittorio Lazzarini in his “La seconda ambasceria : di Francesco Petrarca a Venezia,” in Miscellanea di studi critici pubblicati in onore di Guido Mazzoni (Florence, 1907), 1, 182-183.

Appendix

chin’s |

A Tabular View of the Correspondence Between Petrarch and Nelli, 1353-1360 *

Co- Dates Letters of Petrarch Letters of Nelli

Nos.

1353 ,

June or July Var. 7 (to the Florentine circle; sent to Nelli)

25 A few days be- A lost letter

fore 4 Aug. , 26 4 Aug. VII 27 Early Aug. xX

28 23 Aug. Fam. xvi 11 29 27 Aug. Fam. xvi 12

(answers Nelli’s x)

10Early 28SeptemAug.A lost VII letter [p. 33]

30. ~A little later Fam. xvi 13 ber

Before 14 Sept- A lost letter [p. 32] tember

31 16 September Fam. xvi 14 (answers Nelli’s virr)

32 18 September Var. 56 Late Septem- A lost letter [p. 36]

ber (answers Nelli’s vir)

11 Late Septem- Var. 44 * This table is continuous with the table in Wilkins 2, pp. 211-212, which covers the period Summer 1351-18 November 1352. We have no

knowledge of any letters written by either man to the other in the period 19 November 1352—May 1353. The numbers in the first column are those assigned to certain letters by Cochin 1, pp. 137-139. In cases of lost letters that are not numbered in Cochin’s list, numbers in square

brackets refer to pages in this book. | 254

APPENDIX 255 ber or October | 33 2 October , XI (answers Fam. xvi Late 1353 A lost letter [p. 46]

14 and Var. 56)

34 January 35 1813 August XIV Ix , 1354

38 A lost letter 1355

39 1 April Fam. xvut 7

A lost letter [p. 92]

40 Fam, xvi 8 Fam. xvi 9 2

37 A lost letter , 41 A lost letter 42 Fam, xvii 10 (answers Nelli’s lost letter)

43 A lost letter

44 16 August xm (answers Fam. xvi 7 and 10)

1356 |

36 14 November Fam. xvi 11 45 25 December Fam. xIx 6

46 3 February xvil (answers Fam. XIX 6) 47March February or Fam. x1x 7 , (answers XVII)

48 March or | A lost letter

April (answered Fam. xix

49 5 April XV 51 19 May Fam, xix 13 —6«50 A lost letter | A lost letter [p. 126] 7)

A lost letter [p. 126]

52 20 September Fam. x1x 14

* See Cochin 1, p. 147, and 2, p. 45. :

256 APPENDIX 53 10 October - XvI_ (answers Fam. —_—__ xIx 13 and 14) | 1357

54 A lost letter 55 31 May Fam. x1x 15

56 September 57 88Sine nom. 17 XVIII

59 A lost letter 4 1358 or earlier

1358 XIX 58 Sine nom. 18 A lost letter

60 19 March

61 17 November Xx haps two lost letters) ——_____— [p. 177]

| A lost letter (per1359

62 17 March | XXI 63 March After(answers 16 Fam. xx 6 | XX) Sine nom. 19

64 11 April Fam, xx 7

65 17 May XXIII (answers XXI)

66 8 June XXII 67 11 September XXIV

(answers Fam. xx 7)

71 A lost letter

68 13 November Fam. xx1 12

69 7 December Fam. xxi 13 70 = Soon after- Fam. xx1 14 ward

pp. 153-154. -

*On Cochin’s numbering of this letter and of later letters see above,

‘In his xxvim, which was written late in 1361 or early in 1362 and | asks Petrarch’s opinion as to whether Statius did or did not finish the Achilleid, Nelli says, in effect, that he is enclosing a letter (now lost) that he had written on the same subject “ferme quinquennium est,” but has never sent. Cochin mentions this lost letter, but does not include it in his list: see Cochin 1, pp. 113-115, and 2, pp. 20-22.

APPENDIX 257 1360

73 XXV 72 20 13 February August XXVI letter [p. 212] 18 September Fam.A lostxxii 10

BLANK PAGE

Index of Persons Entries are made for all persons mentioned by name in this book except

Petrarch, persons of the 18th and later centuries, and divinities. Names ending in a prepositional phrase are entered under the initial of the last element of that phrase.

