Francesco, one of the greatest poets and most celebrated men of whom Italy can boast, was born at Arezzo on the 20th of July 1304. His baptismal name was Francesco di Petrarco (a form of Pietro), but the poet afterwards changed it into the more euphonious name by which he is always known. His father, the friend of Dante, and, like him, of the Ghibelin party, had been banished from Florence, where he filled a respectable situation confided to him by the republic; and having taken refuge in Pisa, he committed the education of his son, then in his seventh year, to an old grammarian of that city named Convennole da Prato. Two years afterwards, when the death of the Emperor Henry VII. had destroyed the hopes of the Ghibellins, the father of Petrarch removed his family to Avignon, whither Clement V. had transferred the pontifical court, and his son resumed his studies at Carpentras, under his former master. It was then that Francesco visited for the first time the fountains of Vauncluse; and the rural beauties of this celebrated spot left an indelible impression upon his mind. He passed four years at the university of Montpellier, whither he had been sent to study law, but not relishing legal literature, he devoted his days and nights to Cicero and to Virgil. But whilst engaged in these seducing pursuits, he was disturbed by the arrival of his father, who, greatly incensed at what he conceived to be a gross misapplication of time, consigned to the flames the little library of his son, and was with difficulty induced to restore to him Cicero and Virgil, after they had been half consumed. Being now sent to the university of Bologna, to receive the instructions of Giovanni d'Andrea, the most learned canonist of that age, Petrarch soon formed a connection there with Cino da Pistoia, a Florentine like himself, whom Bartolo cites as his master in the science of law, and who deserved to become that of Petrarch and Boccaccio in poetry. At the age of twenty-two he lost his father, and being ruined by faithless tutors, he returned to Avignon, where he took up his residence, appeared with distinction in the most brilliant society, and found himself at liberty to apply to his favourite pursuits. Mathematics, history, antiquities, and philosophy occupied, each in its turn, a mind thirsting for knowledge. The first poetical attempts of Petrarch, like those of Dante, were made in the Latin language; but, happily, his muse soon ventured to confide her inspirations to the vulgar tongue, the only one, besides, which the women understood.

About this time he renewed his acquaintance with one of his school companions, Jacopo Colonna, the youngest son of Stefano Colonna, the head of the illustrious family of that name. In the society of the Colonnas, the poet became known to the most illustrious strangers who visited the pontifical city; whilst the noble frankness of his manner, his mild yet sprightly physiognomy, the graces of his mind, and his unaffected anxiety to please, secured him a remarkable ascendancy in this select circle. When Jacopo Colonna was called to the bishopric of Lombe, his friend accompanied him to his diocese, and in their way they stopped at Toulouse. The seven Maintainers of the Gay Science were then beginning to diffuse a taste for the vulgar poetry, and to bring into notice those little effusions of song unknown to the ancients, and some of which have still remained peculiar to the literature of the troubadours. A submissive and unfortunate lover, Petrarch, like them, sought to console himself by singing at once the charms and the cruelty of his beloved. On the 6th of April 1327 he had seen, in a church of Avignon, the daughter of Audibert de Noves; and the passion he conceived for this lady occupied the remainder of his life, over which it diffused an air of poetry and romance. Laura was united to Ugo de Sade, a young patrician, and a native of Avignon; and faithful to her duties as a wife and a mother, she forbade Petrarch to indulge the slightest hope. Incessantly haunted with this beautiful vision, the poet visited in succession the south of France, Paris, and the Low Countries. The forest of the Ardennes re-echoed in turn his verses and his lamentations; he traversed Burgundy, the Lyonnais, Dauphine, and, after an exile of eight months, returned to bury himself in the delightful solitude of Vauncluse.

