Petrarch's later years 5999n405f

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
PREFACE (page v)
INTRODUCTORY NOTES (page ix)
BOOK I: PETRARCH'S FIRST RESIDENCE IN PADUA (page 1)
CHAPTER
I. INTRODUCTORY (page 3)
II. 1361: SUMMER (page 7)
III. 1361: AUTUMN (page 15)
IV. 1361-1362: WINTER (page 20)
V. 1362: MILAN (page 22)
VI. 1362, SPRING: MILAN OR PADUA (page 26)
VII. 1362: MAY-SEPTEMBER (page 31)
VIII. 1361-1362: ADDENDA (page 38)
BOOK II: PETRARCH'S RESIDENCE IN VENICE (page 39)
CHAPTER
IX. INTRODUCTORY (page 41)
X. 1362: SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER (page 44)
XI. 1363: JANUARY-JULY (page 51)
XII. 1363: JULY-DECEMBER (page 60)
XIII. 1364 (page 69)
XIV. 1365 (page 81)
XV. 1366: JANUARY-JUNE (page 92)
XVI. 1366: JULY-DECEMBER (page 102)
XVII. 1367: JANUARY-JUNE (page 114)
XVIII. 1367: JULY-DECEMBER (page 124)
XIX. 1367 OR EARLY 1368 (page 133)
XX. 1362-1368: ADDENDA (page 137)
BOOK III: PETRARCH'S SECOND RESIDENCE IN PADUA (page 139)
CHAPTER
XXI. 1368: SPRING AND EARLY SUMMER (page 141)
XXII. 1368: JULY-DECEMBER (page 153)
XXIII. 1369: JANUARY-JUNE (page 161)
XXIV. 1369: SUMMER-DECEMBER (page 170)
XXV. 1368-1369: ADDENDA (page 178)
BOOK IV: PETRARCH'S RESIDENCE IN ARQUÀ (page 179)
CHAPTER
XXVI. 1370: JANUARY-JUNE (page 181)
XXVII. 1370: JULY-DECEMBER (page 187)
XVIII. 1371: JANUARY-JUNE (page 199)
XXIX. 1371: JULY-DECEMBER (page 206)
XXX. 1372: JANUARY-JUNE (page 216)
XXXI. 1372: JULY-DECEMBER (page 224)
XXXII. 1373: JANUARY-JUNE (page 231)
XXXIII. 1373: JULY-DECEMBER (page 250)
XXXIV. THE Canzoniere ALMOST COMPLETED (page 258)
XXXV. 1374: JANUARY-JULY (page 261)
XXXVI. 1370-1374: ADDENDA (page 267)
XXXVII. DEATH (page 271)
BOOK V: FINAL ADDENDA (page 273)
CHAPTER
XXXVIII. UNASSIGNABLE LETTERS (page 275)
XXXIX. THE De viris illustribus (page 283)
XL. THE COLLECTION OF THE Seniles (page 303)
INDEX OF PERSONS (page 315)
INDEX OF WORKS OF PETRARCH (page 320)

Citation preview

THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA ~PUBLICATION NO. 70

PETRARCH’S LATER YEARS

BLANK PAGE

PETRARCH’S LATER YEARS

by

ERNEST H. WILKINS President of the Mediaeval Academy of America

SIEVE SEY

We Wheat 6

THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 1959

CopyYRIGHT BY

, 1959

THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA

LipraRY oF ConeGress CaTaALoG Carp NuMBER 59-14351

Printed at Crimson Printing Company

Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A. ,

Preface This book concludes the intimate biography of Petrarch begun in the chapter on “Petrarch in Provence, 1351-1353” in my Studies in the Life and Works of Petrarch and continued in

Petrarch’s Eight Years in Milan. It supersedes the summary of Petrarch’s life and work after leaving Milan that constitutes the last chapter of the latter book. As in that book, the attempt has been made to utilize all existing evidence as to Petrarch’s outer and inner experiences during the years concerned, and to present those experiences as nearly as possible in the order in which they entered into his life. As in that book, also, the biographical narrative is interspersed with detailed discussions of matters that have been objects of controversy or have not received due notice. Passages from Petrarch’s prose writings are quoted in Latin in cases in which his ipsissima verba are thought to be of argumentative importance or of special interest or of notable literary quality, and in English if the passage in question is quoted only for its general content.

Newton Centre, Massachusetts

;|

BLANK PAGE

Table of Contents

PREFACE _ oy IntRopuctrory Notes | 1X | Page

Boox I: Prrrarcu’s First RESIDENCE IN PapuA 1 CHAPTER

J. InNrTRoDUCTORY 3

Il. 1361: SuMMER 7 Ill. 1361: AurumMn | 15

IV. 1361-1362: WHINTER 20

V. 1362: Miran 22 VI. 1362, Sprinc: Mui_tan or Papua 26

VIL 1362: May—SEPTEMBER 31 | VII. 1361-1362: ADDENDA 38 Boox II: Prrrarcn’s RESIDENCE IN VENICE 39

IX. Inrropucrory 41 X. 1362: SeEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 44

CHAPTER _

XI. 1363: JANUARY—JULY 51

XII. 1364 | 69 XIV. 1365 81 XV. 1366: JANUARY—JUNE 92

XII. 1363: Juty-DECEMBER 60

XVI. 1366: JuLyY-DECEMBER 102 XVII. 1367: JANUARY—JUNE 114 XVIII. 1367: Juty-DECEMBER | 124

XIX. 1367 orn Earty 1368 133 | XX. 1362-1368: ADDENDA 137

| Vil

Vill - TABLE OF CONTENTS | Page

Boox III: Prtrrarcu’s SECOND RESIDENCE IN PADUA 139

CHAPTER |

XXI. 1368: Spring aNnD EARLY SUMMER 141

XXII. 1368: Juty—-DEcEMBER 153 XXIII. 1369: JANUARY—JUNE 161

XXIV. 1369: SumMMER-DECEMBER 170

XXV. 1368-1369: ADDENDA 178

Boox IV: PetrarcH’s RESIDENCE IN ARQUA 179 CHAPTER

XXVI. 1370: JANUARY—JUNE 181 XXVII. 1370: Juty-DEcEMBER | 187

XXVIII. 1371: January—JUNE 199 ~ XXIX. 1371: Juty-DEcEMBER | 206 XXX. 1372: January—JUNE (216 XXXI. 1372: JuLty—-DECEMBER © | 224 XXXII. 1373: January—JUNE 231

XXXII. 1373: Juty-DEcEMBER (250 —

XXXIV. THe Canzoniere ALMosT COMPLETED | 258

XXXV. 1374: JANUARY-—JULY 261

XXXVI. 1370-1374: ADDENDA 267

XXXVII. Deratu 271

Book V: Frvat ApDENDA 273 CHAPTER

XXXVIII. UwnassicNaBLe LETTERS | 275

XXXIX. Tue De viris illustribus : 283 XL. Tue COLLECTION OF THE Seniles 303

INDEX OF PERSONS | 315 INDEx oF WorKS OF PETRARCH 320

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. |

Prose, ed. by Guido Martellotti, P. G. Ricci, Enrico Carrara, and Enrico Bianchi (= Vol. 7 in the series La letteratura italiana, storia e testt) (Milan and Naples, 1955). Referred to as Prose. Letters

| Epistolae familiares

Le familiari, Vols. 1-11 ed. by Vittorio Rossi and Vol. 1 ed. by Rossi and Umberto Bosco (= Edizione nazionale, Vols. x—xiu, Florence, 1933-1942). Referred to as Rossi 1. Epistolae seniles

In general: in Coll. 1501.1 | 11, um 1, m9, 1v 3, vit 2, x 2, x1 10, and xvum 2: 1n Prose. | 1 2 and 3: in the book referred to on p. xiv as Piur, pp. 233-236 and 241-242. | x 3: in the book referred to on p. xiii as Lino Lazzarini 2, p. 171. xI 7 (missive form): in Konrad Burdach and Paul Piur, Brief-

wechsel des Cola di Rienzo (= Burdach, Vom Mittelalter zur Reformation, 1), Part 2 (Berlin, 1928), pp. 358-359. Referred to as Burdach-Piur.

xt 12: in André Callebaut, “Thomas de Frignano, Ministre * The numeration of the Seniles in this edition is followed in all cases. 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 Giuseppe Fracassetti in his translation of the SeniJes (2 vols., Florence, 1869-1870) see the manual referred to on p. xiv as Prose Letters, pp. 6-8. 1X

x , INTRODUCTORY NOTES général, et ses défenseurs: Pétrarque, Philippe de Cabassol et Philippe de Maizieres, vers 1369-70,” in Archivum franciscanum historicum,

x (1917), 243-249. Referred to as Callebaut. |

xit 1 (missive form): in Rappresentazione Provinciale di Padova, Nel VI centenario dalla nascita di Francesco Petrarca (Padua, 1904),

pp. 45-56. Referred to as Nel VI centenario. |

xm 5: in Capelli’s edition of the De ignorantia (for which see below), pp. 15-16. , | x1 7 (missive form): in the book referred to on p. xiv as Weiss

1, pp. 153-154. |

- xu 10 (missive form): in Burdach-Piur, pp. 356-358. xiv 1: Francisci Petrarche laureati Rerum Senilium liber XIII. Ad magnificum Franciscum De Carraria Padue dominum. Epistola

I, ed. by Vincenzo Ussani (Padua, 1922). |

xiv 2: “Francisci Petrarche laureati. Rerum senilium liber

XIIIjJ. Ad magnificum Franciscum De Carraria Padue dominum. Epistola II.” ed. by Ussani, in R. Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Atti, Lxxxmm (1923-1924), 295-301.

xvi 3: in J. B. Severs, The Literary Relationships of Chaucer's Clerkes Tale (= Yale Studies in English, Vol. 96) (New Haven, New York, and London, 1942), pp. 251-292. Referred to as Severs. Epistolae variae

‘In general: in Epistolae de rebus familiaribus et variae, ed. by Fracassetti, 11 (Florence, 1863). 12: in Piur, pp. 243-244.

Miscellaneous Letters

In The Miscellaneous Letters of Petrarch, ed. by Wilkins and Giuseppe Billanovich (forthcoming: pending the appearance of this book references to the places of publication of these letters may be found in Prose Letters, pp. 11-14).

| Africa Ed. by Nicola Festa (= Edizione nazionale, Vol. 1, Florence,

1926). |

Bucolicum carmen | In Antonio Avena, ll Bucolicum carmen e 1 suoi commenti inediti (Padua, 1906).

De sui tpsius et multorum ignorantia | In general: ed. by L. M. Capelli (Paris, 1906). Certain passages: in the abbreviated edition by Ricci in Prose.

ss INTRODUCTORY NOTES xi De viris illustribus

In general: ed. by Luigi Razzolini (with the Italian translation by Donato Albanzani on facing pages), two vols. (Bologna, 1874 and 1879). Referred to as Razzolini. First preface: ed. by Martellotti in Prose, pp. 218-226. Epitaph for his Grandson _ In the book referred to on p. xiv as Rossi 3, p. 73. Invectiva contra eum qui maledixit Italie In general: ed. by Enrico Cocchia in his “Magistri Iohannis de Hysdinio Invectiva contra Fr. Petrarcham et Fr. Petrarchae Contra cuiusdam Galli calumnias apologia,” in Societa Reale di Napoli, R.

Accademia di Archeologia, Lettere e Belle Arti, Atti, N.S., va (1920), 93-202 (reprinted in Cocchia’s Varieta letterarie, Naples, 1931, pp. 25-113). Referred to as Cocchia. Certain passages: in the abbreviated edition by Ricci in Prose. Oration delivered in Venice in 1373

Vernacular form ,

zarini. ,

In Vittorio Lazzarini, “La seconda ambasceria di Francesco Petrarca a Venezia,” in Miscellanea di studi critict pubblicati in

onore di Guido Mazzoni (Florence, 1907), 1, 173-183 (the vernacu-

lar form is printed on pp. 182-183). Referred to as Vittorio LazPenitential Psalms

Les psaumes pénitentiaux publiés daprés le manuscrit de la

, Testament

Bibliothéque de Lucerne, ed. by Henry Cochin (Paris, 1929). In the book referred on p. xiii as Mommsen 1, pp. 68-93.

, Obituary Notes — In the work referred to on p. xiv as Nolhac 2, 11, 284-285. Planting Notes

In the same work, 11, 267-268. : , Marginalia

Exact references are given in all cases. :

xii INTRODUCTORY NOTES Extant Letters Addressed to Petrarch

For a list of such letters, with references to their places of publication, see Prose Letters, pp. 115-122.” 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. |

Appel 1. Carl Appel, Zur Entwickelung italienischer Dichtungen

Petrarcas (Halle, 1891). |

Bernardo. A. S. Bernardo, “Letter-splitting in Petrarch’s Famiuliares,” in Speculum, xxxi (1958), 236-241.

Billanovich 1. Giuseppe Billanovich, Petrarca letterato. I: Lo scrittoio del Petrarca (Rome, 1947). — | Billanovich 2. Idem, “Gli umanisti e le cronache medioevali,” in Italia medioevale e umanistica, 1 (1958), 103-137. Boccaccio-Masséra. Giovanni Boccaccio, Opere latine minort, ed. by A. F. Masséra (Bari, 1928).

Bologna-Sorbelli. Corpus chronicorum bononiensium, ed. by Albano Sorbelli, in Muratori (see below), 2d. ed., xvm, Part I, Testo, III (Citta di Castello, 1922). Callegari 1. Adolfo Callegari, Arquad e il Petrarca (cover: Una visita ad Arquad) (Padua, 1941). Callegari 2. Idem, “La casa del Petrarca in Arqua ed il suo ultimo

restauro,’ in R. Accademia di Scienze Lettere ed Arti in Padova, Atti e memorie, xLI (1924-1925), 211-257.

1 (Minster, 1913). | | ,

Eubel. Conrad Eubel, Hierarchia catholica medii aevi, 2d. ed.,

Ferrante. Giuseppina Ferrante, “Lombardo Della Seta Umanista

“For one such letter that is not listed in that manual see below, p. 129. The thirty extant letters addressed to Petrarch by Francesco Nelli are published by Henry Cochin, Un ami de Pétrarque: lettres de Francesco Nelli a Pétrarque (Paris, 1892), and in an Italian translation, Un amico di Francesco Petrarca: le lettere del Nelli al Petrarca (Florence, 1901). Nelli’s letters are referred to by the Roman numerals assigned to them by Cochin. Other extant letters addressed to Petrarch are referred to by the abbreviation LAP followed by the arabic numerals they bear in the list in Prose Letters. Letters addressed to Petrarch and mentioned

without use of Roman numerals or of the LAP are not extant. ,

INTRODUCTORY NOTES xiii Padovano (?-1390),” in R. Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Atti, xc (1933-34), 445-487. Foresti 1. Arnaldo Foresti, Aneddoti della vita di Francesco

73-83. ,

Petrarca (Brescia, 1928). ,

_ Foresti 2. Idem, “Il Boccaccio a Ravenna nell’inverno 13611362,” in Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, xcvm (1931),

Foresti 3. Idem, “Pietro da Muglio a Padova e la sua amicizia col Petrarca e col Boccaccio,” in L’Archiginnasio, xv (1920), 163-173. Gatari-Medin. Galeazzo and Bartolomeo Gatari, Cronica car-

rarese, ed. by Antonio Medin and Guido Tolomei, in Muratori, 2d ed., xvu, Part I, Vol. I (Citta di Castello, n.d.). Gloria 1. Andrea Gloria, “Documenti inediti intorno a Francesco

Petrarca e Albertino Mussato,” In R. Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, AZti, Ser. v, vi (1879-1880), 17—52.

Gloria 2. Idem, Documenti inediti intorno al Petrarca con alcuni

cenni della casa di lui in Arqua e della reggia dei Da Carrara in Padova (Padua, 1878). Hauvette. Henri Hauvette, Boccace (Paris, 1914).

| Hortis. Attilio Hortis, “Giovanni Boccacci ambasciatore in Avignone e Pileo da Prata, proposto da’ Fiorentini a patriarca di Aquileia,” in Archeografo Triestino, N.S., 1 (1872-1875), 253-273.

lorga. Nicolae Iorga (Nicolas Jorga), Philippe de Méziéres, 1327-1405, et la croisade au XIV® siécle (Paris, 1896). Lino Lazzarini 1. Lino Lazzarini, “Amici del Petrarca a Venezia e

Treviso,” in Archivio veneto, xiv (1933), 3-16. |

Lino Lazzarini 2. Idem, Paolo de Bernardo e i primordi del?umanesimo in V enezia (= Biblioteca dell Archivum romanicum, Ser. 1, xm, Geneva, 1930). Malmignati. Antonio Malmignati, Petrarca a Padova a Venezia

1946). | |

ead Arqua, con documento inedito (Padua, 1874). | Mariani. Ugo Mariani, I] Petrarca e gli Agostiniani (Rome, Mascetta-Caracci. Lorenzo Mascetta-Caracci, Dante e il ‘Dedalo’

_ petrarchesco, con uno studio sulle malattie di Francesco Petrarca

(Lanciano, 1910). | Memorie-Fabretti. “Memorie di Perugia dall’anno 1351 al 1438,”

in Cronache della cittd di Perugia, ed. by Ariodante Fabretti, I

1957). : | (Turin, 1887), 157-224. Mollat. Guillaume Mollat, Les papes d’ Avignon, 9th ed. (Paris,

1949). a

| Mommsen 1. T. E. Mommsen, Petrarch’s Testament (Ithaca, Muratori. L. A. Muratori, Rerum italicarum scriptores.

XIV INTRODUCTORY NOTES Nolhac 1. Pierre de Nolhac, “Le ‘De viris illustribus’ de Pétrarque. Notice sur les manuscrits originaux, suivie de fragments inédits,” in Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothéque

Nationale et autres bibliothéques, xxxtv (1891), 61-148. |

Nolhac 2. Idem, Pétrarque et ’ humanisme, 2d ed., 2 vols. (Paris, 1907).

1933).

Piur. Paul Piur, Petrarcas Briefwechsel mit deutschen Zeit-

genossen (== Burdach, Vom Mittelalter zur Reformation, vu, Berlin,

Ricci. P. G. Ricci, “La cronologia dell ultimo ‘certamen’ petrarchesco,” in Studi petrarcheschi, tv (1951), 47-57.

Rossi 2. Vittorio Rossi, “Nell’intimita spirituale del Petrarca,” in Nuova antologia, S. vu, ccLtxxvit (1931, July-August), 3-12. Rossi 3. Idem, “Il Petrarca a Pavia,” in his Studi sul Petrarca e sul Rinascimento (= his Scritti di critica letteraria, u, Florence, 1930).

Rossi 4. Idem, “Sulla formazione delle raccolte epistolari petrarchesche,” in R. Accademia Petrarca di Lettere Arti e Scienze di Arezzo, Annali della cattedra petrarchesca, 11 (1932), 53-72. Salutati-Novati. Coluccio Salutati, Epistolario, ed. by Francesco Novati, 1 (Rome, 1891). Ullman. B. L. Ullman, Studies in the Italian Renaissance (Rome,

1955). | | |

Verci. Giambatista Verci, Storia della Marca Trivigiana, xiv (Venice, 1789). |

1949). | | |

Weiss 1. Roberto Weiss, I] primo secolo delPumanesimo (Rome,

Weiss 2. Idem, Un inedito petrarchesco (Rome, 1950).

Fight Years. E. H. Wilkins, Petrarch’s Eight Years in Milan

(Cambridge, Mass., 1958). |

The Making. Idem, The Making of the Canzoniere and Other

Petrarchan Studies (Rome, 1951).

“Petrarch and Roberto di Battifolle.” Idem, article in The Romanic Review, L (1959), 3-8.

Prose Letters. Idem, The Prose Letters of Petrarch: a Manual (New York, 1951).

Studies ... . Idem, Studies in the Life and Works of Petrarch

(Cambridge, Mass., 1955). ,

Zardo. Antonio Zardo, I] Petrarca e 1 Carrarest (Milan, 1887).

BOOK I

Petrarch’s First

Residence in Padua

BLANK PAGE

CHAPTER I

Introductory Petrarch and Padua Before 1361

In the spring of 1349, while Petrarch was living in Parma, Jacopo da Carrara, the Lord of Padua, gave him a well endowed

canonry that carried with it the right to the occupancy of a house owned by the cathedral, in the cathedral close. From that time until he returned to Provence in June 1351 Petrarch spent much time in Padua, though he did not live there continuously. Jacopo was assassinated in December 1350, but his

son and successor, Francesco da Carrara, held Petrarch in affection and honor. Before leaving for Provence Petrarch appointed Corradino Corradi to serve in his absence as his procurator—to receive the income from his Paduan canonry, and to act for him in other matters as well.

By the summer of 1352 Petrarch had become anxious to return to Italy, but he did not know where to settle in Italy; nor had he reached a decision by the spring of 1353, when he left Provence. He had reason to think that if he should settle in any place in which he had lived previously he would be so beset by importunities that he would have little or no freedom

for his study and writing. The two places that seemed to him most possible were Padua and Mantua. But on his eastward journey he went to Milan; the Archbishop Giovanni Visconti,

promising him complete freedom, invited him urgently to settle there; and he accepted the invitation. In Milan Petrarch did in fact enjoy a large measure of freedom; and Milan—though he was absent now and then—remained his home for eight busy and productive years. He spent most of the winter of 1358-1359 in Padua and Ven3

4 CHAPTER ONE ice—in Padua “ex negotio,” in Venice “ex otio” [Fam.xx 6]. While

in Padua he approved formally, in a document signed on 24 December in the palace of Francesco da Carrara, the administra-

tion of the income of his canonry by two successive procura-

tors, Aldrighetto di Olmo and Jacopo di Villarazzo. While in Padua, also, Petrarch met Leontius Pilatus, a very disagreeable Calabrian whom he thought to be a Greek: his presence seemed to Petrarch to open an entrance into acquaintance with Homer, and he established relations with him on a friendly basis.

- During the latter half of March 1359 Boccaccio visited Petrarch in Milan; and among the many things they discussed was the question of Petrarch’s continued residence in Milan. In Var. 25, written to Boccaccio in the following year, Petrarch

refers thus to their discussion of this matter: |

I recall that . .. 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 fully convenient for me to live. We made a _ single exception, for Padua, which I had visited recently and expect to visit soon again, so that by such alternation the desires of people

appeased. ,

who live in those two cities to have me with them may be, not removed or diminished (which I should not like), but somewhat

In April 1360 Petrarch went again to Padua and Venice. He was in Padua on the 17th and in Venice on the 20th. How long he remained away from Milan we do not know; nor have we any knowledge as to what he did in the two cities.’

| The Move to Padua During the spring of 1361 the mroads of the plague in Milan had become more and more serious, and by the beginning of the summer its ravages were becoming catastrophic. In mid-June or earlier Petrarch went to Padua. Just when he went we do not know: he was certainly there on 21 June, as will presently appear. When he left Milan he evidently ex- _ *'The data given in this Section are summarized from passages in Studies ..., pp. 21-22, and in Eight Years, pp. 174-177 and 205. For additional data see Zardo, pp. 13-14 and 35-39.

INTRODUCTORY 5 pected to resume residence there: Fam. xxm 8, written on 18 July, shows that he still considered himself bound to consult the Visconti before accepting an invitation from the Emperor.

In point of fact, although in the next few years he returned repeatedly to Lombardy, sometimes for stays of considerable

Venice.” a length, it was never again his main place of residence. From Padua, presumably, he went occasionally to near-by

Petrarch’s House in Padua During Petrarch’s residence in Padua he lived in the house, in the cathedral close, to the occupancy of which his cathedral canonry entitled him. This house had a small garden; * and a well that gave him an adequate supply of drinking water [Sen.

xi 1]. |

This house, and the cathedral that Petrarch knew, no longer

exist. [he cathedral was replaced by a larger structure in the sixteenth century, and at that same time the house that had been occupied by Petrarch was demolished (despite protests by Ruzzante and Speron1).*

Paduan Friends

Petrarch’s acquaintance with the Bishop of Padua, Pietro Pilleo, whom he had doubtless met on his visit to Padua in 1360, soon ripened into a warm friendship.® In Padua, also, Petrarch

enjoyed the patronage and the friendship of Francesco da Carrara. He doubtless had already, or soon formed, friendships and acquaintanceships with a good many Paduans, chiefly in * He was certainly in Venice on 4 January 1362, as will appear below.

*'The phrase “in ortulo nostro Paduano” occurs in a notation by Petrarch quoted by Nolhac 2, n, 268.

“See Malmignati, pp. 21-23, and Callegari 2, pp. 250-251. For a good general account of Padua in Petrarch’s time see Malmignati, pp.

41-51.

* For Pilleo see Hortis. Pietro had been made Bishop of Padua on 12 June 1359: see Eubel, p. 386. Sen. vi 4, written to him a few years later, is most affectionate.

6 CHAPTER ONE clerical or official or university circles—among them, certainly, before the end of his first Paduan year, Bartolomeo di Pace, the

cleric Giovanni da Bozzetta, and the chancellor Nicoletto di Alessio.®

It may have been either in his first or in his second residence in Padua, or in one of his many stays in Padua during the period of his residence in Venice, that Petrarch formed his friendships with the eminent physician Giovanni Dondi dall’ Orologio and with the brothers Bonaventura and Bonsembiante Badoer, both of them learned Augustinian monks.’ °For Bartolomeo see Billanovich 1, p. 23, n. 2; for Giovanni see - Mommsen 1, pp. 39-40; and for Nicoletto see Baccio Ziliotto, “Rime dell’istriano Nicoletto di Alessio, cancelliere dei Carraresi e amico del Petrarca,” in Archeografo Triestino, xtv-xv (1948), 161-187.

| “On Dondi see Mommsen 1, 33-35, and the references there given. On the Badoer brothers see Mariani, pp. 97-109, and the references

there given. ,

CHAPTER II

1361: Summer On 5 June—perhaps in Milan, perhaps in Padua—Petrarch received from Florence a manuscript containing an anonymous life of Innocent III, the Cronaca (known as the Liber de calamitatibus Siciliae) attributed to Hugues Foucaut, the life of In-

nocent IV by Niccolo da Cagli, and extracts from the Liber censuum Romane Ecclesie of Cardinal Boso Breakspear. After receiving this manuscript he wrote in it, perhaps immediately, a note, now illegible, which was last read as “‘Missus de Florentia

ubi mee... anno 1361, 5 runt ad ues [perum].” * On 21 June Petrarch received from Barbato da Sulmona a letter, beginning In die nativitatis (LAP 3), that had been written early in 1361: the long delay in its transmission had presumably been due in part to the difficulty of finding messengers,

which in other instances also affected the correspondence of Petrarch and Barbato, and in part to Petrarch’s removal from Milan to Padua. In this letter, a reply to Fam. xxi 4, Barbato tells of the joy with which he and Francesco Sanita had received that letter and the greetings therein contained; reminds Petrarch of his promise to send him the Africa and the collection of the Epistolae metricae; asks that if Petrarch thinks him unworthy to receive such great works he send him at least a copy of the Secretum; suggests that whatever Petrarch may send him be transmitted through Boccaccio; and expresses his pleasure in seeing that Petrarch’s letter had been written in *See Nolhac 2, u, 213-214; Billanovich, “Il Petrarca, il Boccaccio, Zanobi da Strada e le tradizioni dei testi della cronaca di Ugo Falcando

e di alcune vite di pontefici,” in Rinascimento, 1 (1953), 17-24, and Billanovich 2, p. 107. 7

8 CHAPTER TWO Venice, and his hope that Petrarch has broken away entirely

from Milan.?

To this letter Petrarch replied on the following day, with his brief Misc. 9. He says that he would gladly comply with Barbato’s requests were it not for difficulties with servants and copyists, and that he will do what he can; and he asks Barbato to endeavor to avert an injurious action by which Petrarch’s friend Bartolomeo Carbone dei Papazurri, Bishop of Chieti, is threatened. Petrarch is writing to the same effect to the Grand Seneschal Niccold Acciaiuoli and to Niccoléd d’Alife (neither letter is extant), and wants Barbato to confer with them. He sends his greetings to Francesco Sanita. The letter is dated “Padua, raptim, festinante nunctio, XXII* luni.”