Acciaiuoli, Angelo 21-22, 111 10, 14, 21-24, 26, 40, 64, 75, 81, 92————, Niccolo 4, 21-22, 24, 96, 107, 93, 110-112, 142-146, 156, 175, 181-

110-112, 171, 177, 209 185, 188-190, 194-195, 206-211, 213-

Adam 20 214, 216, 246-247, 250, 253 Agenor 214 ———-—, Violante 145

Aghinolfi, Giovanni 5, 9, 45-46, 50, Boccanegra, Simone 132, 155

80, 160 Boethius 169, 195

Albornoz, Gil 31-35, 42, 72, 152 Bolanus 25, 36-37, 61, 165-166, 190, Alighieri, Dante 182-183, 188-190 192, 203 St. Ambrose ii, 17, 83, 132, 139, 169, Bombasi, Tommaso 195-196

187, 198, 212, 233 da Borgo San Sepolcro, Dionigi 122

Angelo (of Florence) 124 de’ Bossi, Giacobino 48, 154, 201 Anguissola, Bernardo 46-48, 72, 201 de Boulogne, Gui 68, 90, 127

————, Lancellotto 48 da Brossano, Eletta 246, 252 Anna 123, 133, 166 ————, Francesco 247, 249-250

Annibaldeschi, Paolo 88, 93 ———~—, Francescuolo 48, 245, 248, 252

de Antella, Philippus 194 _ Bussolari, Jacopo 135, 184, 197-198

Antiochus 55-56

de Apibus, Domenico 106 de Cabassoles, Philippe 5, 62-64, 68,

Apuleius 195 179-180, 208-209, 239-241, 247, 250,

Aristotle 169, 248 252

St. Augustine 18, 43, 50, 63, 67, 81,92- Cadmus 214 93, 122, 169, 184, 199, 201, 212, 240 Caesar 99, 128, 226, 229

Augustus 44, 200 Callisthenes 101 Azario, Pietro xili, 45, 48, 57, 167, Calpurnius 205

231 Calvo, Francesco 177-178, 181 de Campagnola, Iohannes 119

Baluze, Etienne xiii, 79, 208 Canigiani, Eletta 246

Barlaam 51, 210, 216 da Cannobio, Albertino 169, 213, 217Barrili, Giovanni 21-22, 111-112, 177 218, 243

di Battifolle, Roberto 247 Capra, Enrico 82-83, 105-106, 196-197, St. Beatrice 151 205 Benedict XII xvii de Caraman, Jean 101-102

de Bernardo, Paolo 242 Carracciolo, Berardo 173-174

Bernardus 185, 196 da Carrara, Francesco 175, 245, 249,

Bersuire, Pierre 222-225 251-253 Bertrandi, Petrus 89, 92, 97, 104, 116 . ——~—~—, Francesco Novello 253

Besozzi, Paganino 11 ———~—, Jacopo xix, 3, 12

Birel, Jean 62-70 da Castiglionchio, Lapo 21-22, 40, Boccaccio, Giovanni v, xili, xix, 7, 9- 109-110 259

260 INDEX OF PERSONS St. Catherine 154 Falier, Marino xiv, 60, 93-94 Cato 20, 51, 101 di Firenze, Giovanni (giullare) 40-41 Cavalchini, Rinaldo 73, 205, 216 ————, Giovanni (scribe?) 41

Celsi, Lorenzo 246-247 - Foglietta, Uberto xiv, 30, 82, 132

Charles IV xiii-xv, xx, 43-45, 57, 77- Foucaut, Hugues 231 98 passim, 103-104, 115-117, 124, Francesco (surname unknown) 156, 133, 136, 140, 163-164, 202, 226-230, 178 243, 245, 249-250

Charles V (Charles of Valois) xiv, St. Geminianus 151

127, 223-224, 234 da Genova, Bartolomeo 238-239

Chaucer 4, 222 Giotto 162-163

Cicero 25, 43, 53-55, 74, 95, 106, 111, Giovannolo (surname unknown) 112114, 169, 192-193, 195, 197, 207-208, 113, 118

212, 229, 240 St. Gregory 212

Clement VI xviii-xx, 51, 90 Gregory XI 252

_delCleopatra 92 Griselda 253 Colle, Gano 9-10, 40 Colonna, Agapito 186-187 Hadrian 119