Pope John XXII. was then meditating a new crusade, and, to further his object, he led the Romans to hope that he would re-establish the chair of St Peter in Italy. This double project excited the imagination of Petrarch, and inspired his beautiful ode to his friend the Bishop of Lombe, O aspetta in ciel, &c. The following year (1335) we find him expressing, in elegant Latin verses addressed to Benedict XII., his earnest desire to see the Holy See re-established in the eternal city; and to this patriotic aspiration the Pope replied by appointing him canon of Lombe, with the hopes of a prebend. The same year was marked by an event unique in the life of Petrarch. A recent and close connection attached him to the interests of Azzo da Corregio, one of the principal Lords of Italy, who was then prosecuted before the papal courts at the instance of the family of the Rossi. In the hope of serving his friend, the poet resolved to plead his cause at the bar; and this he did with so eminent success that it proved to both a day of triumph. Since he had first beheld Laura, he sought occupation everywhere without being able to fix himself anywhere. After visiting Rome, he returned to Avignon, and finally shut himself up in his retreat at Vauncluse, where he made the acquaintance of Filippo di Cabassole, Bishop of Cavaiion, whom the poet calls a little bishop and a great man.

Meanwhile he commenced writing in Latin the History of Rome from the foundation of the city to the reign of Titus. But in collecting materials for this work he was much struck with the grandeur of the events which had marked the termination of the second Punic war; and suddenly conceived the design of giving to his age a regular epic, of which Scipio should be the hero. Before the end of the year, the poet was in a condition to submit to his friends the greater part of his work, which they received with the most flattering encomiums. But a more grateful distinction awaited him. His Sonnets and his Canzonni had filled France and Italy with the name of Laura and that of her lover; in fact, these pieces were universally read and admired. Of the impression produced by his poetical genius he had soon the most convincing evidence. On the 23rd of August 1340, he received at Vauncluse two letters, one from the Roman senate, which invited him to accept the poetical laurel, and he crowned in the capitol, and the other from the chancellor of the university of Paris, which offered him the same triumph. Petrarch had long coveted the poetical laurel, and even made known his wishes to Robert of Anjou, King of Naples, whose influence had stimulated the admiration, and hastened the decision, of the Roman senators. This prince cultivated letters with enthusiasm, and protected them in a manner worthy of a king. Wishing to appear indebted to him for the crown which had been offered to him, Petrarch embarked for Naples, carrying with him his epic poem, which he had entitled Africa. The king and the poet had repeated conferences upon the subjects of poetry and history; and at his audience of leave, Robert, divesting himself of his robe, put it on Petrarch, at the same time requesting him to wear it on the day when he was to receive the laurel crown.

The poet then repaired to Rome, and on Easter-day (the 8th of April 1341) ascended the Capitol, in the midst of the principal citizens; received the crown from the hands of the senator Orso, Conte di Anguillara; recited a sonnet upon the heroes of ancient Rome; was conducted to the church of St Peter, where he deposited on the altar the laurel which encircled his brow; and then set out for Avignon by land, as if to enjoy more leisurely his renown. He carried with him the title of almoner to the king of Naples, and letters-patent giving him, as well by the authority of King Robert as by that of the senate and people of Rome, full and free permission to read, vindicate, and explain the ancient books, to make new ones, compose poems, and on every occasion to wear the crown of laurel, ivy, or myrtle, at his pleasure.