On the evening of 14 July Petrarch heard that his son Giovanni had died of the plague in Milan, in the night between

the 9th and the 10th. Thereafter, probably immediately, he made this entry in the lower left-hand portion of the recto of the first guard leaf of his Virgil, opposite the first of five entries on the deaths of friends which he had made in the years 13491359 in the lower right-hand portion of the same page: Ioannes noster, homo natus ad laborem, ad dolorem meum, et uiuens grauibus atque perpetuis me curis exercuit, at acri dolore moriens uulnerauit, qui, cum paucos letos dies uixisset in uita sua, obit anno Domini 1361, etatis sue XXV, die Iulii X seu [X medio noctis, inter diem Veneris et Sabbati. Rumor ad me Paduam xiiij° mensis ad uesperam. Obiit autem Mediolani in illo publico excidio pestis insolito, queue urbem illam hactenus immunem talibus malis nunc tandem reperit atque inuasit.®

On the very day on which Giovanni died, according to Var. 35, which is to be considered presently, the action by which,

in 1354, he had been deprived of his Veronese canonry was revoked (on the depriving action see Eight Years, p. 61). When the news of this revocation reached Petrarch we do not know, but it was in any case not later than 10 August, when he wrote

Var. 35. | |

see Studies ..., pp. 247-251.

Years, passim. |

* Nolhac 2, 0, 283-284. On Petrarch’s relations with his son see Eight

1361: SUMMER 9 Shortly before 18 July Petrarch received from the Emperor

Charles [V a letter and a gold cup. They were brought to him, doubtless, by Sagremor de Pommiers, who had served for some years as a courier carrying letters, messages, and packages

from the Visconti to the Emperor and members of his court, and vice versa. He had often carried letters from or to Petrarch, who regarded him as a friend, and he had accompanied Petrarch on his mission to Prague in 1356. In this instance Sagremor had

presumably gone as usual from Prague to Milan, and finding © that Petrarch was now in Padua had come on to Padua to deliver the Emperor’s letter and gift.‘ The Emperor’s letter evidently contained an urgent invitation to Petrarch to come to Prague: it is indeed quite possible that the invitation contemplated a permanent settlement there. In his reply, Fam. xxi 8, written on 18 July, Petrarch thanks

the Emperor profusely both for the letter and for the cup, which he calls “cratera preciosissimum” and “Vasculum insigne

materia, insigne artificio, sed super omnia ore cesareo consecratum.” In terms milder than those used in some of his earlier

letters to the Emperor he repeats his summons to the Emperor to come again to Italy. There are difficulties, he says, in the

way of his accepting the Emperor’s invitation: his health is never good in the summer; he is conscious of the weight of his years and of decreasing strength and energy; it would be necessary for him to get permission—which, however, he knows

would be forthcoming—from Galeazzo Visconti; and for [the considerable bulk of] his own writings, which he was used to having always at hand [evidently with a view to the retouching

in which he so often engaged], he would dread the various hazards of a journey over the Alps. Nevertheless, if Galeazzo is willing, and if he can find a companion for the journey, he will come at the end of the summer, and will stay as long as the Emperor may desire. On the same day Petrarch wrote to the Imperial Chancellor,

his friend Jan ze Stfeda, a letter, Fam. xxur 7, in which he recommends a young man (not identified) to Jan, and through Jan to the Emperor. *On Sagremor see Eight Years, references in the index.

10 CHAPTER TWO It would seem probable that both letters were written while Sagremor was waiting in Padua; that they were entrusted to Sagremor; and that arrangements were made for the young man

to accompany Sagremor on his return journey to Prague. At some time prior to 8 August, and somewhat more probably after he had come to Padua than before he had left Milan, Petrarch wrote the undated Var. 14 to his “Socrates.” Many

years earlier, at Vaucluse, Petrarch had written the De vita solitaria for Philippe de Cabassoles, who had read the book at

that time; but he had never given Philippe a copy. Now at last he has decided to send him a copy; and he is planning to send a copy to Socrates also, on condition that Socrates will never let anyone else read it as long as he (Petrarch) is alive. (He does not say that he is actually sending these copies: his words are “Ego... illos [z.e., the Books of the De vita] sibi [7.e., to Philippe] non negare nec amplius subtrahere institu1 ... et te similiter horum participem facere in animo est.”) He then states thus the reason for his long delay in letting Philippe have a copy, and for the condition upon which he is planning to send a copy to Socrates: his unwillingness to release copies of a work containing attacks upon men of high station is due, he says, not to any fear, but to the desire to avoid involvement

in controversies that might destroy the peace that he hopes to have in the years of life that may now remain for him. Evidently Petrarch thought, when he wrote this letter, that he had finished, or was just about to finish, his work on the De vita. He had retouched it from time to time while in Milan, the last approximately datable Milanese insertion having been

made probably late in 1359 or early in 1360. In point of fact he continued to work on it later in 1361, in 1362, and from _ time to time for several years. He did not actually send a copy to Philippe until 1366; and he even inserted an entire chapter after that, in 1372.°

It is virtually certain that Var. 14 was never sent. On 8 August 1361 one of Petrarch’s servants, returning from Milan, *See Ullman, pp. 150-171; Hight Years, references in the index; and below, pp. 212-213.

1361: SUMMER 11 brought a rumor—soon to be confirmed—that Socrates had

died. ,

It was perhaps at about the same time that Petrarch heard a rumor—also soon to be confirmed—that another of his friends, Philippe de Vitry, Bishop of Meaux, had died.

On 10 August a friend of Petrarch’s Veronese friend Guglielmo da Pastrengo had some conversation with Petrarch, apparently bringing him greetings from Guglielmo. It may or may not have been this same man who brought to Petrarch the news that the action by which Giovanni had been deprived of his canonry had been revoked. Late on this same day—the letter is dated “Patavii, X Augusti,

sero’ —Petrarch wrote a brief but affectionate letter, Var. 35, to Guglielmo, whom he had not seen, apparently, for several years. Now, he says, he hopes to see him soon, for the way that had been closed—unjustly, as I think—is now open, since the lord [of Verona] has placed at my disposition that benefice for which you strove so long [on my behalf]... . But at one and the same time death has taken from me (oh res hominum! )

that benefice and the youth who had held it: in all his life he had seen few happy days, and on the very day on which his rights were restored the breath of life failed him.

_ The first clause of this passage might seem to imply that there had been in effect an order barring Petrarch himself from Verona, but it is inherently improbable that Cangrande II would ever have issued such an order; and the second clause would seem to indicate that the ousting of Giovanni from his benefice was the reason for the closing of the way to Verona. In other

words, Petrarch was unwilling to visit Verona so long as the action taken with regard to his son—an action that he believed to be unjust—remained in force. The notice of the restitution had evidently been sent to Petrarch rather than directly to Giovanni—perhaps because it would have been easier to get in touch with Petrarch than with Giovanni, perhaps because Cangrande now desired to win Petrarch’s good will, perhaps for both reasons. Guglielmo had indeed striven to bring about the restitution (see Eight Years, pp. 72-73).

12 CHAPTER TWO Late on Wednesday the 18th a friar coming from Bishop Bartolomeo Carbone dei Papazurri brought confirmation of the rumor of the death of Socrates; and thereafter, probably soon thereafter, Petrarch made this entry on the recto of the first guard leaf of his Virgil, just below the entry he had made

for his son: |

Rumor autem primum ambiguus, 8° Augusti eodem anno, per famulum meum Mediolano redeuntem, mox certus per fratem domini

Theatini Roma uenientem, 18° mensis eiusdem Mercurii sero, ad me peruenit de obitu Socratis mei amici, socii fratrisque optimi, qui obiisse dicitur Babilone seu Auinione de mense Maii proximo. Amisi

comitem ac solatium uite mee. Recipe, Christe Iesu, hos duos et reliquos quinque, in eterna tabernacula tua, ut qui iam hic mecum amplius esse non possunt permutatione felicissima tecum sint.

Late on the following Sunday, the 22d, there came to - Petrarch confirmation of the rumor of the death of Philippe de Vitry; and thereafter, probably soon thereafter, he made this entry just below the entry that he had made for Socrates: Rumor quoque iampridem hic fuerat de obitu Philippi de Vitriaco, episcopi Meldensis, patris et amici mei. Hoc autem die dominico 22° Augusti compertum accepi. Dissimulabam et credere recusabam. Heu mihi, nimis crebrescunt fortune uulnera.®

On a 1 September, probably that of 1361, Petrarch dated his Fam. xxm1 1, which has no addressee, and is a general in-

vective against the use of mercenary troops rather than a real letter. It has been variously assigned to 1354, 1355, 1360 and 1361, and to the period 1360-1362. The assignments to 1354 and 1355 are rendered invalid by the position of the letter in the Familiares; and the arguments that have been used to support the date of 1360 seem to me to be defective and quite unSocrates refers to the five friends for whom Petrarch had made entries in the years 1349-1359. At some later time Petrarch added to this entry the words “Heu mihi, imo septem, nec sciebam”; and at some later time Petrarch placed a sign indicating an addendum after the word “Augusti” in the entry for Philippe, and at the bottom of the page wrote, with a corresponding sign, the words “ad uesperam.” Socrates died before 1

June: see Ursmer Berliére, Un ami de Pétrarque, Louis Sanctus de

Beeringen (Rome and Paris, 1905), pp. 24-25. Philippe de Vitry died on

9 June: see Eubel, p. 334. |

1361: SUMMER 2B sound. The latest assignment, to the period 1360-1362," errs, in my judgment, in its inclusion of 1360 as a possibility. In the light of the series of Petrarch’s letters to Charles IV, it seems to me that the passing reference to him in this letter is such as to indicate that it was written in September 1361 or September 1362

rather than in September 1360; and it was moreover in the spring of 1361 that the “White Company” entered Italy and began its depredations: this Company is not named in the letter, but there is no reason why it should have been named. Its appearance and conduct in Italy might well have given rise to Petrarch’s invective. The “White Company” remained active in Lombardy throughout 1362, but did not enter northeastern Italy; and while warfare of a sort was going on in north-

eastern Italy in the spring of 1362 there is no evidence that it was being carried on by any band or bands of mercenaries of such terrifying power as that of the White Company.® On 27 February 1361, on his way back to Milan from his mission to Paris (for which see Eight Years, Chapter xxu1), Petrarch had written to his Parisian friend Pierre Bersuire a long letter, Fam. xxu 14, which is virtually a treatise on the deterioration of military discipline since the days of ancient Rome; but he had not sent it, for lack of a messenger. About the first of September, however, he found a messenger, to whom

he refers in the words “hoc religioso et insigni viro utriusque nostrum amantissmo”—and he therefore despatched the letter by that messenger, together with a covering letter, Fam. xx 13, written on 6 September, which recalls many of the interesting circumstances of his mission. But before this messenger reached

Paris Bersuire had died [Sen. xvi 2]. |

It was about the first of September, presumably, that Pandolfo Malatesta, having come to Padua, told Petrarch of a young

Florentine, Francesco Bruni, who admired Petrarch greatly, and very much desired to be admitted into the circle of his friends. Pandolfo urged Petrarch to write to Bruni; but Petrarch * Piur, pp. 231-232.

“On which see Francesco Cognasso in his edition of Pietro Azario, Liber gestorum in Lombardia, in Muratori, 2d ed., xvi, Part IV (Bologna, 1925-1939), 110 ff.

14 CHAPTER TWO at first refused, on the grounds that he had nothing to say and

that he was not accustomed to write to persons whom he did not know. On 8 September, however, Pandolfo came again to Petrarch’s house, bringing Francesco da Carrara with him. They sat down among Petrarch’s books and talked first of various things, and then of Bruni. Francesco da Carrara then seconded Pandolfo’s request that Petrarch write to Bruni, and Petrarch could no longer maintain his refusal. So on the after-

noon of that very day, after his visitors had left, Petrarch wrote to Bruni a rather slight but graceful letter, Fam. xxi 20, expressing his readiness to be a friend to him, and telling him

how he had come to write this letter.® |

In July Petrarch had promised, conditionally, that he would

start for Prague at the end of the summer—but he made no move to do so. ”QOn Pandolfo see Weiss 1, pp. 67-107 and 134-158. On Bruni see

Salutati-Novati, 1, 42-43. |

CHAPTER III

1361; Autumn For the experiences that are to be treated in this chapter

no exact dates are available, and the relative order of these experiences is not certain: they are however all assignable, certainly or probably, to the period September-November, and

the order in which they are treated here is thought to be at least close to the order in which they actually occurred. Early in the autumn, probably, a messenger from Cardinal Elie de ‘Talleyrand brought to Petrarch a letter telling him that Zanobi da Strada, who had been serving Innocent VI as papal

secretary, had died (his death had occurred late in July or early in August); and that Innocent wished Petrarch to take the position thus left vacant (twice in earlier years papal secre-

taryships had been offered to Petrarch: he had refused both offers). Petrarch’s reply to Cardinal Talleyrand is not extant, — but we know from Sen. 1 4 (written in the following spring) that he wrote hurriedly, since the messenger was waiting, that he said that he could not accept the position, and that he suggested the appointment of one or the other of two Florentine friends of his, either one of whom would in his judgment be worthy of the position. One of these friends was Boccaccio; the other was Francesco Nelli.

Petrarch’s reply to Cardinal Talleyrand did not by any means settle the matter: “ecce nunc iterum alts atque alus de eadem re & literis pulsor et nunciis,” he says in Sen. 14. At some

time or times in the course of this correspondence Petrarch made known to the Pope his readiness to come to Avignon to speak on behalf of the friends whom he had suggested for the papal secretaryship. His letter or message to the Pope was such that he had reason to expect a reply, which would pre15

16 CHAPTER THREE sumably have indicated whether or not the Pope would be glad to have him come [Sez. 1 4]. At about this time Petrarch decided that the collection of his Epistolae familiares was now large enough, and that he would

gather his other letters in two other collections: one of them a collection of letters already written which for one reason or another he had not included among the Familiares, the other a collection of letters to be written thereafter, which would be called Epistolae seniles.

Not long, probably, after reaching this decision he wrote Fam. xxiv 13 as a concluding letter for the Famiuliares. ‘The dedicatory letter for this collection, Fam. 1 1, had been addressed to Socrates: to Socrates also he addressed this concluding letter,

although it was written, in all probability, after he had learned that Socrates had died. The letter is therefore in a sense fictional —as a few of Petrarch’s other letters are believed to be.t That

it was written after Petrarch knew of the death of Socrates 1s perhaps suggested by the last clause of the sentence “Quomodo ego alium amici colloquii quam vite finem sperem? aut quenam

dies me spirantem inter eos tacitum efficiet, cum quibus ore gelido sepultusque loqui cogito?” It is to be noted, moreover, — that much of the latter part of the letter is addressed not to Socrates but, in the plural, to his friends, and that the last sentence of all is addressed to the reader: “Te in finem, lector candidissime, quisquis es, obtestor .. .” In the course of this letter Petrarch states that the letters included in the Famuliares (except the letters to the ancients) are

arranged not by topic but by the times when they were written: “Hic sane non rerum sed temporum rationem habui.” ‘There are, however, as students of Petrarch are well aware, a great many cases in which the chronological order is not observed. ‘This is particularly true in the cases of the first and last *See The Making, pp. 311-317, and the references there given. Billanovich 1, p. 303, states his conviction that Fam. xxiv 13 was written after the death of Socrates, and notes that “Era convenzione normale per la retorica medievale, adottata anche nelle Genologie deorum gentilium, di continuare nel processo dell’opera a rivolgersi con successive allocuzioni come a presente e vivo al dedicatario intanto gid morto.”

1361: AUTUMN 17 letters of the several Books, since Petrarch made a point of selecting letters of special importance for opening and closing positions.

The passage in which Petrarch speaks of the three col-

lections of his letters is to this effect:

Now, since many and varied letters are calling to be written, since it is uncertain how long my life will last, and since the present volume can hardly hold anything more, I am planning to gather in another volume letters that I still have on hand, and to gather in still another volume, which will take its name from my age, such letters as | may write hereafter.

The reference to the second collection presumably indicates a plan to collect at least many of the letters already written (in so far as he had retained copies) other than those included in Famuliares: 1£ so, he never carried out the plan. It seems hardly possible that he is thinking here of the little collection, already completed, of the Epistolae sine nomine. Having reached this decision as to his letters, he proceeded

at once to initiate the collection of the Seniles; and before the end of 1361 he wrote Sen. 1 1, addressed to Nelli, as a dedi-

catory letter for that collection. That it was written in 1361 is shown by the fact that it contains the clause “Quid nunc primo et sexagesimo faciam anno” and the phrase “annus hic pestilens.”

The dedicatory letter of the Fazmliares, addressed to Socrates

(probably written in 1350), opens with a reference to the loss of friends by death in the plague of 1348: Sen. 1 1 opens with a reference to the loss of friends, and in particular to the

loss of Socrates, in the still current plague. The dedicatory

sentence reads in part thus: |

Est ad Socratem liber Familiarium rerum noster .. . Proinde quod illic presagiebam video: nullus michi alius epystolaris stili quam vite finis ostenditur. Itaque siquid tale mihi deinceps vel amicorum instantia, vel rerum necessitas extorserit . . . totum tibi

spring. | |

inscribere est animus. He did not send this letter, however, until the following Even after reaching his basic decision as to the making of

18 CHAPTER THREE separate collections Petrarch inserted in the Famuliares a few letters written after 1361 (xxu 1, and xxi 9, 10, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, and 21); and in the Semiles he included three letters written

before 1361 (vr 6, written in 1358, and xvi 8 and 9, written in 1354)—and xvi 5, written in March 1361.

At some time in the autumn, probably rather late in the autumn, Petrarch resumed work on the De vita solitaria. He was interested, just then, in St. Peter Damian’s love of solitude, and

needed more information than he had at hand. Thinking that such information might well be available in Ravenna, believing (we do not know why) that Boccaccio was then in Ravenna, and knowing that Donato Albanzani (one of Petrarch’s Venetian

friends) was about to go to Ravenna, he sent word through Donato to Boccaccio, asking him to get the desired informa-

tion, and to send it to him at Milan.? |

In the course of the autumn, presumably, Petrarch received,

in reply to his Faz. xxut 20, a letter from Francesco Bruni of which we know only that it heaped praises on Petrarch and

referred to praises of Petrarch that Bruni had heard from Pandolfo Malatesta.*

| To this letter Petrarch replied with his Sen. 1 6, in which, first of all, he denies emphatically that he deserves the praises of Bruni

and Pandolfo, his denial including this self-characterization: What then am I? A learner, but hardly even that; a lover of the woods; a solitary wanderer, wont to utter insipid words amid tall birches, or ply a frail pen, presumptuously and audaciously, in the shade of a tender laurel; an eager but unsuccessful worker; a lover of letters, but not expert in them; a follower of no sect, but a seeker for the truth. And because the search for truth is difficult and I am but humble and weak in my searching, it happens often that, distrusting my own opinions, I content myself with the avoidance of error, and hold to my doubts in despair of attaining truth.

He then tells at some length the story of his relations with Pandolfo: long ago, before they had ever met, Pandolfo had sent a painter, from a distance and at great expense, to paint

* See Foresti 2. *It is inherently probable that Bruni replied promptly to the letter that Petrarch had written to him on 8 September.

1361: AUTUMN 19 Petrarch’s portrait; at a time when Pandolfo, after coming to Mulan, was ill, Petrarch went to see him every day; before Pandolfo was fully recovered he had his servants carry him to Petrarch’s house, that he might see him there among his books; and soon thereafter, being dissatisfied with his first portrait of Petrarch, he had a second portrait made (see Eight years, pp. 120 and 126-127). All this Petrarch relates to show Bruni that Pandolfo’s praise was biased by his affection and was

therefore untrustworthy.* |

In the course of the autumn Petrarch decided to go to Provence, partly because he desired to get away from Italy and

to revisit Vaucluse, and partly to support one or both of his nominations for the papal secretaryship; and he planned to stop in Milan on the way [Sez. 1 3]. *Fracassetti in his translation of the Seniles, 1 (Florence, 1869), 58, asserts that this letter “porta la data di Milano,” and concludes that it was written while Petrarch was in Milan in 1362. The letter, however, is not dated in Milan: it is undated, and its only reference to Milan is in a clause, referring to Petrarch’s earlier relations with Pandolfo, in which Petrarch says “Mediolanum .. . ubi tunc eram.” Vasari’s statement that the painter of the first portrait was Simone “Memmi” (i.e., Martini) is groundless and extremely improbable. On the date of Simone’s going to Avignon see Marthe Bloch, “When Did Simone Martini Go to Avienon?”, in Speculum, mu (1927), 470-472.

CHAPTER IV

1361-1362 Winter Toward the end of November or in December Petrarch received two letters from Naples, one from Acciaiuoli, the other from Nelli, who earlier in the year had left Florence to enter the service of Acciaiuoli. The letter from Acciaiuoli (which is not extant) invited Petrarch to settle in Naples; Nelli’s letter, his xxvu, seconds the invitation.

Nelli’s letter was dated at Naples on 6 November; but it had been written before that date at an unnamed place (probably Maiori), between Amalfi and Salerno, where Nelli had been recuperating after an illness. His description of the

astic, and enticing. :

beauties and resources of the region is comprehensive, enthusi-

To this letter Petrarch replied with his Sen. 1 2, undated, but written doubtless late in 1361 or early in 1362. He declines the invitation, as he had declined earlier invitations to settle in Naples; speaks of the invitations he has received (all within _ 1361) from the King of France, the Emperor, and the Pope; writes with emotion of the death of his son, who had been devoted to Nelli (who had been very kind to Giovanni), saying that in the last months of his life Giovanni had been making a serious effort to reform and had been progressing in that effort; states that in declining the Pope’s offer of a papal secretaryship he had nominated Nelli for the position; and ends thus: I have not yet decided what to do. It may easily be—unless something unexpected happens—that before many months have passed you will hear that I have gone back to my transalpine retreat. Plenus sum Italicarum rerum.

At about the same time, presumably, Petrarch wrote to 20

1361-1362: WINTER 21 Boccaccio, telling him of his nomination: this letter is not extant.

On 4 January Petrarch, being then in Venice, wrote Misc. 2, in Italian,* to Leonardo Beccanugi, then in Avignon on Flor-

entine business. This brief letter refers to offers made by the Pope that had not been fulfilled (what these offers were we do not know); requests Leonardo to do whatever he can for the bearer, Anastasio di Ubaldo Gezzi, a Venetian teacher; says that he has asked Anastasio to try to find certain books for him, and that he (Petrarch) will make whatever payment may be necessary to anyone in Padua or Venice whom Leonardo may designate; and refers anxiously to his brother Gherardo, from whom he had not heard for a long time. On 10 January Petrarch left Padua for Milan, planning to go on to Provence [Sen. 1 3]. The plague, by this time, was spreading eastward and southward from Lombardy. *On this, the only extant letter written in Italian by Petrarch, see Billanovich 1, pp. 257-258.

CHAPTER V a 1362: Milan Before 27 January Petrarch had received from a Bonincontro

_ da San Miniato, whose identity is unknown, a letter telling of Bonincontro’s retirement from his profession, which was ap-

parently that of arms. In a brief reply, Fam. xxi 4, dated in Milan on 27 January, Petrarch congratulates him on his newly found freedom. To this letter Bonincontro replied promptly, speaking of the coming of old age, and saying that he had no

fear of death. On 23 February Petrarch, in a longer reply, Fam. xxi 5, dated also in Milan, praises old age, and develops _ at some length the idea that death is to be welcomed rather than feared. ‘That Petrarch’s two letters to Bonincontro were written in 1362 results from the combination of the fact that no letter in Fam. xxtit was written before 1361, the fact that on the cor-

responding dates in 1361 Petrarch was in or returning from Paris, and the fact that Petrarch was never in Milan in any January or February after 1362. In February probably, but possibly late in January, or in March, Petrarch received Boccaccio’s response to his request for information about St. Peter Damian: a letter, beginning Oppinaris, virorum egregie (LAP 55), written in Ravenna on 2 January, and a copy of a Life that Boccaccio had found. In _ this letter Boccaccio refers to Petrarch’s request and to its transmission by Donato Albanzani; says that he has done his best to gather information; and reports his conclusions. The Life that he had found is in fact the Life written by Giovanni da

22

Lodi, modified to suit Boccaccio’s taste—‘‘demptis superfluis, nil ex substantialibus, paululum lepidiore sermone.” Opinions

as to the year in which this letter was written have varied

1362: MILAN 23 greatly. [he most thorough-going study is that of Foresti,* who assigns it to 1362: his argument has seemed conclusive to Billa-

novich, with whom I agree. |

Boccaccio’s report, however, did not serve to remove Petrarch’s uncertainties. He therefore sent an inquiry to the monastery of Fonte Avellana, of which St. Peter Damian had been Abbot for many years; in due time he received a helpful reply; and thereafter he wrote the Section on St. Peter Damian that appears in the De vita solitaria 11, 7? (or revised what he

had already written). Presumably he sent his inquiry not long after he had received Boccaccio’s letter: we do not know when he received the reply from the monastery, or when he wrote (or revised) the passage in the De vita solitaria. By about the middle of March (certainly before the 21st) Petrarch, finding that the region to the west was overrun with warfare, decided not to go on to Provence unless and until word that he would be welcome should come from the Pope [Sez. 1 3].

Although no word came to him from the Pope while he was in Milan he did hear through certain Florentine merchants who were there that they had heard from associates of theirs that the Pope had written, saying that if Petrarch should refuse the offer of the papal secretaryship he should at least come

to Avignon, bringing with him whomever he regarded as a suitable candidate [Sen. 1 3]. But this report evidently did not seem to Petrarch to afford sufficient justification for undertaking the journey. Probably about the middle of March Petrarch received let-

ters from the Emperor and from Jan ze Streda, brought, undoubtedly, by Sagremor de Pommiers. The Emperor’s letter, Affectu magno (LAP 10), invites Petrarch to come to Prague, and states that a letter is going simultaneously to the Visconti, asking them to permit Petrarch to come and to stay for some time.

Jan’s letter, Sicut Astaroth (LAP 69), after a long introductory passage filled, as so many of Jan’s letters are filled, *Foresti 2. See also Hight Years, p. 145, and the references there given. * In Prose, pp. 472 and 474.

24 CHAPTER FIVE with abject self-depreciation and with fulsome praise of Petrarch, urges Petrarch to accept the Emperor’s invitation, and asks him to bring with him a copy of his De remediis utriusque fortune, and copies of other writings of his as well: “Veniant et alia arche tue grata pigmentaria, quibus melius nosti imbecilles animos sacre tue doctrine remedio confoueri.”

Petrarch replied to both letters on 21 March, doubtless shortly before Sagremor was to start his return journey to Prague. His letter to the Emperor, Fam. xxi 9, begins with the sentence “Vicisti, Cesar, et longe vie duritiem et senescentis

animi segnitiem fregit humanitas tua,” and contains near the end the promise: “Ecce, me iterum, Cesar, vocas; venio.” The letter to Jan ze Streda, Fam. xxiu 10, after reproaching

Jan for his self-depreciation and for his excessive praises, repeats the promise to come—“ecce venio”—and says that he will stay as long as may be desired, though he hopes that permission to return to Italy may be given soon. ‘To Jan’s request that he

bring his writings with him Petrarch replies in the words “et venio non, quod ais, ut doceam, sed ut discam tuisque doctrinis et tuo proficiam ab exemplo.” In the last sentence of the letter Petrarch warns Jan not to expect him too soon: “At ne forte tarditatem stupeas, morem nosti meum; non tu hirundinem celo volantem, non cervum in montibus salientem, sed reptantem cum labore testudinem cogitabis.” *

Shortly, perhaps immediately, after deciding to accept the Emperor’s invitation, Petrarch referred to his plans thus in a letter to Boccaccio that is now lost, except for this sentence (Misc. 10), which is quoted by Boccaccio in a letter written by

him to Barbato da Sulmona on 15 May: “Ego autem, o res hominum volubiles! vocatus ad occasum ad arthon vado, illuc quoque vocatus a Cesare miris precibus, et vado libens ut eva* The fact that Fam. xxu 10 is so obviously an answer to Jan’s Sicut Astaroth proves that Jan must have written that letter at the same time as the Emperor’s Affectu magno, and rules out the possibility that Sicut Astaroth might have been written in the previous summer—a possibility suggested by Piur, pp. 137-139, who nevertheless shows, by his placement of Sicut Astaroth immediately after Affectu magno, that he thinks Sicut Astaroth to have been a companion to the Emperor’s letter.