————, Giacomo 209 Hercules 20, 214-215 , ————, Giovanni (Cardinal) xvii, xix, de Hesdin, Jean 252-253

84, 112, 209 , Hesiod 51

————, Giovanni (grandson of Ste- Hippolytus 92 |

fano the Elder) 90 Homer v, 51, 175, 183, 208, 210, 212————, Giovanni (di San Vito) 219 217, 247 , ———~—, Stefano the Elder 90 | Horace 195, 228 ————, Stefano (Provost of Saint-

Omer) xiii, 84, 152, 159, 165-166, Innocent III 231

241-242 Innocent VI xv, 79, 84, 229, 245-246

da Como, Matteo 40 Isabelle (daughter of John II) 217 , Conti, Ildebrandino 3 , Jacopo (of Ferrara) 195 Confortino xiv, 120

Cornelio, Flaminio 59 Jeremiah 184 da Correggio, Azzo xiii, xviii, 12, 31, Jerolimus (copyist) 155 61, 73, 96, 130, 155, 165-166, 173, St. Jerome 67, 212-213

187, 235, 246 John II 68, 127, 132, 157, 206, 217-225, ————, Barriano 31, 39 227, 234-236 ————, Giovanni 31 John Cantacuzenus 51

The Cortusi xiii, 52, 60 Josephus 229

Crotto 106 Juvenal 195, 228 | Dandolo, Andrea x, 30, 53, 56, 58, 60, Laelius 4, 23, 89-91, 97-98, 103-104, 64-65, 68-69, 74, 93, 96, 118, 121, 113, 116, 152, 159, 161, 165-166, 170,

142, 147-148 177-179, 202-204, 241, 246 David 184, 212, 240 Laura Xvil, xix

Donati, Forese 21-22, 40, 62, 90 Laurentius (Bishop) 32-33, 40

Lelio (surname unknown) 172

Edward III 68, 148 Lelius 185 Edward, the Black Prince 127 | Linus 217

166 , Livy 169, 222 4 , Ennius 195 Lollius d’Fste, Aldobrandino 149 Lucan 228 Elizabeth (daughter of Charles IV) Lionel, Duke of Clarence 250

Euripides 51, 217 Lucretia 92

INDEX OF PERSONS 261 Lucretius 195 da Pastrengo, Guglielmo 72-73, 205-

de Lupi, Ja. Co. 172 206, 216

St. Paul 50, 68, 184, 212

de Madiis, Mafeo 150 de’ Pepoli, Giovanni 82

Magdeburg, Burgrave of 167 Persius 228 ,

Malatesta, Pandolfo 120, 126-127, 135- Peter the Hermit 114, 233

137, 148-149, 252 Petracco, Gherardo xvii-xix, 5-6, 38, Malizia 40-41 : 43, 62-63, 70 Malpaghini, Giovanni 247-249 Petraccolo (Petrarch’s father) 85 |

Manasseh 220 Petrarca, Francesca xviii, 48, 245, 247, da Mandello, Giovannolo 48, 113, 252

161-164, 167 , ————, Giovanni xiv, xvii, xix, 31, 37-

da Mantova, Giacomino 242 | 38, 61, 73, 82, 95, 146-147, 152, 164-

St. Mark 45 165, 192-193, 203-204, 219, 226, 245 Martianus Capella 195 Philip VI 127 ot. Martin 83, 233 Philip (son of John II) 127 Martini, Simone 154 di Pietro, Matteo 107-108

Martinus 122-123 Pilatus, Leontius 175, 182~183, 206-215,

Massinissa 92 246-247

Matilda of Tuscany 166 Pilleo, Pietro 249

dei Moggi, Moggio 31-34, 39, 61, 73, Plato 51, 89, 100, 110, 210, 212

95—96, 187 Plautus 91, 195

de’ Monaci, Lorenzo 59 Pollio, Asinius 25 Monferrato, Marquis of 97, 117, 131- Polycletus 154

132, 135, 156, 167-168 de Pommiers, Sagremor 79, 122-123,

da Monteforte, Pietro 111-112 133-137, 148-149, 156-157, 163-166, Morando, Neri 60, 80, 88, 93, 103-104, 226-227, 230-231, 247-248