Azzo da Corregio having just usurped the sovereignty of Parma, on the pretext of freeing it from thraldom, urgently pressed Petrarcha to spend some time with him; and, captivated by the attentions paid to him, the poet soon accepted the situation of archdeacon of the church of Parma, caused a house to be built there, and then employed himself in completing his poem of Africa. Glory had now begun to console him for his labour and anxiety, when envy, awakened by unexampled success, attempted to disturb his repose; and at the same time the hand of death had stricken the bishop of Lombarde, his best friend and warmest admirer. The accession of Clement VI. to the triple crown, in 1342, revived in the mind of Petrarcha hopes which had already been twice disappointed. At the request of the Romans, he accompanied to Avignon the deputation they had sent for the purpose of soliciting the new pope to fulfil the promises made by John XXII., and, in this matter, he acted as the organ of the deputation. The pontiff received him with marked distinction, appointed him prior of Migliorino, in the diocese of Parma, and treated him with the greatest familiarity, but made no answer to the petition of the deputation, beseeching him to remove to Italy. At the same time, however, his holiness, anxious to testify the confidence he reposed in Petrarcha, intrusted him with a delicate mission, namely, that of obtaining from the regency of Naples a recognition of the rights of the Holy See, during the minority of the grand-daughter of King Robert. Meanwhile, the celebrated Cola di Rienzi, having made himself master of Rome, cited kings to appear before him, and loudly proclaimed that his fellow-citizens were about to resume, in the fourteenth century, their ancient dominion over the world. All the illusions of Petrarcha immediately brightened into realities. An ardent defender of the tribune even in the midst of the pontifical court, he now congratulated the popular leader on his success, exhorted him to persevere, and, impatient to counsel him on the spot, set out immediately for Italy. The news of the massacre of the Colonnas reached him at Genoa, and struck him with consternation; but still he felt disposed to pardon Rienzi, provided Rome had become republican. The sway of the tribune, however, was short-lived, and with his fall disappeared that wild phantom of liberty which had deceived Petrarcha.

Scarcely a year had elapsed when the poet had to bewail a loss still more painful. Laura was no more. The pestilence of 1348, which Boccaccio has described with such terrible truth, had carried her off on the 6th of April that year. The last half of the Canzoniere is an immortal monument of the long regret of Petrarcha. But although his verses had not made us aware of the sincerity of his grief for his mistress, the touching note which he inscribed upon his copy of Virgil would still attest the profane homage which he paid to her memory. Yielding to the repeated instances of Luigi Conrado, lord of Mantua, Petrarcha now repaired to his princely residence, in the hope of finding consolation; and it was during his stay there that he addressed to the Emperor Charles IV. an eloquent letter, in which he exhorted him to restore peace to Italy. The publication of the jubilee in 1350 drew almost all Christian Europe to Rome. Petrarcha, participating in this pious impulse, set out for Rome, and in passing through Florence, visited Boccaccio, one of those whom he had particularly noticed at the court of Naples, and who now became his friend. At Rome he found the jubilee commenced, and the ceremonies of the occasion seem to have made a deep impression on his mind. His habits became more grave, his manners more austere; and from this time his thoughts assumed a character of severity, the impress of which is visible in his later compositions. At the same time he everywhere received honours which had never before been bestowed on any private individual.

The friendship of the Carraras having induced Petrarcha to visit Padua, he had scarcely arrived when Boccaccio came to announce to him, in the name of the senate of Florence, that he had been re-established in his rights as a citizen, as well as in the patrimony of his family, and also to offer him the directorship of the university recently founded in the first city of Tuscany. This honourable appointment, however, had no attraction for Petrarcha. His books awaited him in his transalpine Parnassus, as he called Vaucluse; and his cislpine Parnassus was his house at Parma. He accordingly declined accepting the proffered appointment, and hastened to bury himself in his favourite retreat. About the same time, Rienzi, having fallen into the hands of the emperor, was delivered up to the pope, and brought before a judicial commission, against the legality of which he vehemently protested. It is said that Petrarcha wrote to the Roman people, warmly exhorting them to interpose in favour of his old friend; and, in fact, this exhortation is found in his works. But there is nothing to show that it was sent according to its address; on the contrary, almost every circumstance leads us to believe that his imagination alone had prompted him to write this letter, rather to console than to save Rienzi.