1362: MILAN 25 dam; durum iter, sed si perveniam suavis metha.” Boccaccio tells Barbato, also, that Petrarch’s letter came from Milan, and that he had received it on 16 April. While in Milan Petrarch presumably saw something of Azzo

da Correggio and his family. He certainly did so if they were in Milan at the time, as they probably were.* * As will appear presently, I believe Foresti to be mistaken in thinking

that they were at this time at a villa near Parma.

CHAPTER VI

1362, Spring: Milan or Padua — We know that Petrarch, returning from Milan, reached Padua on 11 May [Sen. 1 3]; but we do not know when he left Milan.

Perhaps while still in Milan, perhaps soon after his return to Padua, Petrarch received from the Pope’s physician, Fran-

cesco da Siena (whom he had never met) a letter voicing a fervent desire for Petrarch’s friendship. To this letter Petrarch replied with his Sen. xvi 2, a brief note that begins thus: Fpistola quedam repens atque inexpectata & pijs affectibus tuis

. . . plena laudibus me itineri accinctum & mane moturum sero

reperit . . . Non est mihi nouum ire sed familiare nimis .. . _ presens autem rerum status iter ambiguum meque sollicitum facit. Ibo tamen charitate inde tractus: hinc debito meo pulsus.

‘‘Nevertheless”—the note continues—“‘in view of your desire for

friendship I am sending you this hasty and brief reply, rather than leave your letter unanswered: perhaps I shall answer at greater

length when I have leisure.” , The note is dated “Pataut. xj. kal. Aprilis.” * It seems probable that this letter refers to Petrarch’s intended journey to Prague. In Sen. xvi 3, which, as Foresti has shown,

was written in 1372, Petrarch speaks of Sen. xvi 2 as having been written ‘‘ante multos annos”; and there seems not to have been any other occasion between Petrarch’s move to Padua and the end of the decade to which the terms of Sen. xvi 2 could be thought to correspond. But the little letter raises questions that cannot be answered with complete assurance. *On this letter and on Sen. xvi 3 see Foresti 1, pp. 382-385 and

458-461,

26

1362, SPRING: MILAN OR PADUA 27 Writing on the 21st, Petrarch had warned Jan ze Streda to be prepared for “tarditatem” on his part: with this warning the “me itiner1 accinctum & mane moturum,” if written on the 22d, appears to be inconsistent.

If Sen. xvi 2 does refer to Petrarch’s intended journey to Prague, either the indication of Padua as the place of writing or the date, 22 March, must be wrong. We know from Var. 12, written to Moggio dei Moggi on 10 June, that Petrarch parted from Azzo da Correggio and his family and Moggio on 6 May; we know from Sen. 1 3, written to Nelli on 8 June, that Petrarch reached Padua on 11 May; and we know from Var. 12 that on 10 June Petrarch assumed that Azzo and his family and Moggio

were at home in Milan. |

Foresti assumes that the date 22 March is right for Sen. xvi 2 and that the place of its writing was not Padua but Milan; that

Petrarch left Milan on the 23rd; that on his way to Padua he stopped for more than a month to visit Azzo and his family and Moggio at a villa of Azzo’s near Parma; that Petrarch, leav-

ing Parma on 6 May, reached Padua six days later; and that between 6 May and 10 June Azzo and his family and Moggio had returned to Milan. There is however no evidence that Azzo and his family and Moggio were at Azzo’s villa near Parma

in 1362; the assumption that having been there they had returned to Milan before 10 June is quite unwarranted; and it seems unlikely that it would have taken Petrarch six days, even under the prevailing disturbed conditions, to cover the 75 miles between Parma and Padua. In his letter to Moggio, moreover, Petrarch says “Recommendo vobis reculas illas meas quas dimisi vobis, nominatim Solitariam Vitam,” and goes on to speak of

certain changes that he wants Moggio to make “in utroque libro” (that is, “in both copies”) of the De vita solitaria. It 1s far more probable that Petrarch had left the two copies of the De vita and the other “reculas” in Moggio’s care in Milan than that he should have given them to Moggio at Azzo’s villa near Parma, to be taken back to Milan. It is of course possible that

Petrarch wrote Sen. xvi 2 in Milan while expecting to leave immediately, but that he changed his mind and decided to stay

28 CHAPTER SIX

into account. |

on for a time in Milan—a possibility that Foresti does not take

In Sen. 1 3 Petrarch gives this account of his return from

Milan to Padua: ,

Fgo quidem expectationis impatiens atque in circuitu noua bellorum semina iacta prospiciens, 1am fere cuntis fractis itineribus, Pado me credidi. Et quo in hoc statu rerum uix uolucris penetrasset, ad V. Idus Maias Patauum redii, hinc ex ordine iturus ad Cesarem.

This certainly gives the impression that Petrarch’s journey from Milan to Padua was continuous. It seems to me probable, on the whole, that Petrarch remained in Milan until 6 May; that he then spent six days travelling from Milan to Padua, and that soon after reaching Padua, and while he still intended to go on to Prague, he wrote Sen. xvi 2—perhaps on 22 May,

in which case the letter would have been dated “pataui XI Kal. Iunias.” By 28 May, however, he had given up his intention of going on to Prague. _ Either while still in Milan or on his return to Padua Petrarch received two, perhaps three, letters from Naples: one, perhaps two, from Nelli, and one from Acciaiuoli. Nelli’s xxrx, dated 16 March, answers Sen. 1 2. It 1s a consolatoria, expressing at length Nelli’s deep grief at the death of Petrarch’s son Giovanni, who had been very dear to him, and

grief at the death of Socrates. He is going to say masses for the soul of Giovanni. In the latter part of the letter he thanks Petrarch for suggesting him for the papal secretaryship, and says that he would accept it if it should be offered to him. It seems probable, as Cochin suggests, that Nelli’s undated XXVIII was sent to Petrarch at the same time as his xxrx. The brief xxv contains three requests: that Petrarch should give him an opinion as to whether the Achilleid of Statius is complete or incomplete; that Petrarch should write something in praise of Acciaiuoli; and that Petrarch should send him a copy of the passage in the Africa on the death of Mago. ‘This passage, as Nelli says (and as Petrarch knew to his sorrow), was already |

in circulation, and the copy that Nelli had seen was defective. In the brief Postquam superne (LAP 73) Acciatuolli states

1362, SPRING: MILAN OR PADUA 29 his regret that Petrarch will not come to Naples; and asks that Petrarch continue to write to him, since he believes that mention by Petrarch will lead posterity to honor his name as much as

any deeds of his own might do.? | Either in Milan or in Padua, also, Petrarch received from Boccaccio a letter in which Boccaccio said that he would not accept the papal secretaryship if it should be offered to him, basing his refusal on his preference for his freedom and his quiet

poverty. His refusal is referred to both in Sen. 1 4, which 1s next to be considered, and at the end of Sen. 1 5, written to Boccaccio from Padua on 28 May, after Petrarch had received from Boccaccio the letter that is to be summarized at the be-

ginning of the next chapter. It was possibly in that letter, indeed, that Boccaccio stated his refusal (in which case Sez. 1 4

would have been written in Padua); but the inherent probability is that Boccaccio would have been fairly prompt in answering the lost letter in which Petrarch had told him of his nomination (see above, p. 21), and the brief passage concerned in Sen. 1 5 might well have been written if the word of Boccaccio’s refusal had come to Petrarch considerably earlier, before the letter to which Sev. 1 5 is the answer.

After deciding not to go on to Provence, after receiving Nelli’s xxrx, and after receiving word from Boccaccio that he would not accept an offer of the papal secretaryship, Petrarch wrote Sen. 1 4 to Cardinal Talleyrand. In this letter he reviews

the whole course of his relations with Innocent VI, beginning with the time when, as Cardinal Etienne Aubert, he had be-

lieved Petrarch to be a necromancer, and had clung to that opinion in spite of ridicule by Cardinal Talleyrand and Petrarch. Shortly before Petrarch had left Provence Cardinal Aubert had

been made Pope, but Petrarch had refused to pay his respects to him, though Cardinal Talleyrand had urged him to do so. Petrarch now professes himself grateful both for Innocent’s obvious change of opinion about him and for the offer of the “On this letter see my “A Survey of the Correspondence Between Petrarch and Francesco Nelli,” in Italia medioevale e umanistica, 1 (1958), 356-358.

30 CHAPTER SIX papal secretaryship. That offer, however, he now definitively refuses, on the grounds of his lack of desire for riches or honors,

his way of life, his [literary] occupation, and his age. He asks Cardinal Talleyrand to make his excuses to the Pope. He refers to his nomination of his two Florentine friends, saying that one of them would decline the appointment as being too onerous, — but that the other, whom he recommends most highly, would

accept. Nelli’s name is not given in the letter, but Petrarch says that Cardinal Talleyrand’s messenger will supply all necessary information about this nominee.

CHAPTER VII

1362: May-September As has been said above, it seems to me probable, on the whole, that Sen. xvi 2 was written soon after Petrarch reached Padua—perhaps on 22 May—and while he was still intending to go on to Prague. Soon after reaching Padua, however, he came to the conclusion that the warfare then current in northeastern Italy would make it impossible for him to go to Prague after all [Sen. 1 5]; and Francesco da Carrara refused to give him a conductum |Var. 12]. So he gave up his intended journey. Before 28 May—probably not long before, in view of its urgent nature—he received from Boccaccio a letter that opened

with an expression of Boccaccio’s great regret that Petrarch was going to Prague. Most of the letter, however, was a distressed and distressing account of a recent visit from a man who had represented himself as the bearer of a prophetic message which the saintly Pietro [Petroni] of Siena, shortly before his death, had charged him to deliver to Boccaccio (the same messenger, Boccaccio reported, had been charged to deliver messages from Pietro to various other persons, among them Petrarch himself). “This message was to the effect that Boccaccio had only a few years still to live, and that he must renounce the

study of poetry. Boccaccio, credulous and crushed, had de-

offered to sell to Petrarch. : cided to give up his studies and dispose of his books, which he

To this letter Petrarch replied at great length with his fine Sen. 15, written on 28 May. Dealing first with Boccaccio’s regret that Petrarch was intending to go to Prague, he tells him that that plan has been abandoned because of the warfare pre-

vailing in northeastern Italy; and at the end of the letter he

31 |

32 CHAPTER SEVEN praises Boccaccio for his unwillingness to exchange his “‘libertatem animi” and his “‘quietam egestatem” for the tasks and emoluments of a papal secretaryship. Most of the letter is devoted to a calm and searching discussion of the message that Boccaccio had received. Critical doubt is cast on the genuineness of that message; the idea that one may not have many years to live is valid for all men and is to be accepted without regret: ‘“Profecto fuimus [Jege fumus] vmbra: somnium: prestigium: nihil denique nisi luctus & laboris area: vita est que hic agitur, Quod vnum boni habet: ad aliam vitam via est;” and the position is taken that, while it might well be unfitting for an elderly man

to undertake the profession of letters if he had never before followed literary pursuits, there is no reason why a man grown old in that profession should abandon it. If Boccaccio persists in his plan to sell his books, Petrarch, believing that they ought not to be scattered, will gladly buy them and add them to his own collection, and will bequeath the joint collection to some

religious institution: |

Nolim tamen tanti viri libros huc illuc effundi, aut profanis ut fit manibus contrectari. Sicut igitur nos ... vnum animo fuimus: sic studiorum hec supellex nostra post nos . . . ad aliquem nostri perpetuo memorem ptum ac deuotum locum simul indecerpta perveniat. Sic enim statui ex quo ille obiit quem studiorum meorum

speraveram successorem ...

The successor whom he had hoped for was doubtless his son. Petrarch had previously invited Boccaccio to come and live with him for the rest of his life; and he now urgently renews that invitation. On 8 June Petrarch wrote Sen. 1 3 to Nelli and Fam. xxi 18 to Acciaiuoli, answering Nelli’s xxrx and Acciaiuoli’s LAP 73. In Sen. 1 3 Petrarch thanks Nelli for his sympathy, speaking in particular of his son’s admiration and affection for Nelli, and

reviewing the course of his own friendship with his Socrates, informs Nelli of his decision to dedicate the Seniles to him, and

— indicates that he is enclosing the formal letter of dedication, Sen. 1 1, which he had written before the end of 1361, but had not previously sent; tells of his attempted journey to Provence

, 1362: MAY -SEPTEMBER- 33 (undertaken partly on Nelli’s behalf), of its failure, of his return to Padua, of his plan to go thence to Prague, of the abandonment of that plan, and of his expectation of a quiet summer; and

asks Nelli to send him a certain book that must have been mentioned in letters of uncertain date that are not extant.

At or about the same time, in all probability, Petrarch wrote

to Nelli another letter, now lost, in which he answered the question about the Achilleid that Nelli had asked in his xxvut. In Fam. xxi 18 Petrarch complies both with Acciatuoli’s request that he continue to write him, and with Nelli’s request that he write something in praise of Acciaiuoli. Two days later, on 10 June, Petrarch wrote to Moggio dei Moggi, then in Milan, the letter, Var. 12, already mentioned, in which he reports his safe arrival in Padua; tells of his abandon-

ment of his plan to go to Prague, sends his greetings to Azzo da Correggio and members of Azzo’s family and to a man whom

he calls “Franciscolum meum”; and asks Moggio to make certain corrections in the copies of the De vita solitaria that had

been left with him.t The “Franciscolum” of this letter 1s un-

doubtedly Francescuolo da Brossano; and the “meum”’ suggests, though it does not suffice to prove, that at this time Francescuolo was already married to Petrarch’s daughter Francesca—a mar-

riage that was to be a source of great happiness to Petrarch throughout the rest of his life. In the course of the summer the plague reached Padua. At some time in the summer Petrarch received from Pandolfo

Malatesta, whose wife had died, a request for advice as to whether he should marry again, and whether, if so, he should marry someone of his own city or someone of another city. Petrarch hesitated to reply, and postponed replying; but finally did so soon after he had left Padua for Venice.

In the spring or early summer of 1361 four admirers of Petrarch—Barbato da Sulmona, Niccolo Acciaiuoli, and Napoleone and Nicola Orsini—meeting in Barbato’s garden in Sulmona, had decided that Barbato should write a letter to Petrarch, coming nominally from Barbato’s three guests, in * On this letter see Piur, pp. 243-245.

34 CHAPTER SEVEN which Petrarch should be urged to release the Africa immediately, rather than hold it to be released after his death. Barbato, accordingly, wrote a substantial letter, beginning Convenientibus nobis (LAP 74), in which he does in fact plead urgently for the release of the Africa. The possibility having arisen, however, that Petrarch might be persuaded to come to Naples, Barbato had held the letter for several months. Early in 1362 he finally sent it to Boccaccio, asking that Boccaccio transmit it to Petrarch, with a covering letter of his own: in a letter written to Barbato on 13 May Boccaccio agreed to do so. It may well be that his transmission of the letter was somewhat delayed; but he certainly sent it before he left northern Italy in the autumn, for Naples. It was then probably in the summer of 1362, though possibly in the early autumn, that Petrarch received it. Apparently, however, it had no effect upon him except to renew the displeasure resulting from the fact that in 1343, after he had given Barbato a copy of one passage in the Africa—the passage at the end of Book VI containing the soliloquy of Mago before his death—under the condition that Barbato should not release any copies of it, Barbato had soon broken his promise.”

At some time in the summer, almost certainly in August, Petrarch had a conversation with Anastasio di Ubaldo Gezzi in the course of which Petrarch spoke of the fact that since his return to Padua he had not heard from his young Venetian friend Paolo de Bernardo, and jokingly attributed Paolo’s silence to the fact that he had recently been married. This conversation

led to an exchange of letters that will be mentioned presently.

Venetian Plans In the course of the summer Petrarch made up his mind that

he would like to live in Venice, if a suitable house could be provided for him there. His decision was made not because of the plague, but in the hope of finding a more restful home: “non ut mortem fugiam; sed ut queram si qua in terra est

250, , ,

*On this letter see Foresti 1, pp. 404-407, and Studies ..., pp. 248-

1362: MAY -SEPTEMBER 35 requies,” he says in Sen. 1 7, and similar clauses occur in Sen. 12 and x 2. He evidently discussed this possibility with his

friend Benintendi dei Ravagnani, who was Chancellor of the Republic; and he decided to propose to the Great Council that he leave his library to Venice on condition that Venice provide him with a modest house. The idea of leaving his books in such a way that they should not be scattered had already occurred to him: in Sen. 1 5 he had written of the possibility that he might leave his books (and those of Boccaccio, if he bought them) to some religious institution; but now his thought

turned toward Venice, and toward the creation of a public library.

The document in which he formulated his proposal 1s not

itself extant; but the minute of 4 September (presently to be quoted) recording its acceptance by the Major Council sum-

marizes it thus: :

Cupit F. beatum Marcum euangelistam, si Christo et sibi sit placitum, heredem habere nescio quot libellorum quos nunc habet uel est forsitan habiturus, hac lege quod libri non uendantur neque quomodolibet distrahantur, sed in loco aliquo ad hoc deputando, qui sit tutus ab incendiis atque imbribus, ad Sancti ipsitus honorem et sui memoriam, nec non ad ingeniosorum et nobilium ciuitatis

illius quos continget in talibus delectari consolationem qualem qualem et commodum perpetuo conseruentur. Neque appetit hoc quia libri uel ualde multi, uel ualde preciosi sunt, sed sub hac spe quod postea de tempore in tempus et illa gloriosa ciuitas alios superaddet e publico, et priuatim nobiles atque amantes patrie, ciues uel forte eciam alienigene, secuti exemplum, librorum suorum partem

supremis suis relinquent voluntatibus Ecclesie supradicte; atque ita facile poterit ad unam magnam et famosam bibliothecam ac parem

ueteribus perueniri, que quante glorie futura sit illi Dominio nemo literatus est puto nec ydiota qui nesciat. Quod si Deo et illo tanto

patrono urbis uestre auxiliante contigerit, gaudebit ipse F. et in Domino gloriabitur se quodammodo fuisse principium tanti boni. Super quo, si res procedat, forte aliquid latius scribet. Verum ut aliquid plus quam verba ponere in tanto negocio uideatur, uult hoc facere quod promisit etc. Pro se interim et pro dictis libris uellet unam non magnam sed honestam domum, ut quicquid de ipso humaniter contigerit non posse hoc eius propositum impediri; ipse quoque libentissime moram

36 CHAPTER SEVEN trahet ibidem, si bono modo possit; de hoc enim non est ad plenum certus propter multas rerum difficultates; sperat tamen.°

This summary is of particular interest and importance since it is the earliest extant record of a proposal for the establishment of a public library. On 27 August, while the negotiations were still going on, Petrarch wrote to Benintendi his Var. 43, thanking him for his interest and help. Petrarch thinks that if his proposal is accepted,

the collection, though small in its beginning, will ultimately develop into an institution in which Venice may well glory. He wishes that the idea of the foundation of a public library— “bibliothecae decus publicae”—had come to him earlier, while the Doge Andrea Dandolo was still living; and he wonders that the idea had not occurred still earlier to someone else. On 27 August, also (or possibly on the following day) Petrarch received from Paolo de Bernardo a letter, beginning Arguit modo (LAP 77), in which Paolo says that Anastasio has reported to him Petrarch’s remark that since returning to Padua he had not heard from Paolo, and Petrarch’s joking attribution of Petrarch’s silence to the fact that Paolo had recently been married. Most of Paolo’s letter 1s filled with the ardent protestation of his affection and admiration for Petrarch: he cites in evidence the fact that he has collected and cherishes

copies of a hundred letters written by Petrarch. Marriage, he says, has indeed made a change in his habits: he is no longer devoted, as previously, to study and to solitude. He has changed

his profession also: he has gone into trade, and is about to set

sail for Cyprus. |

On the 28th Petrarch wrote in reply his Sev. x 3. He had been joking, he says, in his talk with Anastasio, but he does not regret his joking, since it has served to bring him so good a letter from Paolo. He 1s sure of Paolo’s friendship, and sends him his best wishes for a successful voyage and a safe return. The letter ends with this sentence: Ille qui imperat ventis ac fluctibus . . . te incolumem comitetur, * Nolhac 2, 1, 94.

1362: MAY - SEPTEMBER 37 ac revehat nobis, quos cum cara thori socia desiderio plenos linquis,

quique tibi navem ascensuro, una secum dicimus illud Achillee coniugis apud Statium: I felix, nosterque redi.*

On 4 September the Major Council voted to accept Petrarch’s proposal. ‘he minute recording this action reads thus: Die iii} sept.

_ Considerato quantum ad laudem Dei et beati Marci euangeliste ac honorem et famam ciuitatis nostre futurum est illud quod offertur per dominum Franciscum Petrarcham, (cuius fama hodie tanta est

in toto orbe quod in memoria hominum non est iamdudum inter Christianos fuisse uel esse philosophum moralem et poetam qui possit

eidem comparari), acceptetur oblatio sua secundum formam infrascripte cedule scripte manu sua, et ex nunc sit captum quod possit expendi de Monte pro domo et habitatione sua in uita eius

per modum affictus, sicut uidebitur Dominio, Consiliariis et Capitibus uel maiori parti; cum procuratores Ecclesie Sancti Marci offerant facere expensas necessarias pro loco ubi debuerint reponi et conseruari libri sui. Et est capta per vj Consiliaros, tria Capita xxxlj de xl et ultimo duas partes Maioris Consilii. “Tenor autem

dicte cedule talis est:

The minute then concludes with the summary of Petrarch’s proposal that has already been quoted.° *On these two letters see Foresti 1, pp. 386-390, and Lino Lazzarini 2, pp. 66-73 and 168-171. Fracassetti’s translation of the last sentence of Sen. X 3, misinterprets it as meaning that Paolo’s wife was to accompany him on his voyage; and Foresti accepts that misinterpretation. * Nolhac 2, loc. cit. The laudatory clause (parenthesized by Nolhac) was presumably due to Benintendi.

: CHAPTER VIII 1361-1362: Addenda Jan ze Streda’s letter beginning Sz magistralis apparatus (LAP 68) may have been written at any time in the years 1356— 1364; and the epistola metrica addressed to Petrarch by Albertino

da Cannobio may have been written either while Petrarch was still living in Milan or after he had moved to Padua.* It was in all probability before the end of Petrarch’s year in Padua—possibly even before he moved from Milan to Padua— that he finished the making of the Chigi form of the Canzoniere.”

It is quite possible that it was in the course of his first residence in Padua that Petrarch received a canonry at Monselice, a small place about 15 miles southwest of Padua and near Arqua. It is apparently this canonry that is referred to in Var. 15, written in Arqua some years later: “Habeo hic praebendam, quae mihi panem et vinum dat non solum ad utendum, sed etiam ad

vendendum.” ® |

* On these two letters see Eight Years, pp. 242-243. On Fam. xxu 3 and on Paolo de Bernardo’s Amantissime pater (LAP 76), which were almost

certainly written while Petrarch was still living in Milan, though it is just possible that they were written later, see Hight Years, pp. 204 and 242.

“See The Making, pp. 160-163. :

* See Studies ..., p. 27. Petrarch certainly held this canonry in 1365. It seems somewhat more probable that he received it while he was living in Padua than that he received it while he was still in Milan or after he had left Padua for Venice.

38

BOOK II

Petrarch’s Residence in Venice

BLANK PAGE

CHAPTER IX

Introductory | Petrarch in Venice Before September 1362

Petrarch first saw Venice in 1321, when returning from Bologna to Avignon with his “preceptor.” 7

Between March 1349 (when Jacopo da Carrara gave him a canonry in Padua) and May 1351 Petrarch spent much of his

time in Padua; and during that period he certainly visited Venice occasionally. It was in Venice, before September 1350, that he bought the huge breviary that became one of his most treasured books; and it was presumably within this period that he made the acquaintance and won the friendship of the Doge Andrea Dandolo. In the original form of Fam. vii 5, written on 19 May 1349, he refers to Venice as “omnium quas ego viderim— et vidi cuntas prope quibus Europe regio superbit—miraculosissi-

ma civitas Venetia,” and goes on to speak of Andrea as being one of those who “me antequam conspexerint, dilexerunt.” In Fam. 1x 13, written on 15 February 1350, he calls Venice “mirabilem atque pulcerrimam permaximamque urbem.” ?

During the eight years, 1353 to 1361, in which Petrarch lived in Milan he visited Venice three times: once in the spring of 1354, when he went as orator for a mission sent by the Archbishop Giovanni Visconti; once in 1358-1359, when he spent

most of the winter in Padua “ex negotio” and in Venice “ex otio,” as he says in Fam. xx 6; and once in the spring (and perhaps the early summer) of 1360. From the early summer of 1361 to September 1362 Petrarch * See Foresti 1, pp. 22-28. * See Foresti 1, pp. 242-245. * See Eight Years, pp. 53-60, 174-177, and 205. 41

42 CHAPTER NINE had been living in Padua; and during this time he undoubtedly went occasionally to Venice, where he wrote Misc. 2 in January 1362. The considerations and negotiations that led to Petrarch’s move to Venice have been treated above, on pp. 34-37.

Petrarch’s House in Venice The house provided for Petrarch, the Palazzo Molin, notable

for its two towers, stood on the Riva degli Schiavoni (on the site on which the Caserma del Sepolcro now stands). Petrarch refers to it, in Sen. 11 1, as a “saluberrima domus.” + From Sen. 1v 4, written in this house, we learn something of

Petrarch’s household ways. In the summer he retired to his bedroom at midday to make up some of the sleep that he had lost [through his accustomed rising at midnight for prayer and study or writing]. To his servants—with whom he was much _ dissatisfied, though others thought them excellent—he gave these

instructions as to the admission of visitors: if he is engaged in saying his office the visitor must wait, unless he is a “persona insignis,” or comes on an errand of great importance; if he is

studying they are neither to admit everyone nor to exclude everyone, but are to distinguish between cases, if they can, and act accordingly; and if he is at table or asleep they are to admit any visitor, since he grudges all time spent in eating or sleeping.

Venetian Friends — | There were in Venice at least three men, in addition to Benintendi, whom Petrarch already knew as friends: Donato Albanzani, Paolo de Bernardo, and Anastasio di Ubaldo Gezzi.°

His friendship with Donato came to be close, as many of the

following pages will make evident. In Sen. xm 5 he writes *See Lino Lazzarini 2, p. 39.

*See Foresti 1, pp. 386-392; and Lino Lazzarini 2, pp. 24-54. On Donato see also Carmine Jannaco, “Donato Casentinense volgarizzatore del Petrarca,” in Studi petrarcheschi, 1 (1948), 185-194. On Paolo de Bernardo see also Lino Lazzarini 1. For Benintendi dei Ravagnani see also Eight Years, references in the index.

INTRODUCTORY 43 to Donato (the initial reference being to the De ignorantia): “Ita uero hunc leges, ut me ante focum hybernis noctibus fabulantem audire soles.”

Early in the following year Petrarch received from the

Paduan Bartolomeo di Pace a letter in which Bartolomeo evidently spoke of Petrarch as living on the most cordial terms with the Doge (Lorenzo Celsi) and other leading citizens of Venice [ Var. 64].°

Returns to Padua , Throughout the period of Petrarch’s residence in Venice _ he went not infrequently to Padua—only about twenty miles away—sometimes for a stay of several days. It has been asserted that he went there regularly for the Easter services: this 1s likely

enough, but it has never been proved.’ *On Venetian culture in the 14th Century see the cooperative La civilta veneziana del Trecento (Vol. II in the series Civilta veneziana) (Florence, 1956), especially P. O. Kristeller’s essay, “Il Petrarca, |’?Umanesimo e la Scolastica a Venezia”; and Lino Lazzarini, “Sulla cultura e la civilta veneziana del Trecento,” in Lettere italiane, x (1958), 60-77. “In the six years concerned Easter fell on these days: in 1363 on 2 April; in 1364 on 24 March; in 1365 on 13 April; in 1366 on 5 April; in 1367 on 18 April; and in 1368 on 9 April. As will appear below, the only years in this series in which Petrarch is known to have been in Padua on a date close to Easter are 1364, when he was there on 31 March, and 1367, when he was there on 21 April. He was probably there early in April 1368.