115, 118, 120, 194, 197, 207 Porta, Johannes xiv, 78, 97

Fra Moriale 59 Portonario, Marco 49, 237-238 da Muglio, Pietro xiv, 213-217 St. Protus 125, 172

von Munsingen, Johann 122

Raimondo (monk) 107-108

Nelli, Francesco passim von Randeck, Markward 127-128 Nerius (surname unknown) 194 dei Ravagnani, Benintendi 60, 95-96,

Nero 226-227, 229. 118, 120-121, 142, 147-148

Numerianus 119 Resta, Antoniolo 48

da Rho, Marco Resta 118, 121

Ocko, Jan 123, 243 di Rienzo, Cola xix, xx, 12, 44-45, 235 d’Oleggio, Giovanni 113 da Rimini, Floriano 120 d@’Olmo, Aldrighetto 175 King Robert xviii, 4, 12, 162, 223 Ordelaffi, Francesco 64 de la Roche, Androin 246-247

Orpheus 217St. Roger, Pierre 248, 252 Ovid 195 Romuald 252 Romulus 20

Palladius (Bishop) 83 da Rosciate, Alberico 48

Palladius (Rutilius Taurus Aemili- Rossi, Cecco di Meletto 64, 152-153

anus) 42 Rudolf IV 226-227

Paolo (surname unknown) 119

247 Sallust 169

dei Papazurri, Bartolommeo Carbone Sacca, Gianluigi 170

z Pardubic, Arnost 123-124, 133, 137, Sanita, Francesco 108, 171, 206

163-164, 243 Della Scala, Beatrice 45, 73

da Parma, Giovanni 104-105, 109 ————, Cangrande 45, 61, 73

262 INDEX OF PERSONS ————, Frignano 61, 73 Tiberius 44 Scipio xviii, 128, 182 Twyne, Thomas x, 66-67 Seneca 95, 101, 169, 220, 240

de Sepulveda, Juan Ginés 31 Don Ubertino 36 Servius 169 Urban V 246-253 della Seta, Lombardo 87, 251

Sette, Guido 8, 12, 31, 35, 41, 85, 94, Varro 100, 111, 206 113~114, 138-140, 146, 152, 159, 171, Vergell (2), Franc. 174

213, 218-219, 235, 239 Vergerio, Pier Paolo 199

Silvestri, Domenico 216 dal Verme, Luchino 82, 104-105, 109,

St. Simplicianus 199, 201 , 246-247 Socrates (Greek) 101 Villani, Matteo xv, 57, 174, 217 Socrates (Petrarch’s friend) 62, 68, Villarazzo, Jacopo di 175

84, 92, 152, 159, 170-171, 177-179, Virgil 74, 154, 168-169, 195, 212, 214,

190, 192, 203-204, 239, 245 228

Sophonisba 92 Visconti, Azzo 168

Spinola, Galeotto 155-156 ————, Bernabo 32 and passim there-

Statius 74, 228, 256 after

Stella, Giorgio xv, 35, 132 ———-—, Brizio 101

da Strada, Zanobi 21-24, 81, 96, 105,111, .————, Galeazzo I 168 143-144, 173, 179, 181, 202, 209, 245 ————, Galeazzo (II) 32 and passim

ze Streda, Jan 48-49, 64, 78, 81, 90-91, thereafter | 123-124, 133-137, 156-157, 163-164, —~——-—, Gian Galeazzo 217

226-227, 230-231, 242-243 ————, Giovanni 8-77 passim, 139,

Subirani, Raymond 240-241 : 168, 200

Suetonius 229 ————, Luchino 11 |

da Sulmona, Barbato 20-24, 47, 50, 83- ————, Marco I 45 , 84, 107~108, 111, 143-144, 157-158, _————, Marco (II) 45, 57

171-172, 182, 204, 206, 216, 246 ————, Matteo I 54, 168

_ Sygeros, Nicholas 51, 175, 208 ————, Matteo (II) 32-33, 77, 107, 109 ————, Violante 250

Taddeo (surname not known) 182 de Talleyrand, Elie xv, 180-181, 190- Wenceslaus 227-228 192