On his return to Vaucluse, he engaged in the composition of the "Epistle to Posterity," in which he gives an account of the principal events of his life, until his departure from Italy, about the middle of the year 1351. Some months afterwards, Innocent VI. was called to the government of the church,—a man of an irreproachable life, but of little knowledge, and the only pontiff from whom Petrarcha did not receive some mark of favour. The poet, after having twice, under Clement IV., refused the office of apostolical secretary, was now suspected of magic by his successor, and he took no pains to dispel the prejudices of the new pontiff. His regret for Italy was only increased; and he repassed the Alps, uncertain where to fix his abode, although prepared to adopt as his country any place where he might live in tranquillity and independence. He had long wished to visit Milan, and, on this occasion, he proceeded no farther. Charmed with the reception he met with from a man of power, who knew well how to exhibit himself to the poet in an amiable light, and admitted to the counsels of Giovanni Visconti, archbishop and lord of Milan, Petrarcha accepted a mission having for its object to bring about a reconciliation between the republic of Genoa, which had just given itself up to Visconti, and that of

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1 The authenticity of this note is still disputed by those who wish to overturn the whole history of Laura. Mr Whyte, a learned Englishman, who discovered at Florence an illigitimated life of Petrarcha, written soon after his death, by Luigi Peruzzi, who had known him, also rejects the evidence of this note. But it is written in a tone which ought to silence incredulity, because signed emotions never bear the stamp of nature and reality. The Virgil of Petrarcha has long been in the royal collection at Paris.

2 Ginguene (Histoire Latine de l'Italie, tom. ii., p. 582) shows, contrary to the opinion of Badelli, that the "Epistle to Posterity" was written in 1352, and not in 1372. Venice, elated by recent and apparently decisive successes. Three years before, Petrarch had endeavoured to prevent a war which presaged long and bloody divisions in Italy. Connected with the Doge Andrea Dandolo, one of the greatest men of his age, in politics, in war, and in letters, the poet appealed to the patriotism of his friend, and the latter replied by praising the eloquence of Petrarch, but without deferring to his counsels. Hence this new attempt proved not more fortunate than the previous one; but events soon showed on which side lay the want of foresight. Venice was reduced to the necessity of purchasing peace; Dandolo died of grief, and Visconti survived him little more than a month. Nevertheless, after a silence of three years, the emperor replied to the letter in which Petrarch had called upon him to restore peace to his country, an appeal which he had several times renewed. But the avarice of Charles IV. furnished a more powerful motive to appear in Lombardy than the patriotic addresses of Petrarch. By his orders the poet proceeded to meet him at Mantua, full of confidence in his wisdom, and hoping that, as the friend of the Holy See, he would forever banish from Italy the names of Guelf and Ghibelin, which had caused the effusion of so much blood, and fomented such fierce animosities. But in this monarch he discovered only a weak and avaricious prince, who mistook treachery for talent, and exhibited the strange spectacle of an emperor of Germany in the pay of the Venetians. The poet presented him with some rare and valuable medals of Augustus, of Trajan, and the Antonines. "These," said he, "are the great men whose place you occupy, and who ought to be your models." During eight days which he spent in familiar intercourse with the emperor, Petrarch discovered the mean, narrow, and grovelling character of his mind, and refused to enter Rome in his train, or to be a witness of his coronation. He then attached himself more than ever to the three nephews of Giovanni Visconti, whom the emperor had loudly menaced, with the view of enhancing the price to be afterwards exacted for confirming them in the usurpations of their uncle. At this period, the public hatred had accused them of fratricide. Petrarch, afflicted with a rumour which he could not believe, repaired to Pavia, where he was employed by Galeazzo Visconti to dissuade Charles IV. from undertaking a new expedition beyond the Alps. This embassy proved more successful than the former, apparently because the proceedings of the malcontents in Germany had produced a change in the versatile policy of the emperor. On his return to Milan, the ambassador received from him the diploma of Count Palatine, in a gold box of considerable value. Petrarch accepted this new honour, but returned the box to the chancellor of the empire.