CHAPTER X | 1362: September-December At some time in the summer Petrarch had received from Pandolfo Malatesta, whose wife had died, a request for advice as to whether he should marry again, and whether, if so, he should choose a wife from his own city or from another city. On 11 September Petrarch, now in Venice, finally wrote his answer, Fam. xxu 1. After disclaiming competence, he says that while Pandolfo would have more freedom and quietness if he should remain unmarried he ought nevertheless to marry for the sake of his State, his family and his friends. In the choice of a wife Petrarch advises Pandolfo to consider “non tam dotem ac divitias quam genus et pueritie rudimenta, non tam ornatus

_ elegantiam quam pietatem, neque omnino tam corporis quam animi formam.” He advises also that a wife be chosen from another city rather than from one’s own city, partly because there would be less danger of intrusion by relatives, and partly because a wife from another city would necessarily be more dependent upon her husband. On 18 September Petrarch was present at a conference held

in Padua, in the garden behind the palace of Francesco da Carrara, at which a Venetian representative endeavored to get Francesco to revoke an order to which Venice objected. The case was in itself a petty one, but a question of territorial jurisdiction was involved. A certain Rizzardo had fled from Venice

with the wife and some of the belongings of Bartolommeo Venier, a boatman; and Venier and some companions had followed the fugitives, had caught them in the village of Sant’[lario,

and had taken them back to Venice. A Paduan official, main- — taining that Sant’[lario belonged to Padua, had issued an order forbidding Venier and his companions, on pain of death, ever

44 |

1362: SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 45 to enter Paduan territory again. Venier had complained to the Doge, Lorenzo Celsi, who had sent Andrea di Oltedo to Padua, as his representative, to request that the order be revoked. This, however, Francesco da Carrara, at the conference, refused to do, citing in support of the Paduan claim to Sant’Ilario the fact

that the inhabitants of the village had for generations paid customs fees and taxes to Padua. Di Oltedo protested, but Francesco held to his decision; and Di Oltedo then instructed a notary who was with him to make a full record of the conference. The resulting document, which still exists, names Petrarch first among the several “nobilibus et sapientibus dominis” listed as having been present at the conference.* —

In March, in response to a renewed invitation from the _ Emperor, Petrarch had agreed to go to Prague, but in May he had abandoned the plan because of the warfare prevalent in northeastern Italy. Either in the course of the summer, or some-

what more probably after moving to Venice, he wrote to Prague—certainly to the imperial chancellor Jan ze Streda, and probably to the Emperor also—telling of the frustration of his plan to come to Prague and of his-settlement in Venice. It was however to a messenger or messengers who proved to be un-

reliable that he entrusted this letter or these letters, and he later had reason to think that what he had written had never reached Prague, as will appear below.

In September or October Petrarch received and anwered a letter from Francesco Bruni in which Bruni, having heard, evidently, that the plague had reached Padua, and not having heard of Petrarch’s move to Venice, urged him to flee from Padua. In his answer, Sen. 1 7, Petrarch thanks Bruni for his concern; says that the endeavor to escape death is futile; and reports that he has left Padua for Venice, though not from fear of death: “non ut mortem fugiam; sed ut queram si qua in terra est requies.” The letter also contains a lengthy attack on astrologers, of whom, Petrarch says, there were all too many in

Venice. | |

*The document is published and discussed in Gloria 1, pp. 19-20

and 36-38.

46 CHAPTER TEN By the end of October Petrarch must have heard of the death of Pope Innocent VI, and of the election, in his place, of Guillaume Grimoard, Abbot of a Benedictine monastery

in Marseilles, who took the name Urban V.? The news | of his election must have delighted Petrarch, for several reasons. The new pope was a man of exemplary personal character; he had not been a cardinal, and the election of a mere abbot to the papacy seemed to Petrarch (as he was to say, eventually, in Sez. vir 1) a miraculous act of divine provi-

dence; he had personal knowledge of Italy, since at the very time of his election he was serving as papal legate in Naples, and his choice of the name Urban suggested at once, to Petrarch,

that he regarded himself as having his proper place in Rome, which was, in Petrarch’s thought, the supreme urbs. More-

over, the idea that Urban might return the papacy to Rome must have occurred to him at once; and the passionate conviction that the papacy ought to be returned to Rome and the corresponding conviction that Rome ought to be made again the seat of empire were the two dominant elements in Petrarch’s profound concern for the cure of the ills of his sorely troubled

world. On the theme of the return of the papacy to Rome

Petrarch had written Met. 1 2 and 5 to Benedict XII and m1 5 to Clement VI; he had had no hopes in the case of Innocent VI; but now his hopes must have sprung up anew. Before long word came to Petrarch that Urban was anxious to have him return to Avignon, and had in mind making him an

offer that he (Urban) thought would appeal to him. But Petrarch supposed that the offer would be that of a papal secretaryship, and was not interested [Se. u 2].

Late in October or early in November Petrarch learned (we do not know how) of the death of his dear friend and sometime patron Azzo da Correggio; and he poured forth his distress in a deeply felt and eloquent letter, Var. 19, addressed to Moggio dei Moggi, who had been a member of Azzo’s house“Innocent died on 12 September, and Urban was elected on 28 September. On Urban see Mollat, pp. 109-121 and 239-257.

, 1362: SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 47 hold for many years, and was himself a friend of Petrarch. This letter, however, was not immediately sent, since Petrarch thought it best to wait for a messenger who could be trusted to take it safely to Milan, avoiding or resisting interception by soldiers

inByLombardy. | the middle of November three letters telling of Azzo’s death had come to Petrarch, one from Moggio, one from Azzo’s widow, and one from Azzo’s sons, Giberto and Ludovico. To

these three letters Petrarch wrote brief answers: to Azzo’s widow, on or before 17 November, a letter that is not extant; to Azzo’s sons Var. 16, written on the 17th; and to Moggio Var. 4, written also on the 17th. But he held these letters also, awaiting a trustworthy messenger. Finally, on 9 December, such a messenger—a man named Bergamino—appeared; and on that day Petrarch added a post-

script to Var. 4, and despatched the four letters. In the added postscript he expresses the hope that Moggio, who had been making a copy of the De vita solitaria for him, has finished his task; asks Moggio to have that copy illuminated and bound by Master Benedetto and sent to him in the bales of Giovannolo da Como; and says that payment will be made by Messer Danisolo and that any necessary instructions will be given by Francescuolo da Brossano, Petrarch’s son-in-law. Soon after sending these letters Petrarch received new letters from Azzo’s widow and from Moggio, complaining that they had had no answers to the letters they had previously sent to Petrarch. He then, on 20 December, wrote to Moggio the brief Var. 37, saying simply that his answers had already been sent by Bergamino, and that he believes that those answers must already have been received.’ It was in all probability Pietro da Muglio who in 1360, be- | ing then the professor of letters in the University of Bologna, had written and sent to Petrarch a letter composed in the name of Homer, to which Petrarch, addressing Homer directly, had replied with Fam. xxiv 12. In the autumn, probably (the uni*On the date of Var. 37 see Ullman, p. 151, n. 31.

48 CHAPTER TEN , versity year began in November), of 1362 Pietro moved from Bologna to Padua, to take a professorship in the University of Padua. Petrarch doubtless, on one of his trips to Padua, met Pietro there before the end of the year.‘ It was possibly in the autumn of 1362, though more prob-

ably in the preceding summer, that Petrarch received from Boccaccio the letter Convenientibus nobis (LAP 74) that Barbato had written long before (see above, pp. 33-34).

Petrarch’s work on the fourth or “Chigi” form of the Canzomere, begun by 1359, ended not later than 1362, perhaps earlier.°

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. Late 1362 or Early 1363 Late in 1362 or early in 1363 word came again to Petrarch that Pope Urban was anxious to have him return to Avignon;

and he now learned that the Pope had in mind for him not a papal secretaryship, but a modest canonry, apparently at Carpentras, a place of which Petrarch had boyhood memories. ‘This possibility, which would not have interfered with his freedom

as a papal secretaryship would have done, undoubtedly had some attraction for Petrarch; but he still was not ready to return to Avignon [Sev. mi 7 and 1x 2]. At about the same time he received another letter from Francesco Bruni, in which Bruni reported that he was himself going to Avignon, hoping for a secretarial appointment in the papal service, and asked Petrarch for a letter of recommendation. “Qn Pietro see Lodovico Frati, “Pietro da Moglio e il suo commento a Boezio,” in Studi e memorie per la storia dell’ Universita di Bologna, v (1920), 239-276; Foresti 3; Carlo Calcaterra, Alma mater studiorum: Universita di Bologna nella storia della cultura e della civiltd (Bologna, 1948), pp. 137-139; Weiss, “Notes on Petrarch and Homer,” in Rinascimento, Iv (1935), 267-276, and Eight Years, pp. 213-214.

*See The Making, pp. 160-163. :

1362: SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 49 To Bruni’s letter Petrarch replied with his Sen. 1 2, in which

he commends Bruni’s decision, speaks with great respect of Urban, and treats again his familiar theme of moderation, point-

ing out that riches and poverty are good or bad not in themselves, but as they are used or misused. Instead of writing the desired letter of recommendation he asks Bruni to commend him orally to the Pope, apparently thinking that this procedure would be more helpful to Bruni than the presentation of a formal letter of recommendation.

It was probably late in 1362 or early in 1363 that Petrarch, learning that Bartolomeo di Pace wanted to write to him but hesitated to do so, urged him, in a letter that 1s not extant, to lay aside his hesitation and to write freely, and spoke of him-

self as suffering from sorrows and from a heavy weight of cares.

Late in 1362 or early in 1363, apparently, Petrarch received

from his “Laelrus” a letter in which Laelius reported that he had recently seen certain writings, some of them in Italian, that bore Petrarch’s name; enclosed copies of their opening words; and asked whether they were in fact writings of Petrarch. To this letter Petrarch replied with his undated Sen. 11 4, in which, after saying that the writings in question are not his, he goes on to discuss false attribution in general, referring to works falsely attributed to Aristotle, Seneca, Origen, Augustine, Ambrose, and Ovid. In the case of Ambrose he mentions his own discovery that a work attributed to him in the library of Sant’Ambrogio was really by Palladius.

Soon afterward, it would seem, Petrarch wrote a second letter to Laelius, Sen. 11 5, which is devoted to a discussion of the necessity of maintaining secrecy in matters confided to one by a man whom one is serving, and the necessity of faithfulness in reporting to that man matters that concern his welfare.° *The dates of Sev. 1 4 and 5 have never been discussed. The dates of the three preceding letters in Sen. u are 16 March 1363, late 1362 or early 1363, and 9 April 1363; and the last three letters of Sen. 1—6—8— were all written in the summer or autumn of 1363, as will appear below. It is then safe to conclude, as a matter of probability, that Sen. 1 4 and 5 were written in 1362 or 1363. If they were written in 1363 it was prob-

50 CHAPTER TEN Two Venetian ships tied up for the winter directly in front of Petrarch’s house. They were as large as the large house

itself, and their masts rose higher than the house [Sen. m 3]. ably early in the year; for there is in Sen. m 2 a reference to a third letter to Laelius, which had reached Rome only after Laelius’ death, and

had then been returned unopened to Petrarch, who received it in the course of the summer, and destroyed it. The exact date of the death of Laelius is not known: Boccaccio knew of it before the end of his visit to Petrarch in the spring and early summer of 1363, but we do not know just when he heard the news, or just when his visit ended.

CHAPTER XI

— 1363: January-July Early 1363

In July 1362 Nelli had sent to Petrarch a letter, written in answer to Sen. 1 3, which Petrarch probably did not ever receive. On 20 December Nelli, thinking that his July letter had probably not reached Petrarch, wrote his xxx, which presumably reached Petrarch early in 1363. In this letter, which is an answer both to Sen. 1 3 and to Petrarch’s (lost) answer to Nelli’s xxvim, Nelli again sends his sympathy for Petrarch’s loss

of his son; says that he would still be disposed to accept an offer of the papal secretaryship, though he feels himself aged and dismayed by the ravages of the plague; and thanks Petrarch

for writing Fam. xxur 18 to Acciaiuoli, and for answering the question that he had asked, in his xxvii, about the Achilleid. Early in 1363, apparently, word came to Petrarch, for the third time, that the Pope was anxious to have him return to Avignon [Sen. ut 7].

At some time early in the year Petrarch made a trip to Padua: in Var. 39, written in Venice on 13 March to Pietro da Muglio in Padua he says: “Cancellartus quasi semper ex quo

huc redii aeger iacuit.” | March

In March 1361, having declined an invitation from the Emperor to come to Prague, Petrarch had sent to Jan ze Streda a copy of his Bucolicum carmen, and in his covering letter, Fam.

xx 6, he had expressed the wish that the Carmen might have been accompanied by an exposition, or, better, by an expositor 51

52 CHAPTER ELEVEN (himself). A few months later the Emperor had renewed his invitation, and Petrarch had agreed to come at the end of the summer, if certain circumstances should permit: the summer had passed, however, without Petrarch’s starting for Prague. In March 1362 Petrarch had received still another invitation from the Emperor, and had agreed to come; but in May, as has been noted above, he had abandoned the plan; and had thereafter sent to Jan and probably to the Emperor a letter or letters that never reached them. Early in March 1363, it would seem, Sagremor de Pommiers came to Venice, bringing to Petrarch a letter from Jan ze Streda.

In this letter, beginning Rogo vos (LAP 70), Jan, unable to discern the hidden meanings of the Bucolicum carmen, assuming (wrongly) that Petrarch had written a complete exposition of it, and apparently hopeless, now, that Petrarch would ever come to Prague and explain it personally, requests him urgently to send his exposition of the Carmen. In this letter Jan, who in his earliest letter to Petrarch, written several years previously, had used the 2d plural form of address, but thereafter, following Petrarch’s example, had used the 2d singular form, reverts to the 2d plural form. On 11 March Petrarch wrote letters to Jan and to the Emperor for Sagremor to carry back to Prague. In his letter to Jan,

Fam. xxi 14, Petrarch first takes him to task for using the 2d plural form of address; speaks of the fact that earlier letters had evidently not reached Jan; tells briefly of the frustration of his plan to come to Prague, and says finally that he is giving Sagremor this letter and a letter to the Emperor, to be carried back to Prague. In the letter to the Emperor, Fam. xxi 15, Petrarch, as he had often done before, exhorts Charles to reéstablish the seat of the Empire in Italy. The mood of this letter, unlike that of some of his earlier exhortations, is one of entreaty rather than reproach. At the end he ascribes to a personified Italy this appeal: —

Cesar, Cesar, Cesar meus, ubi es? cur me deseris? quid cuntaris?

Certe ego nisi immobilis forem, et dextra levaque mari gemino,

1363: JANUARY - JULY 53 a tergo autem Alpibus circumsepta, ipsa iampridem meum Cesarem longe trans Danubium petiissem.

In November Boccaccio had gone to Naples, expecting to

stay there indefinitely, on the basis of an invitation from Acciaiuoli, seconded by Nelli. He had been disappointed and disgusted, however, by Acciaiuoli’s failure to provide him with

the kind of hospitality he had expected; and he had left Naples early in March, probably in February.’

About the Ist of March, apparently, Boccaccio arrived in Padua, where he had expected to find Petrarch. After learning that Petrarch had moved to Venice he decided to stay in Padua for a time. His presence there was certainly made known

promptly to Petrarch, perhaps in the letter from Pietro da Muglio that is next to be mentioned, perhaps in some other way.

"Farly in March, certainly before the 13th, Petrarch received from Pietro da Muglio a letter in which (judging from Petrarch’s reply, which is to be considered presently) he ex-

pressed some anxiety as to whether letters of his would be welcome to Petrarch; asked Petrarch’s opinion on several points regarding the city of Durazzo (who founded it, what the name Durachium meant, whether it had ever had any other name, and if so who changed it, and why); said that he had students who were interested in such matters; reported that a certain Donatus

de Florentia (whose identity we do not know) was suffering from the blows of adverse fortune; and mentioned someone living in Murano whom he hoped Petrarch might see. On 13 March Petrarch received a visit from a young Florentine monk, who with the greatest distress—““While he was telling me all this his eyes flashed, his voice broke, and he was so burning with indignation that he could hardly keep back the tears”—told Petrarch that certain Florentines had indulged

in criticism of the Mago passage in the Africa and of the

Bucolicum carmen. |

In the text of the Africa the soliloquy of Mago is introduced thus (v1, 885-889):

54 CHAPTER ELEVEN Hic postquam medio iuvenis stetit equore Penus, vulneris increscens dolor et vicinia dure mortis agens stimulis ardentibus urget anhelum. Ille videns propius supremi temporis horam,

incipit. ...

The soliloquy itself (lines 889-913) is followed by the words Dixit: tum liber in auras

| spiritus egreditur ...

Florentine censure of the passage, Petrarch was told, contained

three particular charges: first that the length and vigor of the soliloquy were inappropriate for a dying man; second, that the sentiments ascribed to Mago were Christian rather than pagan; and third, that the reflections attributed to Mago possessed a gravity inappropriate for a young man. Of the Bucolicum carmen it was said that the style was too elevated for a pastoral subject.

On that same day Petrarch, exceedingly angry under the shock of these criticisms, and having in mind Barbato’s Convementibus nobis, wrote his long and violent Sen. mu 1, which

he addressed to Boccaccio, who, though certainly not one of the critics, had transmitted Barbato’s letter—and could now be reached quickly in Padua. Sen. 1 1, pervaded by excited ex-— pressions of the utmost scorn for his critics, tells in detail the story of his release of the Mago passage to Barbato and of

Barbato’s breach of faith, also of the visit of the young Florentine monk, and goes on to rebut the four particular criticisms in great detail. He defends himself against the first

criticism by asserting that his Mago, when he uttered his soliloquy, was not dying, but merely in “vicinia mortis”; against

the second by maintaining that every word spoken by Mago might have been spoken by a thoughtful pagan; against the third by saying that he had called Mago “1uvenis Penus” rather than

simply “Penus” to distinguish him from his older brother Hannibal, and that the reflections attributed to him might perfectly well have been uttered by a man who could properly be called young; and against the fourth by maintaining that the style of the Bucolicum carmen was no loftier than was fitting

1363: JANUARY - JULY 55 for eclogues such as his. The letter is replete with classic, bibli-

cal, patristic and modern instances and dicta—the moderns referred to being Frederick II and King Robert of Naples.

| On the same day he answered Pietro da Muglio’s letter, point by point, with his brief Var. 39. He will always welcome anything that Pietro may write; he does not know the answer to Pietro’s first two questions about Durazzo, but says that Durazzo was originally named Epidamne, that the name was changed by the Romans, and that the change was made because the original name seemed to be of evil omen (he cites Lucan, Pliny, and Pomponuus as his authorities); he congratulates Pietro on having students who are interested in such matters; he says that he is sending, with this letter, two others, requesting

Pietro to see to it that they reach their respective addresses— Sen. 11 1, addressed to Boccaccio, and a lost letter addressed to Nicoletto di Alessio; he asks Pietro to tell Donatus that fortune persecutes not him alone, but all those of whom it has some reason to hope; reports that Benintendi 1s still gravely

ill; and adds, in a postscript, that if he goes to Murano he will

look up the man whom Pietro wants him to see. | At some time prior to 22 March Petrarch had received from Bartolomeo di Pace a letter in which Bartolomeo, replying to

the letter that Petrarch had written to him, probably before the end of 1362, expressed his wonderment that Petrarch, who had been so honorably welcomed in Venice, should be suffering from sorrow and care, and asked to be allowed to share, in some sense, in Petrarch’s suffering.

To this letter Petrarch replied, on 22 March, with his Var. 54, in which he refers to the previous exchange of letters; expresses his hope that the correspondence may continue ac-

tively and that Bartolomeo’s name may appear often in the collection of the Seniles; states at some length—quoting and supplementing Cicero—the qualifications and conditions that are necessary for good writing; and says that his sorrow 1s due to the deaths of so many of his dearest friends. Before the end of March, in all probability, Petrarch learned that a report of his death had been circulating in Avignon and

56 CHAPTER ELEVEN elsewhere; that Pope Urban, believing the report, had assigned to other men the canonries that Petrarch was holding, as well as the modest canonry, probably in Carpentras, by the offer of which he had been hoping to lure Petrarch back to Provence; and that, while the reassignments of his present canonries were

invalidated when the report of his death turned out to be a false rumor, the proposed new canonry remained assigned to someone else.’ April—-July

At some time in April, presumably, Boccaccio came from Padua to Venice to begin a visit to Petrarch that lasted for about

three months.? It was a happy time for Petrarch, who says (in Sen. ut 1, written to Boccaccio not long after he had left): “While you were here, Fortune, so often hostile to me, seemed to have

granted me a truce, and brought me no tidings that were not pleasing.” There is no record of their conversations, but Boccaccio must have told Petrarch of the scurvy treatment he had received from Acciaiuoli, and they must have talked of the progress of Leontius Pilatus’ translation of Homer. Benintendi dei Ravagnani and Donato Albanzani joined them from time to time; and Benintendi, of an evening, took them out for de-

lightful rides in his gondola. | Leontius, also, was staying with Petrarch during at least the latter part of Boccaccio’s visit.* He must have been a difficult and disagreeable guest. In one or another of the three letters (Sen. 11 6, v 3, and v1 1) in which Petrarch writes about him he calls him a great beast, and speaks of his long and un-

kempt beard and hair, his slovenly dress, his greed, his bad manners, his insolence, his “saxeum caput,” his constant ill “Reports of Petrarch’s death had circulated frequently in earlier years: see Sen. m1 7 and 1x 2.

* This was Boccaccio’s third visit to Petrarch: he had spent some

“Pilatus.” , |

tyme wath him in Padua in the spring of 1351, and in Milan in the spring

*On Leontius see Eight Years, pages indicated in the index s.v.

1363: JANUARY - JULY 57 humor, his restlessness, and his unreliability.5 But he was indispensable to Petrarch and Boccaccio in their effort to gain

knowledge of Homer; and Petrarch evidently did his best to be a good host to him.

About the 1st of April Petrarch received from Francesco Bruni, now in Avignon, a letter telling him that he (Bruni) had been given the appointment as papal secretary that he had hoped for, and saying also that he had met some hostility, and that there were those in Avignon who were hostile to

Petrarch. Before dawn on 9 April Petrarch wrote Sen. 11 3 in answer to this letter. He began with lavish praise of Urban V, of whom many men, he said, had sent him good reports; he congratulated Bruni on his appointment; and he gave him extensive advice as to the qualities of judgment and the patient procedures that are

requisite for good writing. Having reached this point, and as he was feeling tired and sleepy, he heard a sudden shouting of sailors, hurried to the top of the house to look out, and saw that the larger of two ships that had wintered in front of his house was just casting off, although the stars were hidden by clouds, the wind was so strong as to shake the house, and the sea was roaring. As the ship set sail it looked to him like a floating mountain, though much of its hull, laden with a heavy cargo, was hidden by the waves. He knew that it was bound for the Don; and in his thought he wished it a good voyage. Returning then to his letter, he told of what he had just seen, and then spoke of the prevalence of hostile criticism and of the necessity of enduring it—referring, incidentally, to the Florentine criticism of himself that had recently come to his knowl-

edge, and of the letter (Sev. m1 1) that he had written in consequence.

| Before 25 April Petrarch received from Neri Morando a letter in which Neri expressed his amazement at the circulation of the recent rumor of Petrarch’s death, and told of his determi*For a similar characterization by Boccaccio see the Genealogia deorum, Xv, 6.

58 , CHAPTER ELEVEN nation to seek after virtue and to take Petrarch as his guide and exemplar in that endeavor. To this letter Petrarch replied, on 25 April, with his Sez. ui 7, in which he tells of other occasions on which a rumor of his death had circulated, and of the actions of Urban in this - instance; says that this latest rumor had been believed even in Milan and in Padua; asserts that it had been started by an envious man whose identity 1s known by him and by Neri also;

discourses on envy; and disclaims any qualification to serve

Neri as guide and exemplar. | a

At some time in the spring Petrarch wrote a letter to Laelius _ —this letter was given to a priest to take to Laelius—and a letter to Nelli [Sez. m1 1 and 2]. While Boccaccio was still in Venice word came to him of

the death of Laelius; but he did not tell Petrarch, preferring that this news, which was bound to distress Petrarch greatly, should come to him from some other source [Sez. m1 2].

In the course of this visit Boccaccio received from Nelli a letter—written certainly for Acciaiuoli—protesting his flight from Naples, accusing him of mutability and ingratitude, and inviting him to return. To Boccaccio the terms of this letter _ seemed to add insult to injury; and he proceeded to write an exceedingly long and violent reply, dated either on 23 or on 30 June, which 1s extant, as a whole, only in an early 15th-century Italian translation (beginning A me era animo).® The first half of the letter depicts in repulsive terms the living conditions and the associations that he had had to endure in Naples; the second half is a bitter attack on Acciaiuoli, on many counts. Petrarch must have known that Boccaccio had received a letter from —

Nelli and was writing a reply. Probably Boccaccio showed him both letters; but it 1s probable also that if he did so Petrarch, who would certainly have deplored the sending of such a letter

to Nelli, advised him not to send it: there is indeed no evi- — dence that it was ever sent. * This translation and the single brief surviving fragment of the Latin text are published and discussed in Boccaccio-Masséra, pp. 147-176 and 335—342.,

1363: JANUARY - JULY 59 Just when Boccaccio’s visit ended we do not know: certainly after 23 June, since his letter to Nelli may have been dated in Venice on that day, and probably at some time in July. Petrarch tried to detain him, but Boccaccio’s desire to return to his home was too strong to be overcome even by Petrarch’s urging.

Leontius Pilatus, however, stayed on with Petrarch until

the end of the summer. |

At some time prior to 24 July a common friend suggested

to Petrarch that he write to Roberto di Battifolle, lord of the Casentino, whom he had never met.’ It was not Petrarch’s

custom to write to anyone who was unknown to him and had not written to him; but a request made to him in 1361 by Pandolfo Malatesta on behalf of Francesco Bruni had led to the formation of a pleasant epistolary friendship with Bruni—and it was probably Pandolfo who now suggested that Petrarch

write to Roberto. :

On 24 July, accordingly, Petrarch wrote to Roberto the brief Sen. 1 6, in the course of which he says, in effect:

I should like very much to meet you, and to behold the heights of the Apennines; but since my occupations are such that I could not come to you I beg you, while in your sylvan domain, to think of me, even as I, among the palaces and temples of Venice,

shall be thinking of you. |

“Qn Petrarch’s correspondence and other relations with Roberto see my “Petrarch and Roberto di Battifolle.”

| CHAPTER XII 1363: July-December July—October

Not long after Boccaccio’s departure the priest to whom Petrarch had entrusted his last letter to Laelius re-appeared, and gave the letter, unopened, back to Petrarch. He looked at his own writing, saw that the seal was unbroken, and exclaimed “quid rei est? quid he sibi volunt litere? quid huc redeunt? quid incomitate? quid intacte saltem veniunt? quid Lelius meus agit?”