Terence 169-170, 242 Zamorei, Gabrio 11, 13, 48, 88

Index of Works of Petrarch and of Extant Letters Addressed to Him

Africa De vita solitaria 222 114-116, 130, 132, 158,

XVill, 18-19, 74, 92, 182, X-X1, XV, xix, 18, 80, 83,

Bucolicum carmen aad 240-247, 249, X, xix, 18-20, 157-158, 171,

176, 183, 185-188, 191, Epistolae familiares, etc.:

194-195, 230-231, 249 see Prose Letters

Canzomier c Epistolae metricae In general ix-x, xv, xvili-xix, 18-19, [, general x, xix, 18, 20, 45, 108

130, 175-176, 202, 233, y LOO. 157. 171

246, 248-250, 252-253 ro

10 130-131 209 uu 8 Pay, 105 23 440154 16 120

77 154-155 1842,x,47, 2450, 58 78 154155 19 x, 145 185 22 99-100, 106, 153 159 | 4 OU 194195-196 = 249 1945

196 24933 31153 39 197 249

265131 «131 34 (2055 268 Exul ab Italia 300 195-196

303 195 _ Epitaphs 324 117-118 For Andrea Dandolo x, 147

364 164 For his own grandson 249-250 365 232

. we Invectives

De otio religioso C - maledixit Italie 252

x, xv, xix, 18, 129-130, 158 eile eum qui maledaixit ta we 252De remediis utriusque fortunae Contra medicum xx, 18, 142-146 v, x, xiv, 65-67, 69-71, 75, Contra quendam magni status bomi-

129, 158, 218-219, 224, _ mem xi, xi, 101 | .

235-236, 248-249 De sui ipsius et multorum ignorantia 248-249, 251-252

De viris illustribus

xviii, xx, 18, 20, 72-73, 75, Itinerarium syriacum

| 80, 251 v, xi, 48, 161-164, 183 263

264 INDEX OF WORKS

Orations Xv 3 4, 81 In general xi 4 68-69 At Novara xiv, 167-169 7 10-11, 84

At Paris xi, 220-225 xvi 6237 | At Venice 9 22, 81 Ist 53-56 , 10.5, 7, 14, 22, 81

2d 253 xviii 11 8-17, 26-29, 40,40, 47,4750 , Coronation 12 8-15, 28-29, For Giovanni Visconti 75-76 13.29, 40, 47 Penitential Psalms xv In general 47

oo | 14 27, 33, 40, 47 xvi, 248 1 38, 43, 47, 57-58 Philologia xvi, 75 3 7,2 37-38 31, 38

4 12, 35-36, 38 Prose Letters 5 38, 41-43. | (See also the Appendix) 6 46-47, 49

Eptistolae familiares 7 47, 72 | In general xi, xix, 20, 121, 157, 236- 8 48-49 237, 246-248 9 48-49, 237

1 2 240-241 10 10, 17-18, 45-47, 49-50 3 240-241 xvit 1 44-45, 47, 57, 64

iv4 12162 23732 81, 47, 93 51

VI 2 237 111 3 219 5 16,463, 69-71

vi1412237 237 6 62,98-100, 90-91 106 7 91-92,

, vit In 9general 92, 98-100 121 9237 92,898-100, 106

Ix2| 237 | 10 92,11 98-100, 106 163 — 59 4 107, 109-110 11 237237 : 1312105-106

13-237 a 14 106 15-72-73 15-110, 112, 141

73-74 16 53, 58-59, 64-65, 68-69| x1646148-49 43-44 xix 1 78 1573278-80, 78-81 88, 90 x «68 30 4 90 xu36100 43-44 5 112, 82, 95-96 22, 6 27, 118 4 2 7 = 117-119 . 8 237. , 8 114 , 11 12 22 929 60,10 74,+93-95 171 13 29 11 116, 120-121 , 17xr22512 98, 115-116 29 13 121 6 29 14 27, 123, 125-126, 129-130

9 22, 817-8, 15 18, 116,70,123, 140 146 10 8] 16 138-142,

xiv. 5 30 17 146

INDEX OF WORKS 265

18 184 - 7 230

xx In general 156, 160, 238 8 230-231 :

80-81, 103-104 9 230 — 231 155-—156 104, 115 10 230 1] 242

45 158, 237-238 12 218-219, 239 171-172 13 237, 239 6 154, 174-175, 177, 184-185 14 230