Fatigued with the agitation of courts, the poet now fixed upon a new retreat on the banks of the river Adda, in a pretty country-house, which he called Linterno, in honour of his hero Scipio. Literary projects and researches, religious exercises, and frequent visits to the charter-house of Milan, now occupied his leisure. All the great lords of Italy had disputed with pontiffs and kings the honour of his presence and conversation. But a goldsmith of Bergamo, named Capra, solicited and obtained a sort of preference. At the approach of Petrarch all Bergamo went out to meet him, whilst Capra received him with a magnificence almost royal, and proved by his enthusiasm, not less than by the number and quality of his books, that he was worthy of his guest. In 1360 a new diplomatic mission led Petrarch to France, whether he went to compliment King John on the recovery of his liberty; and this prince, who had formerly made vain attempts to prevent his return to Italy, now renewed his efforts to retain him. But the envoy of Galeazzo returned to Milan, without suffering himself to be moved either by the presents of the monarch or by the entreaties of the dauphin; and those of the emperor, backed by the transmission of a gold cup of curious workmanship, found him equally inflexible. But never had a residence in Italy presented fewer attractions. The foreign companies who infested that land of discord forced him to seek an asylum at Padua, whence he was soon afterwards expelled by the pestilence. He proceeded to Venice, accompanied with his books, which he always carried along with him, and, on his arrival, he presented his library to that hospitable republic, by a writing dated in 1362, on condition that so rare a collection should neither be divided nor sold. By a decree of the senate, a palace was assigned for the reception of Petrarch and his books; and it is, doubtless, this circumstance which has made him be regarded as the original founder of the celebrated library of St Mark. The Abate de Sade is therefore mistaken in supposing that all these manuscripts had perished. Tommasini, who made a search for them in the year 1635, discovered them in a small dark chamber, situated near the four bronze horses; and there they remained until the year 1739, when permission was at length given to the public to consult them.

This residence at Venice, indeed, is doubly memorable in the life of Petrarch. It was here that, when driven by the plague from Florence, Giovanni Boccaccio came to share his asylum, and presented to him Leoninus Pilatus of Thessalonica, who was then teaching him Greek. Petrarch, though now past sixty, resumed the study of that language, and found, even in the difficulties which opposed his progress, sufficient enjoyment to mitigate the affliction caused by the loss of many valued friends. It was the fortune of Petrarch to survive all those whom he loved. Under the depression occasioned by the loss of his best friends, he became more sensitive to the criticisms which, notwithstanding his reputation, were freely made on his Latin eclogues, and on some parts of his Africa. It was then that the poet wept over his laurels, and, in the bitterness of a wounded spirit, confessed that his crown had been to him a crown of thorns.

The homage which was paid to him at Venice might, however, have afforded him some consolation, had not a new revolt in the island of Candia created serious alarm in the mother country. The senate, confiding in the military reputation and experience of Lucchino del Verme, a Milanese general, the friend of Petrarch, appointed him to the command of the expedition fitted out against the rebels; and the poet consented to support the application made by the doge to that officer. Lucchino put down the insurrection; and Petrarch had a place assigned him on the right hand of the doge, at the equestrian games which were celebrated, in the manner of the ancients, in honour of this victory. Urban V., a virtuous and enlightened pontiff, now attempted to recall the poet to his court, by conferring upon him a canonship at Carpentras,—a favour which he repaid by urging the holy father, in a long and vehement letter, to put an end to celibacy in the Roman Catholic church. Meanwhile, the