The priest remained silent, his eyes downcast; and Petrarch understood, all too well, that Laelius had died. At almost the same time another messenger brought back to him, unopened, his last letter to Nelli, who, the messenger said, had died in his arms. Petrarch burned both letters [Sen. m1 1 and 2]. Toward the end of the summer Leontius Pilatus, who had stayed on with Petrarch after Boccaccio left, decided to go to Constantinople, although Petrarch invited and advised him to

remain. Petrarch gave him a copy of Terence as a parting gift; and he left, talking abusively of Italy and the Italians

{| Sen. ur 6]. ,

During the year that he had now spent in Venice Petrarch had formed a friendship with a Venetian friar, Bonaventura

Baffo. At a time that was probably prior to the end of the summer Bonaventura was called to some remote Italian city— perhaps in southern Italy. Before he left Venice Petrarch asked him to see if he could find there certain books that he (Petrarch) wanted [Sen. 11 9]. At some time in the summer, or possibly in the early autumn,

the chattering Bergamask messenger whom Petrarch called | “Bolanus” * brought him a letter from Francesco Bruni, writ*See Eight Years, references in the index. 60

1363: JULY - DECEMBER 61 ten in Avignon. In this letter, as is made evident by Petrarch’s reply, Bruni (who had never seen Petrarch) expressed a very high opinion of Petrarch’s personal appearance and character— an opinion based, he said, on statements made by persons who knew Petrarch—and praised highly the quality of some olive

oil that had been brought to him from Vaucluse by one of Petrarch’s servants. With his letter he sent a copy of a work by St. Ambrose. Bolanus, on his own initiative, affirmed emphatically that there was no other man living for whom Bruni had such affection as he had for Petrarch. To this letter Petrarch replied with his Sen. vi 3, in which

he bids Bruni lay aside his unwarranted opinion of his (Petrarch’s) appearance and character, thanks him for the copy

of the work of St. Ambrose, and tells him to regard his (Petrarch’s) property at Vaucluse as his own: “totum funditus tuum est.” And he speaks of Vaucluse with nostalgic affection. In the course of this letter Petrarch refers to the earlier letter (Sen. 1 6) in which he had given Bruni a self-portrait, and says that he has not changed since he wrote that letter, “nisi quod

interim biennio prope consenui.” Sen. 1 6 was written, presumably, in the autumn of 1361 (see above, pp. 18-19): Sen. vi 3 was then written, presumably, in the summer of 1363, or possibly in the early autumn. On 7 September Petrarch wrote to Boccaccio his long Sen. ut 1, in which he recalls his unbroken happiness during Boccaccio’s visit; laments with deep feeling the deaths of Laelius and of Nelli; remarks that, even as he had thought of Nelli and of Boccaccio as his literary executors, so now Boccaccio and he should together see to the preservation of Nelli’s letters and

other writings, reviews the ravages of the plague, in 1348 and on its recurrence in and after 1361—it has been raging in Florence, he knows, through the summer; mentions an astrological prediction that it will last for two years more; goes on to tell at considerable length of the absurd pronouncements of a Milanese astrologer, for whom, nevertheless, he had some personal liking and sympathy; and closes with an urgent invitation to Boccaccio to return to Venice, recalling particular

62 CHAPTER TWELVE memories of his recent visit, and saying that if Boccaccio fears

the autumn in Venice they will go together to Capodistria or Trieste. This is a notable letter; but Petrarch did not send it at once, for fear that it would meet with the same fate that

had befallen his last letters to Laelius and to Nelli. -

On the 20th, however, he did send it, with a brief covering letter, Sen. m1 2, in which he tells Boccaccio why he had not

sent it earlier. | 7

About the first of October Petrarch received an invitation from Galeazzo Visconti to visit him in Pavia, where Galeazzo

the invitation. |

_ had been spending much of his time since 1359, when the

Visconti had captured the city; and Petrarch decided to accept At about the same time, also, he received two letters from

the Casentino, one from Sulmona, and one from Constantinople. —

One of the letters from the Casentino was Roberto di

Battifolle’s answer, beginning O felix quem summa virtutum (LAP 78) and dated at Poppi on 5 September, to Petrarch’s letter of 24 July. Roberto’s letter contains a passage that may

be summarized thus: , I wonder that you have never visited the heights of the Apen-

nines. Here is La Verna; here are the monasteries of Camaldoli and of Vallombrosa; and here are the sources of the Arno and the ‘Tiber. These all join with me in desiring your venerable presence.

The same messenger who brought this letter to Petrarch evi-

dently brought him also a companion letter from Giovanni degli Abbarbagliati, Grand Prior of the Camaldolensians, offering to come to escort Petrarch to the Casentino. The letter from Sulmona came from Francesco Sanita, and brought the sad news of the death of Barbato,” and a request that Petrarch write “‘opusculum aliquod seu panegyricum” about him [Sen. m1 2].

The letter from Constantinople came from Leontius, and had been written, apparently, immediately after his arrival there. He now praised Italy, expressed his hatred of Greece, ? Barbato died within the period 8-13 September: see Foresti 1, pp. 395—396.

1363: JULY - DECEMBER 63 and execrated Constantinople; begged Petrarch to bid him ~ return; and asked him for a letter of recommendation to the Byzantine emperor. There is no evidence that Petrarch thought

this letter worthy of an answer. |

Just when Petrarch left Venice on his journey to Pavia we do

not know. He evidently stopped for a week or so in Padua, where he wrote two letters on 8 October, and one on the 13th. The letters written on the 8th, Sez. 17 and 8, were Petrarch’s

replies to those recently received from Roberto di Battifolle

and Giovanni degli Abbarbagliati. In Sen. 1 7 he thanks Roberto for his invitation, and says that he will try to come “si per occupationes aliquando licuerit.” In Sen. 1 8 he thanks the Grand Prior for the offer of his escort, but declines that offer, saying that he is content in the assurance of the Prior’s

good will. |

While in Padua Petrarch chanced to meet a man, whose identity we do not know, who had only recently become his friend, but had for a long time been a friend of Niccolo Acciaiuoli; and in talking with this man, who was about to return to Naples, Petrarch complained of Niccolo’s failure to fulfill a promise that he had made to Petrarch. On 13 October, after this talk, he wrote Sen. 11 3 to Niccolo. In this letter Niccolo’s promises are referred to thus:

quantum dolebis [if death should come to you, as it has recently come to many of our friends] quod ... nihil vnquam pro me feceris: cum potueris semper & sepe promiseris. Et quanquam nullo meo merito / promisso tamen tuo debitor sis: & qui patrimonij amplissimi - tuarumque rerum omnium partem mihi primam maximamque meis proximam / totiens interposita iusiurandi religione deputaueris. tibi ultima & minima quam ego usui tuo relinquerem reseruata de quo

cyrographum non vnum tuis scriptum digitis habeo: requisitus tandem non dicam patrimonij partes illas: aut de tuis omnino rebus quicquam: quod minime petebatur: sed ne vnicum quidem verbum

-tustum honorificum teque dignum: & tuis in labiis & in auribus audientum honestissime soniturum illi tuo electo & dilecto prestare nolueris. Ipse tecum cogita.

Twice before, he says, he has made this same request, but has had no response. He is making it now for the

64 CHAPTER TWELVE third and last time. He hopes that Niccolo will comply with

it; but even if he does not he will continue to regard him

matter. |

as a friend. He is entrusting this letter to their common friend, whom he had chanced to meet in Padua; and he asks Niccolo to

listen patiently to what that friend may have to say about the Fracassetti seems to me to have mistranslated the key phrase

in this letter, and to have misunderstood the letter as a whole. He renders Petrarch’s “de quo cyrographum non vnum tuis scriptum digitis habeo: requisitus” as “promesse tutte scritte di pugno tuo, le quali gelosamente io conservo,” and says, in his note on the letter, that Petrarch is not complaining of failure to carry out the promised transaction, but “‘si lagna soltanto di

non aver avuto risposta a due sue lettere, nelle quali pregava ? Acciaiuoli di non so qual favore.” It seems clear to me, on the

contrary, that Petrarch is complaining that Niccolo has never put in writing the promise that he had made orally, his failure to do so leaving Petrarch without a legal claim in the case of

Niccolo’s death. It seems to me highly probable that the conversation? in which Niccolo made his oral promise was related to the failure of the city of Florence (where Niccolo’s influence was very great) to restore to Petrarch the patrimony that had been confiscated when his father was exiled.

It may well be, indeed, that the arrangement with regard to property that is referred to in this letter was suggested by Niccolo as a compromise settlement, and accepted as such by Petrarch. Pavia

We do not know just when Petrarch reached Pavia, or just when he started back to Venice: he was in Venice, however, before 6 December, as will presently appear.* His stay in Pavia, therefore, can hardly have lasted much more than a month. Nor do we know where, in Pavia, Petrarch stayed on this occasion. Rossi, having in mind the entire series of his visits * Probably in Milan in 1360: see Eight Years, p. 209. *On Petrarch’s visits to Pavia see Rossi 3.

1363: JULY - DECEMBER 65 to Pavia—this first short visit in 1363, and later visits in each of the years from 1365 to 1369—maintains that through the generosity of Galeazzo Visconti he occupied a house at the edge

of the city. Rossi’s argument seems to me conclusive for the later visits, but not for the first. It seems to me quite possible that on this first visit he stayed in Galeazzo’s castle (as had been

thought by several early writers). Rossi argues against this opinion, citing, in Fracassetti’s translation, this sentence from “Sen. xvit 2, “A quel che parve io vissi coi principi, ma in realta _ furono i principi che vissero meco,” ® as indicating that Petrarch never accepted palace hospitality. His writing of this sentence,

in 1373, does not seem to me to preclude such an exception as a brief visit with Galeazzo in 1363 would have been. It may be noted that in 1353 he certainly stayed in a Visconti castle at San

Colombano—though perhaps only for a day or two.° | To the letter he had recently received from Francesco Sanita Petrarch replied with his Sev. mt 4, written while he was in Pavia—the letter contains the phrase “ubi nunc sum inter

alpes apenninumque.” Francesco had asked him to write a panegyric in memory of Barbato, but this Petrarch feels unable to do, mainly because, though he knows Barbato’s virtues, he knows almost nothing of his manner of life, of his family, of his public service, or of his writings. The letter, however, contains this tribute: Nihil mitius: nihil integrius: nihilque candidius sol vidit. nihil amantius literarum Quibus ut lautissimis uescebatur cibis huius appetentissimus: reliquarum omnium negligens uoluptatum. Inanis glorie fugitans. Insolentie nescius ac liuoris. Ad hec & ingenio acer & stilo dulcis: & doctrina uber: & memoria promptus fuit.

He goes on to tell of the formation of his friendship with Barbato under the auspices of King Robert; and bids Francesco himself write the panegyric that he had asked Petrarch to write.’ ° The Latin text reads: “Nomine ego cum principibus ful: re autem principes mecum fuerunt. vnquam me illorum consilia & perraro conuiuia tenuerunt.”

*See Eight Years, pp. 41-42. , "Francesco Sanita died on 13 October, soon after sending his request to Petrarch, and before Petrarch wrote this reply: see Foresti 1, p. 396.

66 CHAPTER TWELVE , Pavia is only about twenty miles from Milan; and in the course of his visit Petrarch doubtless found opportunity to go to Milan, to see his daughter Francesca and her husband, Francescuolo da Brossano—and perhaps to see his little granddaugh-

ter, Eletta, for the first time.

| December Returning to Venice before 6 December he found the city excited and distressed by bad news from Crete. A rebellion — against the domination of Venice had been simmering for some

time among Venetians resident there; but Venice had been temporizing; and a disastrous outbreak had now occurred. A Venetian merchant fleet on its way to Cyprus and Alexandria

had put in at Sitia to get water; when permission to get water was refused, two bands of Venetians from the ships had attacked the place; and the attackers had been killed or driven into the sea. This may have been a matter of common report in Venice; but Petrarch knew of it directly through a letter he had recetved— presumably he had found it waiting for him on his return to Venice—from an eyewitness, probably Paolo de Bernardo, who had watched the fray from the afterdeck of one of the Venetian ships [Sen. mt 9].°

On his return to Venice, also, Petrarch found two letters from Bonaventura Baffo, who reported that he had moved to a place (perhaps somewhere in southeastern Italy) that was pleasant and salubrious, but disturbed by the smoke and dust of warfare; that he had found there men whom he calls friends of Petrarch; and that he had not been able to find the books that

Petrarch wanted. He also asked for news of Petrarch and of Venice.

To these two letters Petrarch replied with his Sen. m 9, dated in Venice on 6 December. He says that he had not had much hope that Bonaventura could find the books that he wanted, but cannot desist from his efforts to collect more and *For the probability that this letter came from Paolo de Bernardo see Foresti 1, p. 390. |

1363: JULY - DECEMBER 67 more books. He is surprised to hear that there are friends of his in the place to which Bonaventura has gone: he had thought

that he was unknown in that part of Italy. He speaks vividly of the ravages of the plague in Venice: “Everywhere you hear weeping and lamentation; everywhere you see corpses that are still warm; everywhere you see the carrying of coffins.” He is staying at home as much as he can. He then tells in detail, evidently on the basis of the letter he had received from an eye-

witness, of the disastrous fray at Sitia (it is through Sen. mi 9 only that knowledge of this fray has been preserved); and he says finally that he 1s keeping well.® _ Late in December, probably, Petrarch received from Roberto

di Battifolle a letter (LAP 79) beginning Indignationem tuam pertimui, which had been written on 14 November in reply to Sen. 117. In this letter Roberto thanks Petrarch for the kindness of the opinions he had expressed, greets with delight the prospect of an eventual visit from Petrarch, and assures him of a hearty welcome.

1363 or Soon Afterward In Var. 54, written on 22 March 1363, Petrarch had promised Bartolomeo di Pace that if his own life should continue Bartolomeo’s name would perhaps appear with some frequency in the

Seniles (see above, p. 55); but soon afterward Bartolomeo died [ Var. 58]. Although Petrarch’s decision to conclude the Familiares and to begin the Seniles had been reached before the end of 1361

(see above, pp. 16-18), he had by no means reached a decision, at that time, as to the contents of the last Books of the Familiares, and his own copies of the letters were in need of a transcription that would enable him to put them into final shape. At some time in 1363, it would seem, he employed an unknown copyist to make a neat copy of the letters he was then planning ° Late in the following month, as will presently appear, Petrarch made

an insertion in the latter part of this letter. His retention of the letter until that time was presumably due to inability to find a reliable messenger.

68 CHAPTER TWELVE to include in Books XX-XXII; and when this copyist stopped work, after transcribing the letters intended for Book XX and some of those intended for Book XXI, he arranged (under circumstances of which we have no knowledge) to have Gasparo Squaro dei Broaspini, of Verona, continue the work of tran-

scription. *° |

At some time after the death of Bartolomeo di Pace, but still perhaps before the end of 1363, he authorized Gasparo to include in the collection the letter—now Var. 19—that he had written to Moggio dei Moggi after the death of Azzo da Corregio; and sent to him, for inclusion, the letter—now Var. 54—

that he had written to Bartolomeo, and a new letter—now Var. 58—addressed to Gasparo himself. In this letter Petrarch speaks of his letter to Bartolomeo, whose death he laments, and © of his letter to Moggio, which, he says, was so mournful that he had not originally intended to include it in the collection; and says that he is writing the present letter to Gasparo in order that its presence in the collection may testify to the friendship that

Petrarch feels for him." |

At some time in 1363 or early in 1364—certainly before 19 February 1364—Petrarch served, in Padua, as godfather at the baptism of Pietro da Muglio’s son Bernardo.” It was presumably either in 1363 or not long thereafter that Petrarch became acquainted with Philippe de Méziéres, Chancellor of King Peter I of Cyprus, who in each of the years 13631368 was in Venice—usually for a brief stay—on missions re-

lated to King Peter’s proposed crusades.** |

*’ See Rossi, “Un archetipo abbandonato di epistole del Petrarca,” in his Studi sul Petrarca ..., pp. 175-193; and Billanovich 1, pp. 23-24. “See the references given in the preceding note. On Gasparo see Salutati-Novati, p. 119, and C. Garibotto, “Un amico del Petrarca, Gasparo Squaro dei Broaspini,” in Accademia di Agricoltura, Scienze, Lettere, ed Arti di Verona, Atti e memorie, Ser. V, VII (1931), 169-185.

The transcription made by the unknown copyist and by Gasparo is preserved as Marciano L. xm 70. At some time after the completion of this transcription Petrarch decided to exclude Var. 19, 54, and 58 from

the Familiares.

“ See Foresti 3, pp. 164-165. | * See Iorga, pp. 229-385 passim.

CHAPTER XIII

1364 January-April

The Venetian government, determined to put down the Cretan rebellion, was now seeking a commander for the land forces that were soon to be sent to Crete. One possible commander was Giberto da Correggio, one of the sons of Azzo; but Giberto was at this time a captive in Modena, having fallen into Modenese hands while leading troops of the Visconti. On 13 January the following proposal was submitted to the Doge

and the Collegio: |

Si videtur vobis procurare de habendo Gibertum de Corigio pro

capitaneo nostro exercitus terre contra rebelles Crete, et in casu quo capiatur de sic, dominus Franciscus Petrarcha vadat et procurat eum habere liberum et notificet nobis statim quid fecerit.

The proposal was adopted (by a vote of 7 to 4).

Petrarch was doubtless notified promptly; but the plan was not carried out. It was decided—very possibly at the sug-

gestion of Petrarch—to offer the command to Luchino dal Verme; and Petrarch was asked to write to him, conveying or seconding the Venetian request. That Petrarch did write such a letter we know from Sen. 1v 1. We do not know the date of that letter; but Luchino’s contract with Venice is dated 2 February.’ After writing to Luchino, and before he knew of Luchino’s acceptance, Petrarch inserted in the latter part of Sen. m1 9 two *See Gloria 1, pp. 20 and 38. On Petrarch’s acquaintance with _

Luchino see Eight Years, references in the index. Information and misinformation about Luchino are given in Francesco Petrarca e Luchino

dal Verme ... Raccolta di memorie storiche, ed. by Marco Tabarrini (Rome, 1892), pp. v—vill. 69

70 CHAPTER THIRTEEN or three sentences in which he states that the Doge has asked him to write to Luchino, and that he has done so.?

Before dawn on 19 January, Petrarch, in Padua, took into his hands a sheet, now lost, containing a draft of the capitolo (of the Triumph of Fame) beginning Da poi che Morte, and wrote at the head of the sheet this note: _ 1364. veneris. mane. 19. Januarij dum inuitus patauii ferior. quartus T'riumphus.

In the margin to the right of that note he added a second note

that read, apparently, | petens proximam auroram.

and :

Below that note, apparently on the same occasion, he wrote two other notes that read, at least substantially, thus: aut lacrimis mouetur Deus e contrito corde manantibus aut nulla

penitus re mouetur. — |

Dum quid sum cogito. pudet hec scribere. sed dum quid fieri cupio animus subit [these two words were then cancelled] creuit pudor torporque omnis abscedit Scribo enim non quasi ego sed quasi alius nescio quis unquam transformari studeo.®

Before dawn on Monday 19 February Petrarch took into his hands a sheet, now lost, that contained the capitolo (of the Triumph of Fame) beginning Io non sapea, and wrote at the head of it a note that seems to have read ‘1364 lune hora .1. febr. 19 in thalamo arcto (this word cancelled) arthoo .3. c. 4, triumphi.” 4 Later on the same day Petrarch wrote Var. 11 to Pietro da Muglio, addressing him as “Compater,” which indicates that Petrarch had stood as godfather for Pietro’s son. Var. 11 1s a _ * The insertion apparently begins with the words “dux fortissimus _ queritur” and ends with the words “nostrum limen & victoriam subijsse.”

*See Appel 1, p. 160; and Giovanni Mestica’s edition of the Rime (Florence, 1896), pp. 603-604. I follow, in general, Mestica’s transcription and his expansion of Petrarch’s abbreviations. “See Weiss 2, p. 71. The words “in thalamo arthoo” probably mean “in my north bedroom.” The “c” stands for “capitulum.”

, 1364 71

brief note of introduction for a youth whom he is sending to Pietro in the hope that Pietro may carry on his education and

improve his conduct. This youth, the son of a friend of Petrarch’s, is characterized as “aliquandiu vagus ac discolus adolescens, alioquin non mali ingen.” Donato Albanzani will give Pietro further information. Petrarch says also that he had first planned to come to Padua about the beginning of Lent (which lasted, in 1364, from 29 January to 24 March), but was now planning to come about the middle of Lent. With the letter Petrarch 1s sending a note to be sent by Pietro to the priest, -

Giovanni da Bozzetta, who apparently had the custody of the

house, in the cathedral close, to the occupancy of which Petrarch, as a canon, was entitled; and he tells Pietro to send to Giovanni a bottle to be filled with a little mild wine—apparently wine made from grapes grown in the grounds of Petrarch’s house.

It was probably late in February or early in March, though | it may have been in April or May, that Petrarch went to Bologna

to pay his respects to the Papal Legate, Androin de la Roche, planning also to go on from Bologna to visit Roberto di Battifolle in the Casentino.°®

Petrarch’s interview with the Cardinal is recorded thus, in substance, in Sen. x 2 (written in 1367): Three years ago, when I went to see that excellent man, who had just begun his service as Papal Legate, he received me with glad > embraces, more honorably than I deserved, and we talked of various

things. When I asked him about the state of affairs in Bologna he replied, jokingly, as was his wont when speaking of troublesome

matters: “This, my friend, used to be Bologna, but now it is Macerata’”—playing on the name of the city in the Marches.

From Bologna Petrarch went on to the Casentino, presum-

ably by way of Forli and thence by one of the two or three possible passes through the Apennines. Probably he came first to Stia, then to Pratovecchio, and finally to Poppi. His account ° On what follows see my “Petrarch and Roberto di Battifolle.” On the legation of Androin de la Roche (who entered Bologna on 7 February) see Bologna-Sorbelli, pp. 175-220, and Mollat, pp. 236-239.

72 CHAPTER THIRTEEN of his visit to Roberto is contained in Misc. 18, undated, but written undoubtedly soon after his return to Venice.® It may be summarized thus: It was a joy to be with you. I praise the seriousness, the affability and the dignity of your household, in which frugality and - ancestral manners persist; and I praise your own alertness and zeal. Who would not be refreshed, rejoiced, and moved to contempla-

tion by a region where there are green and dewy hills and wellnigh a thousand sunny fields, and where amid dark woods, the haunts of the Muses, and gently flowing streams one may find sweet peace and sweet silence. No less delectable are the sacred hermitage,

the marvels of Mount Alvernia, and many other venerable sites. I was much impressed by your little son—by his singing, his conversation, and the excellence of his Latin. Nor can I fail to mention the convent, known for your generosity. I cannot easily say what

sweetness and what depth of devotion came to me there at the celebration of the Mass, when the singing of the nuns seemed a

tion. |

celestial harmony. Knowing that in the past there had been trouble between your brother and yourself I was thankful to witness your reconciliation; and I urge you both to continue in fraternal affec-

The convent in which Petrarch was so much moved by the singing of the nuns was presumably the Camaldolensian convent at

Pratovecchio.? |

On 31 March Petrarch was in Padua. On that day, at a

meeting held in the main sacristy of the cathedral and attended by the archpriest Giovanni de’ Piacentini and by eight canons as well as Petrarch, the heirs of Niccolé da Torre were invested with a fief that was subject to tithe.®

On 1 April Petrarch, still in Padua, dated a long letter to Luchino dal Verme, whose expedition was about to leave Venice for Crete. This letter, Sev. 1v 1, opens with a discussion of the

justice of the Venetian cause and the difficulty of any Cretan ° An Italian translation of this letter is given by C. Beni in his “Ricordi

del Petrarca nel Casentino,” in Societa Columbaria di Firenze, AZti (1932), pp. 300-303.

“See Beni, Guida illustrata del Casentino, 3rd ed. (Florence, 1908), pp. 209-210. *See Gloria 2. The document in question is printed on pp. 28-29, and discussed on pp. 15-16.

1364 73

campaign, prophesies success, and then turns into a learned

treatise, based on Ciceronian statements and Roman experiences,

on the qualifications necessary for a military commander. If Petrarch had returned to Venice by the 10th, as he probably had, he undoubtedly witnessed—perhaps from one of his own front windows—the departure of the Venetian fleet. At some time in April, in all probability, though possibly a little later, Petrarch wrote to Roberto di Battifolle the grateful letter, Misc. 18, that has been summarized above. Spring and Summer

In the course of the spring and summer Petrarch made in his Tenth Eclogue a series of seven insertions, to which he refers as “additationes illas magnas.” Most of them he composed while walking back and forth on the shore of the lagoon, “Ita ut nunc dexterum nunc sinistrum pedem alternus fluctus ablueret.” One particular line, however— Quique nurum dotemque [ovi convexit opimam, which became the 267th line of the eclogue—came to him else-

where. Fearing that he might forget it, he jotted it down immediately on the margin of a manuscript of his Africa, having at the moment no opportunity to jot it down anywhere else. But he soon forgot where he had written it, and repeatedly looked for it unsuccessfully [Var. 65—the original conclusion of Sen. v 1]. Through most or all of the summer Petrarch had as house guest Bartolomeo Carbone dei Papazurri, a friend of long standing, who had been promoted from the bishopric of Chieti to the archbishopric of Patras, and was to proceed to Patras at the beginning of the autumn [Fam. xm 11 and Sen. tv 2].° Early on 4 June, as the two men were standing and talking together at one of the front windows of Petrarch’s house, looking over the lagoon, they saw a galley, with sails trimmed, be- ° Bartolomeo’s appointment to the archbishopric had been made on 21 July 1363: Eubel, p. 394. On Bartolomeo see Billanovich 2, pp. 133-135.

74 CHAPTER THIRTEEN | ing rowed swiftly in, and saw that it was decorated with green branches. They stopped talking as they watched, hoping that the ship bore good tidings. As it came nearer they could see sailors who were moving about briskly, and at the prow young men, with joyous faces, who were wearing garlands of leaves and waving banners over their heads; and as it came still nearer they could

see banners of the enemy hanging downward from the stern.

They knew, therefore, that the ship came from Crete with

news of a victory. |

Crowds gathered on the shore; and it was soon learned that

the ship brought news not just of a single victory but of the complete suppression of the Cretan rebellion, a suppression attained, it was said, without bloodshed [this element of the report

was not entirely correct]. There was news also of a mutiny that had been suppressed by Luchino with firmness and clemency. Petrarch presumably mingled with the crowd: in any case he soon heard the news.

Immediately, it would seem, he wrote to Luchino a letter _ of enthusiastic congratulation, Sez. 1v 2, in which he stresses the bloodlessness of Luchino’s achievement and the efficiency and

wisdom of his suppression of the mutiny. His letter, dated 4 June, was clearly written to be sent to Luchino before his return: it ends with the sentence “Vale teque quam primum tuorum oculis exoptatum refer.” On this same day or immediately thereafter services of thanksgiving were held in San Marco and throughout the city; and around San Marco and in the Piazza there was a great procession of clergy and laymen. A series of games and spectacles | of various kinds began presently, and continued for more than

two months. | On Sunday 23 June there was held in Padua, “in domo

habitationis venerab. et sapientis vir1 dom. Francisci Petrache canonici Paduani” a meeting at which, in the presence of the bishop, Pietro Pilleo, a certain “Jacobus q.d. Bonifati de Bando civis Padue,” who had held of the bishop a fief subject to tithe, renounced all his rights to that fief. Presumably Petrarch was

present at this meeting, but the document in which it is re-

1364 75

principals.*° |

ported does not name any of the participants except the two The games held in celebration of the Cretan victory culmi-

nated in two major equestrian events, a series of displays of horsemanship and a tournament, both held in the Piazza di

San Marco. Tommaso Bombasi of Ferrara,t! a friend of Petrarch, had been employed as master of ceremonies for the first of these events. The tournament began on 4 August. The Piazza was crowded with spectators; a special grandstand had been erected for ladies; and the Doge and his official party watched from the loggia of the four bronze horses (character-

ized by Petrarch as “pene vivi adhinnientes ac pedibus obstrepentes”) on the facade of San Marco. The Doge had 1nvited Petrarch to sit on his right hand, and he did so for two days: he then asked to be excused, on the ground of his [literary| occupations.

On 10 August Petrarch wrote to Pietro da Muglio, who had been prevented by ill health from coming to Venice to see the festivities, his long Sen. 1v 3, in which he tells of the arrival of the galley that had brought the good news from Crete, of the consequent celebrations, and finally, with great enthusiasm and in great and very interesting detail, of the equestrian games that he had just witnessed. Just a year after Boccaccio’s departure—and consequently before the end of the summer—Petrarch took into his service

the brilliant young Giovanni Malpaghini, of Ravenna, who had been a pupil and a protégé of Donato Albanzani. Giovanni, who was about eighteen at the time, helped Petrarch in various ways with his work, most especially by copying the collection of the Familiares.’*

Petrarch had often been pestered by giullari begging him *°'The document is printed in Gloria 2, p. 18, n. **On whom see Mommsen 1, pp. 28-29. ** On Giovanni see Foresti 1, pp. 425-457. Since Boccaccio left Venice

before the end of the summer (see above, p. 56), and Petrarch tells Boccaccio, in Fam. xxm 19, that Giovanni entered his service “Anno - exacto post discessum tuum,” Giovanni must have come before the end of the summer rather than early in the autumn, as Foresti has it.