27, 185-186 15 230242 , | , 879 159-160 186-187 17 | xxiv In general xili

10 160 1 237, 239-241 11 166 9 25 12 113, 161, 166 12 214-217 13 170-171, 177 ; 14 23-24, 174-175, 178-179, pistolae seniles 202 In179 general xii, 246 15 171, I 2 226 xxt In general 239 3 = 226, 242 1 124, 133, 137 4 481

2 123, 133-137, 157 6 126-127

152-153 m 1 200-201, 244 453133, 237-239 8 244 163—164, 166 vl 6 173-174 6 133, 163~164,166 vi 1 247

7 79-80, 122, 133, 163-164, Ix 1 249, 253

166 x 1 122-123, 133

9 190 130, 222, 235 11 82-83, 196-197 xiv3i 87 253 12 199-201 xv 13 201 7 ‘xii, 122 14 198-199, 201 | , xv 5 229-230

8 122, 133, 166 2 xil, 6, 85-86, 89, 122, 12910 193, 196-197, 213 x1 17 251

15 183, 188-190 8 62-63, 66-72, 230

xxu2In general 213 9 63, 66-72, 230 183, 185, 187, 191, 194-195 xv 2 53, 123, 221, 225

204 3 xu, 253 453208-209 204—206 4 253 -«xxvir=—o1Ss (Psteritati) 102, 143, 210, 7g 703-204 147, Epistolae 192-193 ,;; sine nomine 9 ~~ 203-204 In general xi, xx, 128 10 205-206 211-21314a)48-49 237 11

6 209 249

12 16, 198, 213, 218, 243 | 15 48-49

13. 223-225 16 49, 84 14 222, 225 17 49, 153, 166, 179, 184

xxit 1 242 18 49, 166-167, 179, 184

227-230 ; .variae 3 230 Epistolae 6 133, 230-231 In general xu 2 115-116, 133, 213, 225, 19 49, 179, 202

266 INDEX OF WORKS ,

67 8-15, 127 2d XVI 24-29, 50 3rd —Xix

8 34 4th X1X-XX

—-10-——«148 6th 199, 253 12 173

, 14 24217 Extant Prose Addressed 6,25 toLetters Petrarch 22 107-108, 111 By Nelli |

, 20 192 | In general xu |

, 24 5 | VII 36

25 89, 102, 114, 175, 182-183, VIII 27, 31, 33

207-211, 213, 215 IX 46, 61 26 68, 8-10, 28 166,71-72 173 XIx 28, 34,28 40

32 80-81, 88, 93, 103 XIII 98, 106 44 25, 37 XIV 74-75 50 104-105, 109 XV 119

52 237, 241-242 XVI 27, 126, 129 55 179-181 XVII 27, 118 56 27-28, 32-34, 40 XVIII 113, 152-153, 192

| 5961128 XIX 164-165, 192 107, 109 xXx 156, 177-178, 184-185 63 127 XXI 27, 185-186 . XXIII 27, 188-189 In gene aii xxv ‘193-194 1 102, 116, 142-146 ext at 40-41 XXIX 181 73 10, 197-198 64 62-63, 68-71 XXII 190-191

9 204, 231 By others

BQ 4 3149 204, 206 | 17-128, 4 111-112 11 83-84, 108, 111 2 $6, 60, 64, 68-69

ae 96, JL , oo Rime disperse 9 A4_A5 Secretum 4 7,145 9, 23, 26 vee 55 235 64 64 , Testament | 65 90-91 xiv. 251 66 133-136 ’ 67 133, 156-157 253 71 87 Triumphs by to . Rerum memorandarum libri ; oe He 0 Xi, Xvili—xrx, 158, 223 7 95-96

Donna mi vene spesso nella mente 176 11 135-136

Xv, xviul, 18, 75, 176, 234— 63 48

Translation of Boccaccio’s Griselda 68 133, 242-243

In general ix—x, xvili-xx, 18, 20, 248,

250 Extant epistolae metricae Addressed Ist XVIll to Petrarch

Al tempo 125, 148, 165, 172, 174, 211 By Boccaccio 188-189

. Era si pieno 20, 151-152, 172-173 By Albertino da Cannobio 243