76 CHAPTER THIRTEEN for Italian lyrics that they might add to their stock in trade; he had asked why they did not go to Boccaccio for such lyrics; and they had replied that they had indeed gone to Boccaccio,

who had told them that he had burned his lyrics. Petrarch asked why he had done so, but could get no answer until one giullare said that he had heard that it was because Boccaccio, being now mature, wanted to revise his youthful lyrics. Petrarch did not see how anyone could revise what he had destroyed; and he turned for an explanation to Donato Albanzani—a friend of

Boccaccio as well as of Petrarch—who said that the burning had been done because Boccaccio felt his lyrics to be inferior

to those of Petrarch. On 28 August Petrarch wrote to Boccaccio the exceedingly

long Sen. v 2 (from which the data for the preceding paragraph are derived). In the first half of the letter Petrarch takes Boccaccio to task not for burning his lyrics, but for unwilling-ness to accept a place as second to anyone else (Petrarch at the same time disclaims any superiority to Boccaccio). In the second

half of the letter he says that the burning might be justified if it were due to disgust at the degeneracy of the times. The most notable features of the letter are the initial account of Petrarch’s

relations with pestering giullari; a reference to Dante as “ille

nostri eloquij dux vulgaris”; a statement of his own early undertaking to write a great work in Italian—“magnum eo in genere opus inceperam: iactisque iam quasi edifici; fundamentis calcem ac lapides & ligna congesseram”—and of his abandonment of this undertaking because he realized that a work composed in Italian would become the prey of ignorant and lacerat-

ing criticism; a statement that he had himself burned much that he had written; and a diatribe against the literary and the philosophical-religious heresies of the time.** ‘This diatribe ends

with a report of a conversation, in Petrarch’s library, with a visitor who after speaking scornfully of the church fathers and ** At this point Petrarch presumably has in mind the nominalist logic

and dialectics of Occam and his school: see Weiss, “An English Augustinian in Late Fourteenth Century Florence,” in English Miscellany (Rome, 1958), p. 13.

1364 , 77 St. Paul went on to say: “utinam tu Auerroim pati posses: ut videres quanto ille tuis hijs nugatoribus maior sit:” To this Petrarch replied “abi uero hinc irrediturus tu & heresis tua”; and he then took him roughly by his mantle and put him out of the house.?4

In each of the years 1357, 1358, and 1359 Petrarch had spent

some time in the autumn at Pagazzano, a village about twenty miles east of Milan, where Bernabo Visconti had a castle. In the

summer of 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 that he then issued read thus: Mafeo de Madiis Volentes complacere honorabili ac prudenti viro domino Fran-

cischo 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.?°

Whether Petrarch ever stayed in this castle after 1364 we do not know: it is at least possible that he did so in the autumn of 1367, as will appear below.

It seems likely that Petrarch would have gone to Pavia in the autumn of 1364—he had gone there in 1363 and was to go again in 1365 and in each of the four following years—if it had not been for the attack of scabies that is next to be mentioned. Autumn Early in the autumn Petrarch had a serious attack of scabies, and went for relief to the baths of Abano (about six miles south-

west of Padua). He was there on 10 October: how long he remained there we do not know. In the letter presently to be mentioned he expresses his fear that his illness may be of long

duration: it certainly lasted into the early part of 1365 [Sen. ur 5]. “That this letter was written in 1364 results from an argument by Rossi 3, pp. 54-57, especially p. 56, n. 2. * See Eight Years, p. 150.

78 CHAPTER THIRTEEN Fither before or soon after he went there he heard of the death, on 27 August, of Malatesta Antico, the father of Pandolfo and of another son, known as Malatesta Ungaro; and not long after that news came to him he received a letter from Pandolfo and his brother, asking that Petrarch write an epitaph for their

father. | | |

To this letter Petrarch replied with Var. 18, dated “Paduae

X. Octobris cum labore scripta,” but written, perhaps, in Abano. In this letter Petrarch says that under ordinary circumstances he would gladly have complied with their request, but that the miserable state of his health, which has compelled him to come to the baths and spend his days in the hands of physicians, “ut 1pse mihi displiciam atque ipse me oderim,” makes it impossible for him to do any studying, or to write the desired

epitaph. He suggests that they entrust the task to Cecco di Meletto Rossi.?®

December | Late in 1364 Petrarch received a visit from Sagremor de Pommiers. They talked, naturally, of the Emperor, and of the _ possibility of his coming to Italy again. Sagremor told Petrarch of the many causes for the Emperor’s delay, and hinted at preparations in the making. On 11 December, Petrarch, being in Padua, wrote to the Emperor his brief Fam. xx 21, which in the final form of the Familiares bears the title ““Ad Cesarem, exhortatio ultima.” As that title suggests, this letter renews the exhortations that had filled so many earlier letters addressed by Petrarch to the Emperor. Those letters had failed to produce the desired results: the present effort, Petrarch says, will be his last. ‘The general tone of the letter is similar to that of Petrarch’s last previous plea, Fam. xxii 15, written in March 1363 (see above,

p. 52). Petrarch says that he would not have written this present letter were it not for the renewal of his hopes and the stimulation of his sense of duty resulting from a visit of Sagre** On this letter see Mascetta-Caracci, pp. 486-489, and Weiss 1, pp. 87-90.

1364 79

mor, to whom he refers as “miles hic tuus” and as “hic miles.” The passage concerning the Emperor’s delay and preparations reads thus (Sagremor being the subject of the sentence): “multis et validis argumentis excusans tarditatem tuam, multis et magnis indiciis generosas animi tui curas vereque cesareos apparatus . . .

insusurrans.” It seems likely that this letter was written while

Sagremor was still with Petrarch, and that it was given to Sagremor to be taken by him to the Emperor. Petrarch evidently regarded this, his last letter to the Emperor, as a notable one, since he gave it the place of honor as the concluding letter _

of Fam. xxi, which is the concluding book of the main body of the Famuliares (Fam. xxi being of a quite special character). _ This letter has been dated as of 1361, as of a period beginning in 1364, as of the period 1361-1365, as of 1365, and as of 1367.** Since it is an exbortatio ultima, and since its existence indicates that a considerable time has elapsed since the writing, in 1363, of Fam. xxim 15, it cannot be earlier than 1364; and since Charles actually came to Italy in the spring of 1368 it cannot be later than 1367. It cannot be of 1365, since in that year Petrarch was still in Pavia on 22 December; and it cannot be of 1366, since in that year Petrarch was still in Pavia on 10 December (see below, pp. 90 and 111). It cannot be of 1367, for the following reasons (the three following statements will be justified in the appropriate later chapters). In the summer of 1366 Sagremor carried a copy of the De vita from Petrarch to Philippe de Cabassoles. Before an 18 March that was either that of 1367 or that of 1368 Petrarch received a letter from Sagremor saying that he had become a Cistercian monk. In his reply, Sen. x 1, which was written either on 18 March 1367 or 18 March 1368, Petrarch refers to Sagremor’s departure in the summer of 1366 in the words “tuo ultimo digressu.” Now if Sen. x 1 was written in March 1367 Petrarch knew by that time that Sagremor had become a Cistercian monk,

and if Fam. xxut 21 had been written in December 1367 Petrarch could not, in that letter, have referred to Sagremor as ‘‘miles hic tuus” and “‘hic miles.” And if Sev. x 1 was written *’ See Prose Letters, p. 88.

80 CHAPTER THIRTEEN in March 1368, Fam. xx 21, which refers to Sagremor’s departure in 1366 in the words “tuo ultimo digressu,” could not have been written in 1367."* The assignment of Fam. xxi 21 to December 1364 involves no difficulty. Petrarch had spent much, at least, of the autumn at the baths of Abano, which, as has been said, is only about _ six miles from Padua. As will presently appear, his attack of scabies continued into 1365, and there is no evidence of his being in Venice before March. During the late autumn and winter he might very well have left Abano, at least from time to time, to go to his own house in the cathedral close in Padua. It 1s quite true that his scabies made it hard for him to write; but Fam. xx 21 1s brief, and it could, if necessary, have been written from his dictation, or copied from a painfully written draft, by Giovanni Malpaghini, or indeed by Sagremor, or by someone else.

| Addendum for 1364 In the “Letter to Posterity” Petrarch, after speaking of his sight as having long been very keen, continues “preter spem supra sexagesimum etatis annum me destituit, ut imdignanti michi ad ocularium confugiendum esset auxilium” (Prose, p. 2). — ** Tf Sen. x 1 was written in March 1367 it would not in itself preclude

the possibility of a visit from Sagremor in 1367 after March and before

December, and the possibility that Fam. xxm 21 was written in December 1367 would not be excluded on the ground of its reference to a visit from Sagremor: it would still be excluded, however, by the references to Sagremor as “miles.”

CHAPTER XIV

1365 Early 1365

| Petrarch’s attack of scabies continued with undiminished severity into the early part of 1365: he could hardly feed himself, or write. The efforts of his doctors were futile: the best they could do for him was to say that the summer might bring relief. This information comes from Sen. m1 5, to Boccaccio, which,

though undated, must have been written early in 1365, since Petrarch says in it that he has been suffering from the scabies for five months. This letter, which bears no indication of the place where it was written, contains no other data; but Petrarch expresses regret at the interruption of his correspondence with Boccaccio, and bids Boccaccio to write to him.

| March

By 1 March Petrarch was back in Venice: this we know from Sen. ut 6, written to Boccaccio on that day. Petrarch, just then, was wanting to know how Homer had described “solitudines italas,” the Aeolian islands, the Lake of Avernus, and Monte Circeo [Sen. v 1A].1. So he asked Boccaccio to copy and send him, from Leontius’ translation, “partem illam odisee/qua Ulyxes it ad inferos & locorum que in uestibulo

herebi sunt: descriptionem ab Homero factam.” He asks Boccaccio also to have complete copies of Leontius’ trans-

| 81

lations of the Iliad and the Odyssey made for him, at his expense, *Le., the last part of Sen. v 1, beginning “Quod mihi de Homero.”

This was originally the whole or a part of a separate letter, as will presently appear.

82 CHAPTER FOURTEEN and sent to him. These requests are preceded by the account of Leontius’ departure for Constantinople that has been summarized above (on p. 60).

The Offer of a Florentine Canonry For some time—perhaps, indeed, for some years—before April

1365 Petrarch had held a canonry at Monselice, which is about fifteen miles southwest of Padua.

In March the city of Florence tried to attract Petrarch by getting the Pope to provide him with a Florentine canonry. An envoy was to be sent on a mission to Avignon, primarily for another purpose, but the last item in the Instructions drawn up for him on 30 March reads, in part, thus: Item, essendo in Vignone, benchée per la principale cagione non haveste a essere col papa, vogliamo il visitiate et dopo raccomanda-

tioni humilissime direte che la celebre fama et sufficientia del

maestro Francesco Petraccho nostro cittadino con grande desiderio | ci ha indocti et induce di riducerlo ad habitare in Firenze si per

honore della nostra citta et si per riposo suo ... Et peroche

patrimonio non ha in Firenze né faculta d’acquistare, et secolarmente non si dilecta d’abitare, accid che ricepto ecclesiastico possa avere, dengni concedergli di gratia il canonicato di Firenze prima vacante, nonobstante alcuna concessione...

_ Urban acted favorably and promptly, conditioning his approval, however, on Petrarch’s relinquishment of his canonry at Monselice. The following motu proprio was approved on 27 April: Motu proprio providemus Francisco Petrachi clerico florentino de canonicatu ecclesie florentine cum reservatione prebende in ea vacantis vel vacature ... Volumus autem quod quampridem dictam prebendam fuerit assecutus, canonicatum et prebendam quos obtinet in ecclesia Montissilicis paduane diocesis omnino dimittat .. .

But a cancelling line is drawn through this motu proprio as it appears in the Register, and a marginal note reads: “Sic erat

cassum orig. + I.”

Billanovich is doubtless right both in thinking that Boccaccio

must have been the prime mover in this Florentine effort and

1365 83

by Petrarch.? _ |

in thinking that the cancellation must have been due to a refusal

‘Urban’s provision that the canonry at Monselice must be re-

linquished if the Florentine canonry should be accepted was in line with his ruling (to which Petrarch was to refer, with praise, in Sen. vir 1) “ut vno aut paucis pro dignitate virtutis ac scientie beneficijs contenta esset [ambitio.].” Petrarch’s refusal was presumably due not to that provision, but to unwillingness to settle in Florence (and he evidently could not have accepted this canonry as a non-resident): he was well content with his relations with Venice, with Francesco da Carrara, and with Galeazzo Visconti; and even this proposal did not include the restoration of Petrarch’s Florentine patrimony—and for the failure to make such restoration Petrarch apparently never

forgave Florence. | |

_ It was presumably before the end of May that Petrarch received notice of the Pope’s action, and declined the offer. Whether he had had any previous knowledge of the Florentine effort we do not know.

, Spring and Early Summer By the middle of the summer, it would seem, and certainly before Petrarch left Venice for Pavia, he received from Boc-

caccio a copy of what Boccaccio had thought to be the passage from the Odyssey that Petrarch wanted. But he had mistaken Petrarch’s request (which indeed had not been completely specific); and Petrarch was disappointed: “Non enim nosce optabam quid apud graios inferos ageretur, apud latinos nosce quid agitur satis est.” In a covering letter Boccaccio said that he was sending Petrarch a copy of the whole of the Iliad;

and Petrarch could not understand why he was not sending

the Odyssey also [Sen. v 1A]. |

Before Petrarch left Venice he had—as he then thought— finished his revision of the De vita solitaria; and while in Padua

on his way to Pavia he put it into the hands of an unidentified _ * For references, and for a slightly fuller treatment of the documents

concerned, see Studies ..., pp. 27-28.

84 CHAPTER FOURTEEN

[| Sen. v 1]. _ |

Paduan priest, commissioning him to make a neat copy of it On or shortly before 8 June Petrarch, still in Venice, learned

—apparently from two Paduan priests named Giovanni and — Paolo—that Pietro Pilleo, Bishop of Padua, had recently returned

to Padua after a long journey, and that one of the two priests had lost, or was in danger of losing, some benefit received at an earlier time from Pietro as a result of a request made by Petrarch. On 8 June he wrote to Pietro Sen. v1 4, an affectionate letter of

greeting, and gave it to the two priests to deliver to him. In this letter Petrarch refers to Pietro’s return in the words “De salute quidem tua redituque exoptato deo gratias ago”; and to his own recent illness in the words “corporis insueta fragilitas quam inuisam mihi hospitam inuisior egritudo nuper abiens dimisit.” He speaks of Pietro’s patience and constancy in the face of adversities, and of the fact that the letter is to be brought

to Petrarch by the two priests; and he asks Pietro to prevent the loss of which one of them stood in danger. Pietro’s journey

was doubtless the journey to Avignon that he made in 1365, hoping—vainly—to obtain appointment as Patriarch of Aquileia;

of scabies.* oe |

and the illness referred to was doubtless Petrarch’s long siege Perhaps in the first half of 1365, perhaps in an earlier year,

Petrarch had formed friendships with four men who were then living in Venice: Leonardo Dandolo, a son of the late Doge Andrea Dandolo, who had been a friend of Petrarch; Tommaso Talenti, a wealthy merchant, of Florentine origin; Zaccaria Contarini, a Venetian noble; and Guido da Bagnolo, of Reggio, an eminent physician. It is probable that two of the *See Attilio Hortis, “Giovanni Boccacci ambasciatore in Avignone e Pileo da Prata, proposto da’ Fiorentini a patriarca di Aquileia,” in Arche-

ografo triestino, N.S., 1 (1872-1875), pp. 256-257. Although Hortis mentions Pietro’s journey to Avignon in 1365 he dates Sen. vi 4 as of 1368, on the groundless assumption that the journey referred to in that letter was a journey to Viterbo made by Pietro in 1367 to pay his respects to the Pope. He does not mention Petrarch’s reference to his ill- » ness. Petrarch was in Pavia on 8 June 1368. The Paduan priest named Giovanni was very possibly Petrarch’s friend Giovanni da Bozzetta.

| 1365 85

four had studied at the University of Bologna, and that one of the others had studied at the University of Paris; all were convinced Aristotelians.* They came often to see Petrarch—

sometimes two of them, sometimes all four together—and they

came courteously, happily, and with affectionate greetings. They did not take kindly, however, such comments on their

_ —inevitable.® |

Aristotelian lore as were, for Petrarch—an Augustinian Platonist

On 18 July the Doge Lorenzo Celsi died. He had honored _ Petrarch highly, and his death must, at the least, have brought real regret to Petrarch (who may have been in Pavia at that time). On 21 July the octogenarian Marco Corner was elected Doge: there is no evidence that he ever paid any attention to Petrarch.

Pavia | |

Before the end of the summer Petrarch went to Pavia, for a stay that lasted into December. We do not know just when

he went. The only dated letters that were certainly written during this stay were dated in December; but one of them, Sen. v 1, contains passages that make it clear that he had been

there for a considerable length of time. Halfway through the letter, when speaking of his approaching departure, he says: “iam hinc abeo haud inuitus tamen interdum hic menses estiuos siqui mihi fato estiui menses superant acturus.” And an insertion made late in the summer of 1366 reads: Ecce iam duas hic estates egi: ita nusquam quod meminerim tam

crebris & tam largis imbribus tam paruis rarisque tonitruis: tam nullis pene estibus: tam perpetuis tamque suauibus auris alibi vnquam tempus hoc egerim.®

index. ,

* See P. O. Kristeller, “Petrarch’s “Averroists, ” in Bibliothéque d’Hu-

manisme et Renaissance, xiv (Mélanges Augustin Renaudet, Geneva, 1952), pp. 61-65. On Guido da Bagnolo see also Iorga, references in the * See the De ignorantia, in Prose, pp. 710-714. * Rossi 3, p. 13, assuming that this sentence appeared in the letter as

written in December 1365, regards the Duas estates as being those of 1363 and 1365: but in 1363 it was only on or after 13 October that

86 CHAPTER FOURTEEN During this stay and during his later stays in Pavia Petrarch

presumably occupied a house provided for him by Galeazzo Visconti (see above, p. 65). During this stay and during later stays Petrarch went occasionally to Milan or its vicinity: certain cases of his going to Milan will be mentioned below.

At some time in August Petrarch went to Milan, and while there saw Moggio dei Moggi and an otherwise unknown _ Magister Fortianolus, and missed seeing the widow of Azzo da Correggio. He either left with Moggio or sent him soon after-

ward two unidentified opuscula. Shortly after his return to Pavia he received a friendly note from Moggio; and on 1 Septem-

ber he wrote Var. 60 to him. After thanking him for his note, Petrarch bids him examine at his leisure the two opuscula, one of which, he says, he had written “nimis ardenti animo,” and

the other “nimis leni, et ab omni ferme rerum humanarum participatione semoto”; and he asks Moggio to make note of any things that he does not like, and to mark with stars, as he was wont to do, any things that he particularly likes—such starring, however, is to be done very sparingly. He then asks Moggio to give him news of Azzo’s widow, whom he 1s very sorry to have missed; and to the date he appends a request to

be remembered to Magister Fortianolus.* | Petrarch left Padua for Pavia. It was not until September 1366 that the letter was effectively sent to Boccaccio, and the insertion in question is referred to in a postscript written on 2 September, which reads thus: “Adhuc octo, imo novem mensibus et eo amplius ex quo datae erant, ad me rediere non sine comminationibus et iurgio, ideoque unam additionem de duabus aestatibus non miraberis.” Petrarch’s only possible reason for making this insertion would have been to account for experience that he had had after the time when he first wrote the letter.

| On the extraordinary history of Sen. v 1 see Foresti 1, pp. 410-423. In 1366 Petrarch went to Pavia in the first half of July and stayed on into

December: see Rossi 3, pp. 28-30 and 60. |

, “Rossi 3, p. 67, dates the letter as of 1365, 1366, or 1367; but the final clause, referring to Azzo’s widow, “cuius venerabilem conspectum toto iam triennio exoptatum mea mihi pridie sors invidit,” shows that the

letter must have been written in 1365. The last occasion on which Petrarch could have seen her must have been on his visit to Pavia in

1363; and his statements of lengths of time elapsed tend consistently _ toward exaggeration rather than toward minimization. The word pridie, as often, means “recently” rather than “yesterday.”

| | 1365 87

In September, probably, Petrarch learned that Boccaccio

~ worried him: | |

had gone to Avignon on a mission to the Pope; ® and the news

Audito .. . quod alpes transcenderas . . . suspensus ad euentum rei manseram usque dum te reducem audirem: & difficultatum vie | ...gnarus... & corporis atque animi grauitatem tui cogitans ocio --amicam studioso [Sen. v 1].

Once, during these Pavian months, Petrarch was at supper in Milan, with Galeazzo, when a courier brought word of the

approach of a healer from the Canton Valais who had been called by Galeazzo in the hope of gaining relief from the gout.

The courier brought also the healer’s orders that a certain concoction of eggs and other ingredients should be prepared immediately and taken by Galeazzo. Galeazzo sent a company

of knights and servants to meet the healer, taking with them _a fine white horse for him to ride; and he rode into the city - in the midst of a marvelling crowd. Petrarch returned presently to Pavia; and there, before long, he learned that Galeazzo’s gout

was worse than ever, and that the healer now said that the only remaining hope of cure lay in the consultation of certain books of magic, for which search was to be made. During the autumn several letters came to Petrarch from

Donato Albanzani; but to Petrarch’s regret not one of them

[Sen. v 1A]. : | |

reported the arrival of Leontius’ translation of the Iliad _ From Donato or from some other correspondent Petrarch

learned that the Paduan priest with whom he had left the De vita solitaria to be copied had finished his work [Sen. v 1].

In the previous year, as noted above (on p. 73), while Petrarch was working on insertions to be made in his Bucolicum

carmen, there had come into his mind a line, to be inserted in his Tenth Eclogue, which he had jotted down on a margin in his copy of his Africa, but had thereafter been unable to find. At some time in the latter part of his stay in Pavia he found it, and sent copies to friends in Milan and to Donato. The Milanese *On this mission see Hauvette, pp. 435-439.

8g | CHAPTER FOURTEEN friends sent word that they were pleased with it: he did not expect an acknowledgment from Donato, since he himself was so

Sen. v 1]. | |

soon to leave for Venice [Var. 65: the original ending of

the 22d. , ,

In December Petrarch dated three letters to Boccaccio: Sen. v 3 on the 10th; Sen. v 1A on the 17th; and Sen. v 1 on Sen. v 3 is one of Petrarch’s major diatribes against the gen_ erality of physicians: he refers to it in Sen. v 1 as being in effect a supplement to the Invective contra medicum. ‘The letter cen-

ters in a long and detailed account of the futile attempt of the healer-charlatan from the Canton Valais to cure Galeazzo’s gout: it was presumably this episode, part of which Petrarch had witnessed with his own eyes, that led him to write this letter. There is a reference at the start to a letter received from Boccaccio long since in which Boccaccio had reported that he had recovered from a serious illness through the grace of God and the services of a physician—for the second half of this sentiment Petrarch had reproached him—and to a more recent letter (the nunc in Petrarch’s phrase “At nunc scribis” implies nothing

_ more than a time that is present as compared with the date of Boccaccio’s former letter) in which Boccaccio had said that — he had recovered from another illness without recourse to medi-

cal care. The general character of the long attack that follows

is not new; but it is apparently on the basis of fairly recent experiences that Petrarch inveighs against medical pronouncements that one should not eat fruits, herbs, or vegetables, that bloodletting is bad for the system (at this point Petrarch says

that he could not get along without being bled once every

spring and once every autumn), and that young people do not need to drink water except in cases of acute illness. Of the

many physicians whom Petrarch had counted as personal friends four were still living, one in Venice, one in Milan, and two in Padua. When he is ill he is glad to have them come to see him as friends; but, trusting to the curative powers of nature, he pays no attention to their directions unless he happens to

approve them himself. oo

These words are followed immediately, in the letter as it

1365 i 89 stands in the collection of the Seniles, by a short conclusion,

quite unrelated to the preceding theme, in which Petrarch discusses Leontius Pilatus. While it is not impossible that this was the original conclusion of Sen. v 3 it seems to me more probable that that letter ended originally with the words just referred to, and that the present conclusion originally formed part of another letter—and specifically of the letter that Petrarch

dated on 17 December. | | | That letter is preserved, at least in part, as Sen. v 1A—that

is, as a conclusion substituted for the original conclusion of Sen. v 1 when that letter was being prepared for inclusion in the collection of the Seniles.

Sen. v 1A, as noted above (on p. 83), tells of Petrarch’s receipt, before leaving Venice, of a passage copied for him by Boccaccio from Leontius’ translation of the Odyssey; of

copy. |

Boccaccio’s promise to send him a complete copy of Leontius’ translation of the Iliad; and of Petrarch’s disappointment that

he had not heard from Venice of the arrival of that promised

_ The present conclusion of Sen. v 3, as just stated, is de-

voted to Leontius and is quite unrelated to the main theme of

that letter. It opens with the words “De Leontio autem... | non muto sententiam: & iure subnixam & tuo demum tudicio

comprobatam. Nunquam ergo literis meis aut nuncijs revocabitur quamvis roget”: the reference is clearly to Petrarch’s Sen. 11 6 (for which see above, pp. 81-82) and to a lost response

by Boccaccio. This conclusion, while it recognizes Leontius’ potential value for Greek studies, is filled with scornful description and characterization, and culminates in this imprecation: “Eat sane suosque sibi mores habeat: suam barbam: suum pallium: suam famem. metatque quod seuit: teratque quod messuit: _ edat denique quod intriuit.” It seems very unlikely that the pres-

ence in both Sen. v 3 and v 1 of short conclusions related to - Leontius and quite unrelated to the main themes of those letters should be merely coincidental; and it appears to me to be probable, therefore, that these two conclusions originally formed _ parts of a single letter—that is, of the letter here referred to as Sen. v 1A, which presumably consisted of the present Leontian

90 CHAPTER FOURTEEN

of v 3. | | OO | conclusion of v 1 followed by the present Leontian conclusion

Perhaps between 17 and 22 December, though possibly a little earlier, Petrarch received a letter written by Boccaccio

after his return to Florence. In this letter Boccaccio told

Petrarch that while in Avignon he had met some of the few friends of Petrarch who were still living there; that in the presence of the Pope and the Cardinals Philippe de Cabassoles

(who had never seen him before) had embraced him affectionately, for love of Petrarch; that Philippe had asked him

how Petrarch was faring and had charged him to entreat Petrarch to send him a copy of the De vita solitaria; that on his return he had passed through Genoa, but through the negligence or thoughtlessness of his companion (an unidentified common friend of Petrarch and Boccaccio) had not called on the Arch-

bishop, Petrarch’s friend Guido Sette; and that he had been prevented from coming to visit Petrarch in Pavia by his weariness, his fear that his strength might give out, his need to make haste, and his desire to get back to Florence. He asked Petrarch

also for a copy of a letter (Sen. v 2) which he had never received, though he knew that Petrarch had written it [Sez. v 1]. Sen. v 1, written after the receipt of this letter from Boccaccio, opens with expressions of Petrarch’s relief on being assured of Boccaccio’s safe return, and of his regret that Boccaccio had not found it possible to turn aside from his journey _ long enough to come to Pavia. The letter then becomes an en- | thusiastic account of that city, covering its history, its situation

—rising a little above the level of the plain, lifting its many towers toward heaven, viewing Alps and Apennines, watered by the gently flowing Ticino—the marble bridge [built in 1353] over the river, the equestrian statue of gilded bronze in | the main piazza, and the great palace built [in the years 1360’ This statue, called in Pavia the Regisole, seems to have been an ancient Roman work, carried off to Pavia from Ravenna in the 8th century. The rider was dressed in Roman fashion, and his right hand was raised in a gesture of command. It stood in the Piazza del Duomo until 1796, when it was overthrown and broken: the pieces were destroyed by vandals not long afterwards. See the anonymous Notizie — risguardanti la citta di Pavia (Pavia, 1876), pp. 157-162.

1365 91 1365] by Galeazzo Visconti. This account ended, Petrarch expresses his regret that Boccaccio had missed seeing the Archbishop Guido Sette while in Genoa; says that he is expecting every day to receive from Venice the copy of the De vita solitaria that is being made to be sent to Philippe de Cabassoles, and _ that as soon as he receives it he will send it on to Philippe; and that with this present letter he is sending Boccaccio two other letters, one (Sen. v 2) for which he had asked, the other a letter

recently written (Sen. v 3). ,

Sen. v 1 as first written ended with a conclusion (eventually

replaced by Sen. v 1A) that is now preserved separately as Var. 65. The contents of this conclusion, already referred to (on p. 73), concern Petrarch’s work in 1364 on insertions to be made in the Bucolicum carmen, and especially his compo-

sition, loss, and finding of one particular line, which he now quotes for Boccaccio. Just before he left Pavia to return to Venice Petrarch gave all three of these letters, Sen. v 2, v 3, and v 1 (with its original conclusion), for transmission to Boccaccio, to a man who instead of transmitting them held onto them for himself. Petrarch

characterizes him thus in a later letter (Sen. v 4): “‘dictu raucidum et auditu idiota quidam verborum sono quasi asellus

ad liram longis auribus delectatus.”

Addenda for 1365 | - Rumors that Petrarch had died circulated again and again in the course of his life. At some time in 1365 such a rumor led the Emperor to cancel a plan of some sort from which Petrarch had expected to derive substantial benefit.*° | Considering the year as a whole, we see that Petrarch spent about the first half of it in Venice (some of this time, however, being spent in Padua) and about the second half of it in Pavia. This pattern was to be repeated in 1366 and 1367. 10 Sen, 1x 2 (written in 1368), in a context regarding rumors of Petrarch’s death, contains this passage: “simile enim per omnia sed multo maiori in re cum hoc romano imperatore anno tertio passus sum.”

CHAPTER XV |

1366: January-June

| January

Late one night—either just before or somewhat after the Ist of January—Petrarch reached Venice. Early on the next morning Donato Albanzani came to see him. They talked of Boccaccio, and Donato told him that the promised copy of Homer had not arrived, although word had come from Boccaccio that he had sent it. Donato told him also of the tragic death of Leontius Pilatus: he had started back to Italy, although he had received no invitation from Petrarch; after his ship had entered the Adriatic a storm arose; all was confusion on the ship; Leontius clung to the mast; he was struck and killed by a bolt of lightning; and was buried at sea. Some books

that he had with him were brought to Venice. It was very possibly in this same interview, though it may have been a little earlier (by letter) or a little later, that Donato — told Petrarch that his four Aristotelian friends had decided that he (Petrarch) was a good man, but illiterate—“Virum bonum, ydiotam ferunt” and “me sine literis uirum bonum” *—and that their verdict had become widely known in Venice. Donato

wanted Petrarch to reply; but Petrarch, though greatly offended, was not disposed to do so, at least immediately. _ By the beginning of 1366 Petrarch’s daughter Francesca and her little daughter Eletta were living in his house in Venice, and presumably Francesca’s husband, Francescuolo da Brossano,

was living there with them. When they had come to Venice we do not know: possibly as early as the latter part of 1363.

92 ,

—*See the De ignorantia, ed. Capelli, pp. 21 and 28. The word ydiota as here used means “an ignorant man”: it does not mean “an idiot.”

1366: JANUARY - JUNE 93 In January or February 1366 their second child, a boy named Francesco, was born, in Venice. Donato Albanzani served as his godfather [Sen. x 4]. In the spring of 1367 Francescuolo was absent on business for a month or so: he may have been

absent at other times, earlier or later. | |

On 25 January, Petrarch wrote Sen. v1 1 to Boccaccio, informing him of the three letters that he had sent him just before leaving Pavia, and of all that Donato had told him about the Homer and about Leontius. He asks Boccaccio to find out what has become of the copy of Homer; writes of Leontius with compassion for his fundamental unhappiness; and says that he is hoping to find among Leontius’ books a Euripides, a Sophocles, and some other books that Leontius had promised

to try to get for him. |

| Spring

By the spring of 1366 Petrarch’s friendship with Donato Albanzani had led him into friendly relations with Donato’s precocious little son Antonio, and into friendship with Pietro da Baone, the rector of the parish of San Giuliano, in which Donato was living. At some time in the spring Pietro, presumably with the knowledge and advice of Petrarch, wrote either directly to the Pope or to Francesco Bruni, making some request on behalf of Antonio—and saying that Antonio’s father was a friend of Petrarch | Misc. 13].? By the spring of 1366, also, Petrarch had received from Philippe de Cabassoles and from other friends letters praising

Urban V, and telling, as Petrarch was soon to report in Sen. vit 1, . quam ...sacer animus: quam mens vigil: quam pium propositum: quam feruens studium literarum. Que preteritorum memoria: que prouidentia futurorum: quam altum lucidumque ingenium: quam suauis exundansque facundia. Quis bonorum amor, quod malorum odium. quis iustitie cultus. que ecclesie disciplina. | ? Antonio Albanzani was born in October 1353: see Foresti 1, p. 442, n. 3, and the reference there given. On Pietro da Baone see Billanovich 1,

pp. 129-130, and the references there given.

94 _ CHAPTER FIFTEEN From such letters, or from oral report, Petrarch had learned _ that Urban had sent back to their respective sees many prelates

who had been living in Avignon; that he had ruled that the number of benefices held by one man should be limited to one,

or at most to a very few; that he had insisted on simplicity in dress, in place of the current fashionable ostentation; that he had done much for the University of Bologna, which had suffered greatly during recent struggles for the mastery of the

city; and that he had put an end to the practice whereby criminals could find asylum in the homes of cardinals. It was said, moreover, that the name of Rome was constantly on his lips: “Semper te uerbo iter illud optare. sepe etiam polliceri. & sepius ex te auditum nunquam te animo quieturum: donec tuo cum grege Rome fueris.” On a visit to Marseilles, after his election, Urban had said that even if there were no other

reason for a return to Rome, the need for arousing the devotion of the faithful would be sufficient; and in 1365, after | Avignon had been forced to pay 200,000 florins to be rid of a powerful band of mercenaries under the command of Bertrand du Guesclin, Urban had said that all such troubles were due to the abandonment of the see of Peter, and that he foresaw

still worse trouble if the bride of Christ were compelled to abandon the place that Christ had assigned to her.*

| Urban had now been pope for more than three years (since September 1362); but in spite of his repeatedly expressed be_ lief that the papacy should return to Rome, he had not returned. Petrarch, whose conviction of the necessity of that return was so intense, now felt that he could no longer hold his peace;

and he therefore wrote to Urban the exceedingly long letter

that forms the first half of the voluminous letter that constitutes the whole of Book vu in the collection of the Seniles.

That Sen. vi 1 consists of two parts, an original letter and a supplement, appears from the fact that about halfway through it, as it stands in the collection, Petrarch states that he 1s bring“Qn the Franco-Italian controversy over the seat of the papacy during the time of Urban V see Mollat, pp. 249-257, and the references there given; and on Petrarch’s participation in the controversy see Ricci.

1366: JANUARY - JUNE 95 ing his letter to an end, and launches into an impassioned entreaty of an unmistakably terminal character: Itaque huc rem uerto: longumque sermonem ad hunc exitum

deduco ut urbanus urbem romanus pontifex Romam petas.. . Arripe ergo per Iesum Christum obsecro hanc occasionem celitus tibi oblatam: ne ue indultum tanto operi spatium labi sinas. Fugit

enim tempus nec reuertitur nec subsistit. | The original letter presumably ended (just after the quotation— from Ovid—“omne solum forti patria est”) with the words “Quicquid enim agis: quicquid loqueris pie & ad reditum prone uoluntatis 1udicium (Jege indictum) est,” and the supplement presumably began with the immediately following words, “Duo

ex omnibus attingam.” Much of the supplement was written on 23 June, as will presently appear. Since it is obviously probable that some little time, at least, elapsed between the writing of the original letter and the writing of the supplement, it is probable that the original letter was written in the course of the spring; or, at the latest, early in June. The original letter will accordingly be considered at this point, and the supple-

ment a little later.

The original letter opens with praise of Urban, then demon_ Strates the necessity of the return to Rome, then discusses the

difficulties that must be overcome, and ends with the impassioned entreaty to which reference has just been made.

The high praise that pervades the first of these four main portions of the letter—praise based, as the letter itself makes _ clear, upon the letters that Petrarch had received from Philippe de Cabassoles and other friends in Provence—is reasoned, specific,

and not excessive. There is indeed a suggestion that something

_ that is not praise is to follow: “Audio enim te libenter audire que vera sunt: etsi acria sint. Falsa autem quamuis dulcia

aspernari.” |

The second portion opens with the statement that Petrarch, though he had desired to write in praise of Urban, had hesitated to do so, lest after so writing he might find himself compelled

to write in a very different vein. Then the argument begins. There are in the world two supreme rulers, ordained by God:

96 | CHAPTER FIFTEEN | the Roman Pope and the Roman Emperor. To the Emperor _ Petrarch has written frequently, “flendo & clamando .. . pro deserta republica”: to Urban he had not written, fearing that while he might well have praised him for lesser achievements it might prove impossible to ascribe praise to him for a far: greater achievement, since Urban has not yet led his flock of cardinals back to their proper fold. There are indeed great difficulties in the way: the flock is tenaciously fond of its present lush pastures. To overcome such difficulties will take resolution, _ toil, and time, as Petrarch fully realizes; but he can no longer hold his peace, and he entreats Urban to listen to him patiently.

In a long passage that is at once thoughtfully composed and vibrant with intense feeling, the dire plight of Rome is then depicted, a plight due to the absence of the papacy: te absente abest requies: pax exulat: bella assunt: & ciuilia & externa. lacent domus: labant menia: templa ruunt: sacra pereunt: calcantur leges. Iustitia vim patitur: luget atque ullulat plebs infelix:

tuumque nomen altis uocibus inuocat. Neque tu illam audis.. . Regina urbium semper vidua erit? . . . quo inquam animo tu ad _Yippam rhodani sub auratis tectorum laquearibus somnum capis: & lateranum humi iacet & ecclesiarum mater omnium tecto carens: uentis patet ac pluuijs: & Petri ac Pauli sanctissime domus tremunt: & apostolorum que nunc edes fuerat iam ruina est informisque

lapidum aceruus. ,

Return to Rome would bring perennial glory to Urban’s name. —

It was in Rome, not on the Rhone, that Christ had established _ his Church. The very election of Urban to the papacy had been manifestly a miracle designed to bring about the return to Rome. What account will Urban be able to render to God if he fails to fulfill the task allotted to him? It will avail him nothing, as the poor widow once said to Trajan, if he leaves that task to be fulfilled by another.

The great difficulties in the way of the return are due to the fact that Urban’s counselors [the cardinals, most of them

French] are unduly hostile to Italy and unduly attached to Avignon. Hostility to Italy is due mainly to ignorance—as he treats this point Petrarch recurs to the providential dispensation that had led to Urban’s personal knowledge of Italy, and even

1366: JANUARY - JUNE 97° to his presence there at the time of his election—as a result of

which it is said that Italy is “extra orbem,” beyond an innavigable sea and impenetrable moutains; that the air, wines, waters, and foods of Italy are unhealthy; and that Italian hostility would make it dangerous for the Pope and the cardinals to live in Rome, the case of Boniface VIII being cited. These charges Petrarch refutes effectively, saying that mistaken impressions of Italy would disappear if only those who hold them would visit that fair land. He personalizes his refutations by reference, in one case, to Cardinal Giovanni Colonna’s defense of Italy after Benedict XII, having tasted eels from the lake of Bolsena, had said that he had not supposed that anything so good could come out of Italy, and in another case to the fact that the perpetrators of the outrage at Anagni were French, not

Italian. In praise of Italy Petrarch cites a remark once made to him, near Lake Garda, by Cardinal Gui de Boulogne, who had said: “plane fateor. uos pulchriorem multoque meliorem quam nos patriam habere.” For his own part, Petrarch asserts, “Nihil omnino sub astris italic comparandum.” The attachment of the Cardinals to Avignon is due to the

fact that | |

proprias domos & antiquam Petri sedem obliti in alieno edificant:

& quasi non dicam paradisum uoluptatis: sed habitaculum celeste reppererint: ceu nunquam migraturi habitant: omnemque ibi suam

spem omne desiderium posuere. , ,

All this, Petrarch exclaims, “inter feras rhodani gentes” [a quo-

continues: ,

tation from Lucan], and on the banks of a river “ubi... cum uento male viuitur & sine uento pessime viueretur.” He then Illic ergo in locis aut limosis aut saxosis atque aridis fratrum tuorum uasta palatia & ingentes domus: immo vero carceres & vincula cernuntur: quibus uereor ne carmen illud horrendum canat ethereus cytharista. Sepulchra eorum domus in eternum.

The fourth and last portion of the original letter is devoted | to the impassioned terminal entreaty to which reference has been made above.

98 CHAPTER FIFTEEN | This entire original letter is a masterpiece in structure, in content, and in eloquence. But Petrarch, when he came to the end of it, was not ready to send it on its way.

June By about the Ist of June the Paduan priest who had been copying the De vita solitaria had finished his work, in a script that was large and legible rather than fashionably minute, and on the 6th, being ready at last to start the book on its way to Philippe de Cabassoles, Petrarch wrote to him an accompanying letter, Sen. vi 5. In this letter he apologizes for the exceedingly long delay—the book had been composed in 1346— and cites as its three causes ‘““Occupatio mea ingens ac perpetua.

Item tarditas quedam expediendarum rerum animo _insita,” and “scriptorum perfida semper inhertia inhersque perfidia.” What he says of the second cause makes it evident that his tarditas is the result of his reluctance to release writings that do not seem to him to have been perfected; and in this contion he laments the many occasions on which friends have succeeded in getting from him copies of writings which were not ready for circulation, and says that nothing attributed to him can rightly be regarded as his unless it is specifically subscribed or titled by him. Since the De vita was composed for Philippe

at a time when he was Bishop of Cavaillon, Petrarch is dedicating it to him as Bishop, rather than in his present higher status as Patriarch of Jerusalem; and he predicts that Philippe

will yet attain a still higher status. |

The messenger who took the De vita to Avignon was

Sagremor de Pommiers [Sen. x 1]. |

Late in June Luchino dal Verme (for whom see above, pp.

69-70) sailed again from Venice, this time as commander of one of the two galleys assigned by Venice to Amadeus VI of _ Savoy, who was undertaking a crusade against the Turks. Petrarch saw Luchino at this time, and expressed his disapproval, based both upon his opinion that this crusade had not been adequately prepared and upon the fact that the com-

vit 4].* |

| 1366: JANUARY - JUNE 99

mand of a single galley was a very subordinate position [Sen. At some time before the end of June Petrarch, returning to

the letter he had written to Urban, found that he wanted to add to it, and set to work upon the supplement that constitutes the second half of Sem. vir 1 as it stands in the collection of the © Seniles. On the night of 29 June, as will presently appear, he was writing a passage that is at about the middle of the supplement. It does not follow, however, that the entire supplement was written on that date. Some of its elements were presumably written before the 29th; some may have been written after the 29th but before the letter was actually sent; and some may have been written long afterward, when the letter was being revised for inclusion in the collection of the Seniles.

This supplement is not a unity in itself: it consists of a series of distinct elements, some of them being in effect addenda

to particular passages of the original letter. The first such addenda contain references to what Urban had said at Marseilles and after the payment to du Guesclin about the return to Rome: these references are followed by a brief exclama-

tory passage on the theme “Why then delay?” |

Petrarch then turns again to the problem of the difficulties due to the hostility to Italy felt by the French cardinals and to their attachment to Avignon. He begs the Pope to persuade them that Italy, far from being such as they think it to be, is in fact rightly called “optimam atque clarissimam & famosissimam

mundi partem,” lacking only in peace, which would ensue if only the Pope would return to Rome. There follows a glowing passage in which Italy is praised for its noble and beautiful Cities, its salubrious air, its even temperature, the cleverness of © its southerners, the stoutheartedness of its northerners, its lakes, its rivers, its two seas, its defending Alps, its hills, valleys, and fields, its metals, its flocks, its shipping, its grains, wines, oils,

fruits, game, fish, birds, and its foods of every sort. Turning

* See lorga, pp. 328-336. ,

100 , ~ CHAPTER FIFTEEN | then to the attachment of the cardinals to Provence, Petrarch _ says that he himself has often heard them say that Italy had no Beaune wine: “en grauis infamia iustaque causa italie re_linguende,” he exclaims. They could have their Beaune sent to them in Italy, if they so desired; but once in Italy they would soon be content with Italian wines. (At this point there is a digression on the somewhat similar problems that had arisen, in the days of ancient Rome, for certain emperors who were

not themselves of Roman origin.) Rome had been extraordinarily populous, and yet amply provided, in the days of _ Augustus and of Claudius; and recently [in 1350] Rome had been able to make ample provision for the hordes of pilgrims who had flocked to the city in the year of Jubilee. —

Petrarch is writing, he then says, on the night of the day [29 June, in the calendar of the Church] and at the very hour when Peter and Paul had suffered martyrdom in Rome: what holy joy would be Urban’s if at such an hour he could be present at service in the basilica of Peter—properly his own basilica. Nowhere save in Rome is such holy joy to be ex-

perienced in all its fullness. |

There follows a long passage in which Petrarch laments the

_ plight of Christianity, resulting from Turkish incursions, in _ the Greek islands and in Cyprus, Crete, Rhodes, and Euboea, even in Greece itself. How can the Pope sit idle in the west at such a time? Rather should he have been the first to rush to the defense, going even, beyond Rome, to Constantinople. Jerusalem, to the shame of Christendom, is beyond recovery, but in Constantinople, equally to the shame of Christendom, Christ is worshipped by a false cult. As he develops this theme Petrarch

ceases for the moment to address the Pope alone, and addresses both the Pope and the Emperor: “uobis qui omnium duces estis: tibi dico romanoque principi.”

There now begins a conclusion, which is at first merely _ repetitious; then cites the story (which Petrarch evidently regards as untrue) that there is a portion of the papal palace in Avignon that is called “Rome,” and that when Urban enters it he says that he has fulfilled his duty to return to Rome; and

1366: JANUARY - JUNE 101 then presents a dramatic passage in which Urban, appearing before the ultimate tribunal, after failure to return to Rome, is reproached, in direct discourse, first by Christ and then by

Peter. | :

After this, in the conclusion of the conclusion, Petrarch begs Urban to pardon him for any offense he may have given, and entreats him to return to a place whence, on the Last Day, he may rise in company not with the sinners of Avignon, but with Peter and Paul, Stephen and Lawrence, Sylvester and Gregory, and Jerome and Agnes and Cecilia and thousands of other saints. The last sentence of all is this: “Christus omnipotens dies tuos proroget in longum euum. Aperiatque cor tuum consilijs non blandis nec fortasse delectabilibus sed sanis ac

fidelibus.” |

The letter is dated at Venice, on 29 June. But Petrarch was

not yet ready to send it, and decided to take it with him to

Pavia, whither he was about to go. |

CHAPTER XVI

1366: July-December

July-September | In July, before the 20th, Petrarch returned to Pavia. During this stay in Pavia Petrarch had the pleasure of renewed association with Pandolfo Malatesta, now reconciled with the Visconti and again in their service.» During the first months of his stay his main literary undertaking was the completion of the De remedtis utriusque fortune

[Sen. v 4]. | | , a

In the previous winter, when he had been about to leave Pavia to return to Venice, he had three letters—Sen. v 1-3ready to send to Boccaccio, and had entrusted them, for dispatch or delivery, to the man whom in Sen. v 4 he characterizes

as “dictu raucidum & auditu idiota quidam verborum sono quasi asellus ad liram longis auribus delectatus.” On his return — in July he found that this “idiota” was still holding the letters.

When Petrarch asked him for them he swore that he had already given them back, and he would have continued to keep them if Petrarch, becoming angry, had not notified him that he would no longer endure such misconduct. Finally, then, he sent the letters back to Petrarch, “contactu agresti semilaceras.”

Petrarch had taken with him, to Pavia, the letter that he had written to Urban, hoping, evidently, to find in Pavia (or in Milan) a messenger to whom he could safely entrust it. He found, in fact, that an envoy of Galeazzo Visconti was about to leave for Avignon, and planned to send the letter by him (he speaks of the letter as having been “sepe petitam”—by whom we do not know). But before the envoy left Petrarch

| | | 102 - |

+ Weiss 1, pp. 90-91. | ,

1366: JULY - DECEMBER 103 learned indirectly that there were certain great men, well disposed to him—‘qui libenter placent michi’”—who would have disliked his sending of the letter: “de transverso didici eam rem maiores egre laturos.” ? So he changed his mind, held the letter, and gave the envoy an oral message to be delivered cautiously to Bruni.

At dawn on 20 July—his 63rd birthday—Petrarch wrote Sen. vit 1 to Boccaccio. Since ancient times the 63rd year of a man’s life had been regarded as the grand climacteric—a year

that was liable to bring disaster, peril, and death. Petrarch wrote, however, to say that he faced the year without belief in its peculiar character, and with entire acceptance of the prospect of death, whenever the allotted day should come for him. In earlier years, he says, he had held to the idea that he was still young—in spite of the premature whitening of his hair (for which he cites classic examples)—and had allowed people to think him younger than he really was; but now he is

well content to have entered upon old age, particularly because for some years now he has been free from earlier besetting temptations. He mentions the exact time and place of his birth—at dawn on 20 July 1304 in Arezzo, in the street known as the Vico dell’Orto. He finds occasion also to speak scornfully of astrology and astrologers. Since he did not want to alarm Boccaccio he did not start this letter on its way until long after he had written it [Sen. vir 8]. Early in August, it would seem, Petrarch received a letter from Philippe de Cabassoles, telling him that he had received

his copy of the De vita solitaria (which Petrarch had sent to him on 10 June) and was delighted with it; that the Pope and Cardinal Gui de Boulogne desired to have copies of it; and that the Archbishop of Embrun and the Bishop of Lisbon had read it eagerly, and vied with each other in praising it.® Philippe told Petrarch also of something that Bruni had done * These were very possibly French cardinals who were friendly to Petrarch, perhaps Elie de Talleyrand and Gui de Boulogne. * These two prelates were, respectively, Pierre d’Ameil and Pedro

Gomez Barroso: see Eubel, pp. 234 and 507. |

104 CHAPTER SIXTEEN | on Petrarch’s behalf with the Pope, after the arrival of Sagremor | Misc. 13].

At about the same time, apparently, Petrarch heard from the rector of San Giuliano that he had received from Bruni a letter saying that it would ensure the success of the request that the rector had made for Antonio Albanzani if Petrarch would himself write Bruni a letter confirming the rector’s statement that Donato Albanzani was a friend of Petrarch. ~ On 8 August Petrarch wrote briefly both to Philippe and to Bruni. The letter to Philippe, Sen. v1 9, 1s simply a graceful acknowledgement of Philippe’s letter. | The letter to Bruni, Misc. 13, confirms the rector’s statement as to the friendship of Petrarch and Donato Albanzani, and has much to say of the boy Antonio: “puer est ardentis ingenil et, nisi destituatur, in altum evasuri. . . Inter cetera nugellas meas, antiquas et vulgares, et alias tam argute pronuntiat ut mirari possis.” He is lovable both for his father’s sake and for his own, and he has a good knowledge of Latin. At the end of the letter Petrarch says that he has recently written much to Bruni (no earlier letters written to Bruni in 1366 are extant) and is expecting to hear from him. He has been informed by Philippe de Cabassoles “de tis que per te gesta sunt

sub adventum Sagramoris penes dominum nostrum Papam,” and thanks him accordingly. The date of the letter is followed

by the word “festinanter.” |

Shortly after writing this letter to Bruni Petrarch received from him a letter in which he spoke “de voluntate Pontificis

ad reditum prona,” and at the end quoted the remark of a common friend who had said of Petrarch that he possessed — “stultorum omnium amicitiam.”

At about the same time Petrarch heard rumors that the - Pope was in bodily danger. From these rumors he apparently

inferred that the sooner the return to Rome was made the better it would be even from the point of view of the Pope’s personal safety [this would be the case, assuming that the * Misc. 13, Misc. 14 (which is next to be considered) and Misc. 15

(a much later letter) are translated and discussed by Rossi 2. :

| 1366: JULY - DECEMBER 105 danger to the Pope came from men bitterly opposed to the return to Rome, since such opposition might well gain in strength unless the return were made promptly]. On the basis of such an inference and of Bruni’s reference

to the Pope’s continuing desire to return to Rome Petrarch changed his mind again, and decided to send his letter to the Pope after all, if he could find an absolutely trustworthy messenger. On 17 August he found such a messenger: “hodie vir ~ hic nobilis et vetusta michi iuncta amicitia insperatus affuit. . .

Nomen eius domini Habilanus Lomelini.” |

He therefore wrote, “festinantissime,” a covering letter, Misc. 14 (from which the data for the preceding paragraphs are derived), and charged Lomellini to deliver both letters, secretly, to Bruni. In the covering letter Petrarch prescribed certain extraordinary precautions for Bruni’s handling of the letter to the Pope, conditions that he virtually commanded Bruni to observe: “Cui hance legem dico: teque ne qua eam in parte pretereas per amicitie fidem rogo.” First of all, Bruni is himself to read the letter, alone, unhurriedly, and without advisers; and if he finds anything in it that seems to him “acerbius vel inconsultius” he is not to give the letter to the Pope, but is to send it back to Petrarch without showing it to anyone else. Next, if Bruni finds nothing objectionable in the letter, he is to call in, as advisers, Philippe de Cabassoles and

Agapito [di Pietro] Colonna [Bishop of Ascoli] and submit the letter to them: “et si quid illis aut eorum alteri vel minimum displicuerit” he is to send it back to Petrarch without showing

it to anyone else. Finally, if it is approved by Philippe and Agapito as well as by Bruni himself, “tunc in nomine Iesu Cristi presentabis eam [to the Pope] in secreto sine tumultu aliquo.” These precautions are due, Petrarch says, to the fact that there are in the letter things, written for the sake of truth, that might

stir up “odia magnorum” against him, a possibility which, through Petrarch is not timid, “non est penitus negligendum.”

The main part of the letter then ends thus: | Imo in hoc etiam casu quo offerendam unanimiter decernatis contentabor, si tibi possibile fuerit, ut postquam lecta erit et, si

fuerit. | 106 CHAPTER SIXTEEN

videbitur, transcripta, hanc quoque michi remittas, vel per hunc vel per alium, fidum tamen, ut si unquam hic petita esset, sicut interdum fuit, habeam ipsam paratam et inditio sit quod missa non

The entire letter gives striking evidence of Petrarch’s extreme anxiety as to the effect of his letter to Urban. That anxiety was certainly due primarily to the intensity of his conviction that

the Pope ought to return to Rome, and it certainly included (beyond the fear that he might himself incur “odia magnorum’’)

fear that the letter, if it should come into hostile hands, would

do more harm than good.®

At the end of the letter Petrarch refers to the remark quoted by Bruni that Petrarch possessed “‘stultorum omnium amicitiam,”

saying that it made him laugh, and that the man quoted had

been a friend of his for thirty-two years.° Oo

: From a later letter, Sen. x1 8, written to Bruni in the spring of 1368, we know that the copy of Sen. vu 1 that was sent to Bruni in 1366 had been carefully transcribed by Giovanni Malpaghini. From Sen. 1x 2, written to Bruni in that same spring, we know that Bruni presented Sen. vir 1 to Urban; that it was “bene acceptum”; and that he asked Bruni to write some

notes on it: “ut... glosas ei aliquas scriberes exegisse: quod nouo certe auinium stupore circumdedit.” Urban left Provence for Rome in the spring of 1367: it is quite possible—to me, at least, it seems probable—that Petrarch’s letter had some influence upon him as he came to the making of his momentous

decision. |

Late in August, apparently, Petrarch was working on the

_ ° The passage “Imo . . . fuerit” shows that Petrarch felt that in a good cause and under certain circumstances some measure of deceit was

justifiable. Even in the letter to Urban he had suggested (early in the supplementary portion of the letter) that he (Urban) might weaken the opposition by seeming to act under compulsion: “Age ergo ut coactus quo excusabilior sis contra nitentibus. Uere autem uolens letusque sedem

tuam repete.” | .

*On Misc. 14 see n. 4 and the article by Rossi cited therein. Rossi suggests that the man referred to at the end of the letter may have been Stefano Colonna, Provost of Saint-Omer (for whom see below, p. 126).

; | 1366: JULY - DECEMBER 107 97th dialogue of Book II of the De remediis—the dialogue “De

auditu perdito” [Sen. v 4].

| Just then there came to him, together, two letters from Donato Albanzani. As it chanced, he read first the later letter, in which Donato reported that he had recovered, and then the earlier letter, in which Donato reported that he had been taken ill, and was losing his hearing. In one or the other of the two

letters Donato asked Petrarch, somewhat reproachfully, for

have sent to him. | | the De vita solitaria, which Petrarch had evidently promised to

Petrarch then wrote a letter (now lost) to the Paduan priest who had copied the De vita, telling him to send the — book (apparently the original manuscript from which the priest had made his copy) to Donato. As Petrarch prepared to answer Donato’s letters he decided to send Sen. v 1-3 to Donato for transmission to Boccaccio. On 1 September he wrote Sen. v 4 as his answer to Donato’s letters. He tells of his receipt of those letters, which had come

to him just as he was writing “de auditu perdito.” Mention of Donato’s illness leads him into a typical attack upon physicians;

and that, in turn, gives him occasion to say that he is sending ©

Donato three letters to be forwarded to Boccaccio, one of which [Sen. v 3] may serve to strengthen Donato’s adherence to Petrarch’s unfavorable opinion of physicians in general. At the end of the letter he says that he has written to the Paduan priest, directing him to send the De vita to Donato; but he tells

Donato that while he is free to read it he is not to make any copy of it before Petrarch returns to Venice, his reason and explanation being: “adhuc enim verbum vnum ibi addidi. Nosti -morem. alter Prothogenes nescio e tabella manum tollere.”

Before sending off this letter and the letters to Boccaccio

that were to be enclosed therewith Petrarch made in Sen. v 1 the insertion beginning “Ecce iam duas hic estates egi’ that

has been quoted above (on p. 85); and on 2 September he added the explanatory postscript, beginning ‘“Adhuc octo, imo novem mensibus,” that has also been quoted above (in n. 6

on p. 86).

108 CHAPTER SIXTEEN | _ October-December On 4 October Petrarch finished his work on the De remedius,

and wrote at the end of his manuscript: “Ticini. Anno domini

1366 III] nonas octobris hora tertia.” * ,

By late October Giovanni Malpaghini, who had now been in the service of Petrarch for two years, had virtually com-

pleted the enormous task of copying the collection of the Familares, from Petrarch’s exceedingly difficult revised drafts; and Petrarch, in his great satisfaction at this achievement, wrote to Boccaccio a letter, Fam. xxi 19, dated on 28 October, which is an enthusiastic and detailed account of Giovanni’s qualities and remarkable abilities: his moderation and his seriousness would be laudable even in an old man, his intelligence is keen and quick, his memory is rapa-

cious and, what is more, tenacious . . . He has a marked gift of invention, a noble urge to write, and a heart devoted to the Muses ... Lhe common folk does not love and seek money as much as

he hates and rejects it; one tries in vain to give him coins; it is all one can do to make him accept what is necessary for the maintenance of life; he vies with me, and often surpasses me in his desire for solitude and in fasting and keeping vigil.

Petrarch had come to love him as a son. As proof of his remarkable memory Petrarch cites the fact that in eleven days he had learned by heart the whole of Petrarch’s Bucolicum carmen [nearly 2000 lines]. His accuracy as a copyist was absolute, and his script was of perfect clarity. He had something of a poetic gift, but tended too much to imitate classic authors. Petrarch had therefore talked to him at length about the proper nature and extent of imitation: he quotes to Boccaccio the substance of what he had said on that subject. Some-

what to Petrarch’s discomfiture Giovanni had justified himself by pointing out that one of the last lines of Petrarch’s own Sixth Eclogue ended with a phrase—“atque intonat ore”—taken

without change from the Aeneid. In conclusion Petrarch asks _ Boccaccio to join him in seeking pardon from Virgil—who "See Klaus Heitmann, “La genesi del ‘De remediis utriusque fortune’ del Petrarca,” in Convivium, N.S., 1 (1957), 17.

1366: JULY - DECEMBER 109 himself had stolen much from Homer, Ennius, Lucretius, and _ others—for what had been only an inadvertent borrowing. This letter, celebrating the completion of the copying of the Familiares, was to be added—appropriately enough—to that collection, bringing the total number of letters contained therein up to 350—which is in point of fact the final number.®

Ever since 1342 Petrarch had busied himself from time to time with the making of a collection of his Italian lyrics—a process involving selection, revision, and arrangement. The first form of this collection had been begun in 1342; the second form had been made in 1347-1350; the third in 1356-1358; and

the fourth in 1359-1362. In the second and later forms the collection was divided into two parts, the second part beginning

with the canzone I vo pensando. The fourth form (known to scholars as the Chigi form, since it is preserved in a Vatican manuscript designated as Chigi L.V. 176) contains 215 poems,

174 in the first part and 41 in the second.°

In October or November 1366—work on the Familiares having been completed—Petrarch turned to the making of a . fifth form of the collection. His plan was to begin each of the parts with the corresponding part of the Chigi form, and to

enlarge each part by the addition of poems that had not previously been included in the collection. The poems that were thus to be added were to be selected from a stock of some

200 poems that he had on hand, on sheets still preserved in V.L. 3196 and on many more similar sheets, now lost. As they stood on these sheets these poems showed many revisions and a good many marginal notations of varous kinds: most of them

were liable to further revision before being included in the new collection. Some of the sheets constituted little reference collections, in which Petrarch had gathered, for convenience, * As the collection stands this letter is the third from the end of Book

XXIII, being followed by a letter written to Bruni in 1361 and one written to Charles IV at an uncertain date. Book XXIV, containing the letters to the ancients, was already. complete. * For this and for what follows see The Making, pp. 145-168.

110 CHAPTER SIXTEEN a few poems that were already in at least relatively satisfactory form, or were thought to be worth preserving for some other

reason. He had on hand, or now procured, a supply of parchment quaternions. He assigned the task of transcription to Giovanni Malpaghini, and gave him first, as ready to be transcribed, the first 163 poems of the first part of the Chigi form, plus two poems taken from a sheet or sheets now lost. Giovanni's transcription of this block of poems began not before October 1366,

and was probably finished not later than 6 January 1367. It was probably while he was working on this block, and perhaps at the very outset, that Petrarch had him enter upon the first page of the first quaternion the title Francisci petrarche laureati

poete Rerum uulgarium fragmenta. | | :

When Giovanni had finished work on this first block of poems Petrarch had not yet decided what poems should follow those that Giovanni had transcribed. He was satisfied, however,

that Part II should begin with the 41 poems that constituted

the second part of the Chigi form; and he therefore told Giovanni to transcribe these poems, beginning on a new quaternion. The transcription of this second block of poems was probably done within a period beginning not before 16 November 1366 and ending not later than February 1367. While Giovanni was engaged in the transcription of these first two blocks, Petrarch was preparing his additions to the

two parts. In some cases, at least, he placed letters of the alphabet beside poems on his work sheets, to indicate the order in which he wanted them copied into the collection; and in some cases, at least, after a poem had been transcribed, he © entered on the work sheet in question an abbreviated notation indicating that it had been transcribed by Giovanni. On a 29 November that was probably that of 1366 (though just possibly that of 1367) Petrarch dated his Sen. vit 2, which is in reality a treatise on old age, written in epistolary form. It

is addressed (at least in the edition of 1501) “ad amicos de senectute.” Old age is praised, at length and for a variety of

1366: JULY - DECEMBER 111 reasons, as the best time of life: “nunquam hercle mihi gratior fuit vita quam dum ceteris odiosa esse incipit.”

Before dawn on 5 December Petrarch began the making of a little reference collection of sonnets. “Taking into his hands the sheet that is now ff. 1-2 in V.L. 3196, he made in the upper right hand corner of f. 1" the notation 1366. Sabato ante lucem

Decembris 5. On that same day or very soon thereafter, he copied three poems onto that page; not long thereafter, and probably not later than 6 January 1367, he entered on f. 1° a first and then a second version of a sonnet; and on or after 7 December, probably on or after 9 December, he entered the letter

Y (the 22nd letter in Petrarch’s alphabet) beside the second version of the sonnet.

~ On 10 December Petrarch, still in Pavia, wrote Sen. vu 4 to Luchino dal Verme, expressing his continuing misgivings as to -Luchino’s participation in the crusade led by Amadeus VI of

Savoy (see above, p. 98). |

By the time Giovanni had finished transcribing the first 41 poems of Part II, Petrarch had ready a block of 24 poems to be added to Part I, and gave them to Giovanni, telling him to leave a space for one other poem that was to be included but was not yet ready. The transcription of this third block of poems was probably done within a period beginning not before 9 December 1366 and ending not later than March

1367. | ,

By the time Giovanni had finished transcribing these 24 poems Petrarch had ready a block of 14 poems to be added to Part II, and gave them to Giovanni, whose transcription of this fourth block of poems was probably done within a period beginning not before 12 December 1366 and ending not later — than 16 April 1367.

The quaternions on which Giovanni did this transcription,

together with those on which Petrarch himself eventually continued the process of transcription, constitute the famous

112 CHAPTER SIXTEEN manuscript V.L. 3195, the partially autograph manuscript of

the Canzoniere. |

Return to Venice | _ At about the end of the year Petrarch returned to Venice. Immediately after this return, probably, though possibly immediately after the corresponding return late in 1367, Donato Albanzani came to see him, bringing him the long-awaited copy of Leontius’ translation of Homer, and showing him a letter in which Boccaccio expressed his fear that Petrarch’s long stays in Pavia were restricting his freedom; and not long afterward Petrarch wrote to Boccaccio his Sen. v1 2, in which he seeks to calm Boccaccio’s fears and thanks him for the

Homer. | |

This letter contains Petrarch’s clearest statement as to his “freedom” and as to his relation to men called “tyrants”: Lay aside your fear on my behalf, and be assured that hitherto, while I might seem to have been subject to a yoke, I have always been the freest of men, and as far as I can see I shall continue to be so. “Nitar .. . ut ubilibet animo liber sim, etsi corpore rebusque aliis subesse maioribus sit necesse, sive uni ut ego, sive multis ut tu

. . . Pati hominem credo facilius quam tyrannum populum.” If I had not been able to live in freedom [i.e. in animi libertate| either my life itself or certainly my tranquillity and contentment would have come to an end. Nor would I ever serve anyone |7.e. even im corpore rebusque| “nisi sponte atque amoris imperio.”

The letter ends with his thanks for the Homer: Restat ut noveris Homerum tuum ... ad nos tandem pervenisse meque et omnes seu Grecos seu Latinos qui bibliothecam hanc inhabitant replesse gaudio atque oblectatione mirabili.

That this letter was written in Venice is shown by the reference to Petrarch’s library; and that it was Donato Albanzani who had brought the Homer and the news of Boccaccio’s anxiety is shown by the opening sentence and by the combination of the references to the Homer and to Boccaccio’s anxiety. That the Homer and the news came to Petrarch on a return to Venice is shown by the fact that otherwise the Homer —

1366; JULY - DECEMBER 113 would have been sent directly to him instead of to Donato: Boccaccio, doubtless, had sent the Homer to Donato because he knew or supposed Petrarch to be in Pavia. The probability that the Homer reached Petrarch and that he wrote Sen. vi 2 late in 1366 rather than late in 1367 results from the fact that Boccaccio had sent the manuscript by the beginning of 1366, although it had not reached Petrarch when he wrote Sen. vi 1 on 25 January (see above, p. 93). Giovanni Malpaghini’s copying of the Homer was not done until 1368, as I shall show in a later chapter, but that fact is not by any means inconsistent with the conclusion that the Homer was probably received late in 1366 rather than late in 1367.*° *’ Foresti 1, p. 415, asserts that the receipt of the Homer and the writing of Sen. v1 2 must have occurred very soon after the writing of Sen. v1 1: this assertion fails to take notice of the fact that it was on the

reached Petrarch. | ,

occasion of a return to Venice at the end of a year that the Homer

| CHAPTER XVII 1367: January-June | Before the middle of March, in all probability—possibly even just before the end of December—Petrarch learned that Luchino dal Verme had met death on the shore of the Black Sea, and that his body had been buried in Constantinople.* Before the middle of a March that may have been either that of 1367 or that of 1368 Petrarch received from Sagremor de Pommiers a letter telling him that he had become a Cistercian monk, and asking Petrarch for copies of his Penitential Psalms

and his De vita solitaria. This news brought joy to Petrarch. He had known Sagremor well and had counted him as a friend ever since 1354, when Sagremor had escorted him to his first meeting with the Emperor, in Mantua; and Sagremor had been his companion in 1356, when he went on his mission to Prague.

On the 18 March that followed his receipt of this letter Petrarch, being in Venice, wrote to Sagremor the exceedingly long Sen. x 1, expressing his pleasure in the news of Sagremor’s entrance into the Cistercian order, and exhorting him to persevere in his holy vocation. In the course of this letter Petrarch

refers in particular to their journey to Prague together, and to the death of another courier, whom he calls Martinus, who had accompanied them on that journey; and speaks of the death of Luchino dal Verme and his burial in Constantinople. He says that he is sending Sagremor a copy of the Peni_ *Ie 1s known that Luchino’s death occurred within the period October 1366—April 1367, but the exact date is not known: see Rossi 3, p. 61. Since Luchino had been in command of a Venetian galley, the news of his death would certainly have come promptly to Venice; and since Petrarch was known to have been his friend, and had been instrumental in securing his acceptance of an earlier Venetian command (see above,

to Petrarch. ,

pp. 69-70), the news would certainly have been reported promptly

114 |

1367: JANUARY - JUNE 115 tential Psalms, but that he cannot send him a copy of the De vita at this time, since he has only his own copy left: he will however have a copy made for Sagremor if he can find a copyist. He refers to Sagremor’s departure in the summer of 1366, when Sagremor took a copy of the De vita to Philippe de

Cabassoles, in the words “tuo ultimo digressu.” | This letter is unquestionably of 1367 or 1368, but there has been a difference of opinion as to which of the two years was the year in which it was written. It is assigned to 1367 by Rossi, on the ground that on 18 March 1368 Petrarch was no longer in Venice. This is indeed possible, but it cannot be proved: there is no evidence that it was before April that Petrarch in 1368 left Venice and went to Padua. It is assigned to 1368 by Foresti, on the basis of his quite unjustifiable inference that Petrarch’s knowledge of the death and burial

of Luchino must have been derived from a letter received by him from Luchino’s son Giacomo shortly before 9 June 1367, in which Giacomo asked Petrarch’s advice as to whether he

should have his father’s body brought back to Italy: but Petrarch, as has been pointed out in the preceding note, must have learned promptly of Luchino’s death. The only safe conclusion as to the date of the letter is that it was written on an 18 March that may have been either that of 1367 or that of 1368.”

Not very long after 18 March, apparently, Petrarch went to Padua for a stay of some length; and it was probably not long

after he went there that he received from Galeazzo Visconti an invitation or request that he come to Pavia.* He of course made

his plans accordingly, though he seems not to have started for Pavia before the latter part of May. “See Rossi 3, p. 61, and Foresti 1, p. 68. The letter is assigned to 1367

also by Gustave Pirchan in his Italien und Kaiser Karl IV. in der Zeit der zweiten Raiserlichen Romfabrt (= Quellen und Forschungen aus dem Gebiete der Geschichte, vu, Prague, Deutsche Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften und Kiinste fiir die Tschechoslowakische Republik, 1920), pp. 63 ff. (This I have not seen.) — * Boccaccio’s letter Ut te viderem (LAP 56), which will be considered

presently, contains the clause “ut... Ticinum revocatus abires.”

116 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN For some time in the course of the early months of 1367 Giovanni Malpaghini was engaged in copying poems into the ~ new form of the Canzoniere. Petrarch, happy in his quasi-paternal relations with Giovanni, obtained a benefice for him, apparently in March or April; and

at about the same time he came by chance upon a draft of a letter in which Giovanni, evidently answering a friend of his who had advised him to leave the service of Petrarch, had said that he was perfectly happy in that service, and would never give it up [Sen. v 5]. On 21 April, however, Giovanni came to Petrarch “vultu & corde alio,” and told him that he did not want to remain in his service any longer, and that he wished to go away. Petrarch’s account of the ensuing interview, as given in Sen. v 5, is one of the most vivid passages that he ever wrote. When he recovered from his first speechless amazement he

asked Giovanni whether he or any member of the household had offended him. This Giovanni denied, adding, with tears in his eyes, that he knew there was no other place in the world where he could live in so much honor and tranquillity. This dialogue then followed: “Ft heus infelicissime adolescens: si hec ita sunt: si nil abest quod requiras nilque deest (Jege adest?) quod offendat. Quid te

ergo precipitat et quo ruis?” |

_ “Nihil nisi quia scribere amplius non possum.” “Quid ergo manusne tremunt: aut caligant oculi?” ‘“Neutrum At scribendi feruor non tantum tepuit sed refrixit: nullo iam pacto persuaderi mihi posset ut scriberem.”

Petrarch then reminded Giovanni that he had often advised him not to work so incessantly, and suggested that a temporary cessation of work might be all that was needed. But Giovanni answered:

scribam.” |

“Et nunquam hercle uel tibi uel cuiquam omnino hominum

Petrarch then bade him give up writing entirely, and remain with him not as a copyist but as a son. But Giovanni answered:

1367: JANUARY - JUNE 117 “Perdis operari (Jege operam?). non patiar ut me domus habeat in qua nulli usui sim. Maior est animus quam ut ocioso pane uesci uelim.”

After some further discussion Giovanni’s last word was this: “Nihil agis hijs me verborum laqueis non tenebis.”

And with that he dashed to the door, and would have run away but for the walls and moats surrrounding the city.

On the next day, 22 April, Petrarch wrote to Donato Albanzani the letter, Sen. v 5, that contains the account that has just been summarized. Very soon thereafter, perhaps immediately, Petrarch and Giovanni returned to Venice. Giovanni’s determination to leave was unshaken, but he had not made up his mind where to go, though he spoke now of Naples, now of Calabria, and now of Constantinople, indicating a desire to learn Greek. But when he left, very soon after the return to Venice, he said that he was going to Avignon [Sen. v 6]. Before Petrarch himself left Venice (or Padua) he received a letter from his son-in-law, Francescuolo da Brossano, who was then in Pavia, telling him that Giovanni Malpaghini had arrived there, after a considerable series of hardships and perils; and that he had sought out Francescuolo, who at first had not recognized him in his sorry state, but after realizing who he

was had taken pity on him, and had bidden him to stay in Petrarch’s house and await his coming.‘

Before he left Venice (or Padua), it would seem, Petrarch received from Pietro da Muglio (by letter or orally) a request that 1s referred to thus in the printed form of Var. 27 (written in August): De quaestione autem consanguinitatis intelligo nullam literam meam habuisse, sed 1am ab initio responsum erat, non quod aspernari

eum mirum oblatam: sed nolo in hoc statu domum praegravare. Habeo summam, sed haec iam cuncta superfluunt.

Text and meaning are quite uncertain. *'This we know from Sen. v 6, which contains the clause “re per litteras preagnita.”

118 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Also before he left Venice (or Padua), very possibly, though perhaps after reaching Pavia, he received a letter from

Luchino’s son Giacomo dal Verme, asking his advice as to whether he (Giacomo) should try to have his father’s body brought back from Constantinople for re-burial in Verona

[Sen. vir 5]. | |

Petrarch made his journey to Pavia by barge, via the Po— the first stage being presumably from Venice down the lagoon to Chioggia, and the second from Chioggia down the Adriatic coast to one of the mouths of the Po. It may be, however, that

he went first from Venice to Padua, and thence, perhaps by canal, to one of the points on the Po where it comes nearest to Padua. On his way up the river he finally wrote his reply to the four Aristotelians who more than a year before had declared that he was “a good man, but illiterate.” To this reply, the most brilliant of his several polemics, he gave the brilliant

title De sui ipsius et multorum ignorantia. The little book 1s addressed to Donato Albanzani; and toward the end the circumstances under which it was written are stated in these two passages: “inter Padi uertices parua in naui sedeo. Ne mireris si uel manus scribentis uel oratio fluctuat;” and “Vado igitur letus ... et obstantem Padum remis, uelis ac funibus supero, Ticinum

petens.” ° — |

Petrarch reached Pavia on a night that cannot have been later than the night of 28 May, since he wrote from Pavia to

Boccaccio on the 29th [LAP 56]. |

When his boat reached Pavia, he found at the landing-place, > Ed. Capelli, pp. 83-84. A serviceable English translation by Hans

Nachod is included in The Renaissance Philosophy of Man, ed. by

Ernst Cassirer, P. O. Kristeller, and J. H. Randall, Jr. (Chicago, 1948), pp. 47-133. On the De ignorantia see the editions of Capelli and Ricci; Nachod’s Introduction, pp. 29-31; Ricci, “Per il testo e l’interpretazione del ‘De ignorantia’ petrarchesco,” in Accademia d'Italia, Ati, Ser. vu, m1 (1942), 401-408; Umberto Bosco, Petrarca (Turin, 1946), pp. 135-146 and 336; and Natalino Sapegno, II trecento, 5th printing (Milan, 1948), pp. 219-222. Nachod is in error in stating that Petrarch wrote the De ignorantia on a voyage up the Po to Padua, and in translating the second

_ of the quoted passages accordingly. |

1367: JANUARY - JUNE 119 waiting to greet him, a group of friends—and, among them, Giovanni Malpaghini, his eyes downcast in shame. Petrarch embraced him, but with less than his wonted affection | Sen. v 6]. .

It was perhaps on that very night or on the next day that Giovanni told Petrarch his pitiful story. He had made his way over the Apennines, in a deluge of rain, to Pisa; there he had waited in vain for a ship that would take him to Provence; then, amid hardships and dangers, he had recrossed the Apennines; he had nearly been drowned in an attempt to ford the Taro; he had made his way to Pavia, knowing that Petrarch would soon be there; and in Pavia Francescuolo da Brossano

had received him kindly, and had bidden him to stay in Petrarch’s house there and await his arrival [Sen. v 6]. On 29 May, as has been said, Petrarch wrote a letter—now

lost—to Boccaccio. ,

Almost immediately afterward, having heard that Boccaccio had arrived or was about to arrive in Venice, Petrarch sent him

a letter—now lost—offering him the hospitality of his house there.

He had brought with him from Venice (or Padua)—or else

he received in Pavia soon after his arrival—the letter from Giacomo dal Verme that has been mentioned above; and it was soon after his arrival, probably, that he received two letters from Donato Albanzani. The more important of these two letters told of Donato’s spiritual condition, and in particular of the relief that he had found in penitence and confession; and it had much to say of the benefits that Donato had derived from

his friendship with Petrarch. The other letter was “de... re familiari,” but contained at least incidental mention of an ~ Augustinian friar in Padua [Sen. vu 6]. On 9 June Petrarch replied, in Sen. vir 5, to the letter from Giacomo dal Verme: he condoles with him on the loss of his father, speaks of Luchino with admiration and affection, and advises Giacomo not to try to have his father’s body brought back from Constantinople. On the next day Petrarch replied, in Sen. vii 6, to the more

important of Donato’s two letters: this reply is in effect a

120 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN treatise on the values of penitence and of the sacred writings that could help Donato to persevere in his goodly resolutions. Much is said of the Confessions of St. Augustine and of the transforming influence that book had had on Petrarch’s own _

youthful sense of values. | | If Donato cannot obtain a copy otherwise, Petrarch says,

he will send him a copy; but he thinks that Donato will be able to get a copy nearer at hand from the Augustinian mentioned in Donato’s other letter, or from his brother—an obvious

reference to the Badoer brothers (for whom see above, p. 6). He speaks of the two brothers as “patauine geminum urbis decus eximium,” and adds that their opinion of him, though paternal rather than judicial, is, he thinks, more significant than the “vipereas linguas ac sibila” of all his detractors. The reference is indefinite; but Foresti is probably right in thinking

that it is to Paduan displeasure at Petrarch’s continued as- — sociation with the Visconti. As to Donato’s letter “de... re familiari” Petrarch says that, as usual in such cases, he will send a separate reply: this reply is not extant. Fairly soon after he reached Pavia, it would seem, Petrarch replied, in a letter that is now lost, to the request that Pietro da

Muglio had recently made of him [Var. 27]. | Before the end of June, presumably, Giovanni had resumed his work as copyist—perhaps helping Petrarch with his corre-

spondence, but quite certainly doing no more work on the Canzoniere. Petrarch, however, had now little confidence in Giovanni—and what confidence he still had was shaken when

he learned (we do not know how) that during Giovanni's peregrinations he had told inquirers that he was travelling at Petrarch’s behest. Thinking that Giovanni would be leaving him again before long, Petrarch put aside a sum of money that might serve him on his travels; and he resolved to be a friendly

employer to him as long as he might stay [Sen. v 6]. | In June, presumably, Petrarch lost the pleasure of association with Pandolfo Malatesta, who had left Pavia and the Visconti before the end of the month.’

* Foresti 3, pp. 171-172. , | “See Weiss 1, p. 91. ,

1367: JANUARY - JUNE 121 The Return of the Pope In May and June Petrarch must have rejoiced to hear of the decision of Pope Urban to return to Rome, and of the progress of that return. On 30 April Urban left Avignon for Marseilles, where he embarked, on a Venetian galley, on 19 May. He landed at Corneto on 3 June, and went thence to Viterbo, where he remained through the summer.®

Certain cardinals, following him by land, passed through Pavia about the middle of June: among them was Pierre Roger _ (who was destined to succeed Urban), who had a very friendly ~ talk with Petrarch [Sen. xim 11 and xv 2].° Boccaccio in Venice

Meanwhile, Boccaccio had been in Venice. The story of his visit is told in the delightful letter, beginning Ut te viderem (LAP 56), that he wrote to Petrarch after returning to Florence. Desiring to visit Petrarch again in Venice, he left Certaldo

on 24 March; but he stopped in Florence for a long time, partly because of the continuing bad weather, partly because of the solicitousness of his friends, and partly because of fear

of the dangers of the journey, as reported to him by recent travelers. After hearing [presumably from Donato] that Petrarch was going to Pavia, he decided nevertheless to go on

to Venice, since he had matters to attend to there for some of his friends, and since he wanted to become acquainted with Petrarch’s daughter and son-in-law [whom he evidently under-

stood, presumably from Donato, to be still in Venice]. He traveled with Francesco Allegri [apparently a Florentine

who had a house in Venice]. At a point near Venice [probably on the shore of the lagoon] he chanced to meet Francescuolo da Brossano [who, after being in Pavia when Giovanni arrived there, had evidently returned to Venice, and was now evidently leaving Venice again for a trip—probably a brief business trip—to some unknown destination]. Arriving

in Venice, he accepted the hospitality of Francesco Allegri, “See Mollat, pp. 116-117 and 252-255. ” See Rossi 3, p. 41.

122 , CHAPTER SEVENTEEN declining offers from other friends and the hospitality that Petrarch had offered him by letter. As soon as he had rested somewhat, he went to pay his respects to Petrarch’s daughter Francesca, who received him with a becoming filial affection. She entertained him and other friends in the garden, and renewed her father’s offer of hospitality. Presently in came her

little daughter Eletta, who, though she did not know who Boccaccio was, “ridens aspexit.” She reminded Boccaccio instantly of the little daughter that he had loved and lost, and, deeply moved, he took her into his arms. Before many days had passed Francescuolo returned to Venice, and showed all possible courtesy and kindness to Boccaccio. While in Venice, also, Boccaccio was received with particular honor by Guido

da Bagnolo [one of Petrarch’s four Aristotelians]. Finally he started on the tedious and laborious journey back to Florence, where, on the last day of June, he wrote the letter Ut _ te viderem.

Chronological data for Petrarch, Giovanni

| Malpaghini, Boccaccio, and Francescuolo da Brossano for March—June

The chronology of the inter-related experiences of these four men for these four months is so intricate—its very intricacy,

however, serving to suggest several datings that are somewhat more exact than those already presented—that the main data

in question are here assembled in tabular form. ,

|5;coO> | 23 1367: JANUARY - JUNE 1

yg aS y €

$4 Oo Vv ie 3=om — 7 Sg ° :an g Fao ¢g 2O . 3 oO 8: = | Ses 5 a® eos 7, : Ss; JZ faa 3 : :| BOa£o25a>Pog,O c — > a $j 2 o§ 25 >& a g 9 O 2S ng © AS mo OO S >0 8s

Y

|== o—So as o> o Y ae ue 1263 S42 22 aa 38 TA Sn eae

=

es o 0. or =>) L a x aw os O a ©onoO Wy xv | e) mM a

o L = S S > (oS 5 & = es 8 6

AS 25 8S eos ca Gee nr Oo C5 OR eS greys 4 S82 ys S27 N

= o> as) 7 2 | 5 228s Ted mie

jar Sew &

ss §8 £ aos | onEH= Ae =. De Soo SS w

ja ve 2 6 Ss sh OS S=Same ERGSan eySuStee saeq 0) ay => oS&S