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1 Morelli, *Della Publica Libreria di S. Marco*, p. 4, et seq., Venice, 1774, io 4to. 2 Several of these books, which had lain forgotten for nearly three centuries, fell to dust when touched, and others were found, as it were, petrified. Tommasini, in his *Petrarcha Redivivus* (p. 65), gives a list of those which, in 1835, were found in good condition. Amongst these he remarked a Polyglot Vocabulary in Latin, Persian, and Turkish (*Comanicum*), written in the year 1303, of which he transcribed a small specimen. 3 Morelli, in the work already referred to, gives a detail of several of these manuscripts, which are still to be seen in the library of St Mark, and accounts for the oblivion into which they had been allowed to fall during so long a period, from the enthusiasm which the acquisition of the Greek manuscripts of Cardinal Bessarion excites in the fifteenth century. cry of hatred raised everywhere against the Visconti had armed against them the new pontiff; and with him the half of Italy, now menaced by their ambition. Much less alarmed at this danger, however, than apprehensive of a war which would expose his country to the ravages of a foreign soldiery, Petrarch was employed by Galeazzo Visconti to endeavour to avert the storm; and this, which proved the last, was also the most fruitless of all his missions. But the warmth with which he defended the Visconti family in no degree diminished the favour he enjoyed at Rome. Urban wished to see him; and Petrarch was preparing to respond to an invitation conceived in terms the most urgent and flattering, when he was seized with a terrible malady at Ferrara. But though saved by the care of the Este family, who governed that country, he did not recover sufficient strength to continue his journey; and having returned to Padua, reclining upon a couch in a boat, he established himself 4 leagues from that city, at the village of Arquà, situated in the Euganean hills, so celebrated by the Romans for the salubrity of the air, the richness of the pastures, and the beauty of the orchards. There the poet resumed, with his labours, all the imprudence of his usual course of life. Employing at once as many as five secretaries, he exhausted himself with austerities, restricted himself to a single repast composed of fruits or pulse, abstained from wine, fasted often, and, on days of abstinence, allowed himself only bread and water. An unforeseen event also served to retard his convalescence. Urban V., preferring the peaceful abode of Avignon to the tumultuous agitations of Rome, had returned to die in France. He was succeeded by Gregory XI., who, equally well affected towards Petrarch, chose, as his legate in Italy, Philippo di Cabassole, now cardinal and archbishop of Jerusalem. But this prelate died soon after reaching Perugia, and Petrarch never more beheld the beloved friend of his youth.

Francesco da Carrara, abandoned by his allies, had just concluded a humiliating peace with Venice. Being obliged to send his son to ask pardon and swear fidelity to the republic, he entreated Petrarch to accompany the youth, and address the senate in his behalf. Though sick and old, the poet only recollected his ancient friendship for the lords of Padua, and repaired with young Carrara to Venice. The day after their arrival they had an audience; but the old man, overcome with fatigue, and perhaps awed by the majesty of the assembly, could not utter a word. The following day, however, he took courage, and his harangue was warmly applauded. But this effort proved his last; it was the song of the swan when dying. He returned to Arquà, feeble, exhausted, and as indocile to the counsels of physicians as ever. Boccaccio, who now seemed to supply the place of all the friends he had lost, having sent him the Decameron, which had just been completed, Petrarch read it with enthusiasm; got by heart the novel of Griselda, which he translated into Latin; and transmitted to Boccaccio this version, accompanied with a letter, which appears to have been the last he ever wrote. On the 18th of July 1374, he was found dead in his library, with his head resting upon an open book, an attack of apoplexy having seized him in that attitude. All Padua came to assist at his obsequies. Francesco da Carrara conducted the funeral ceremonies, attended by the nobility and the people; and the family of the poet caused a mausoleum of marble to be erected to his memory before the gate of the church of Arquà.

The illustrious subject of this notice was connected with all the celebrated men of the fourteenth century; he took part in almost every event by which that memorable age was distinguished; and in a life so full of trouble and agitation, the only reproach which he incurred constitutes the finest eulogium on his character. He was born a poet, and always continued so, in his studies, his political missions, his love, his conversation, and his letters. The love of his country was no doubt in him little more than a poetical dream, but it was the dream of his whole life. In the intoxication of glory, as well as in the midst of the most cruel afflictions, ancient Italy was ever present to his thoughts. In the glorious recollections of the past he sought to console himself for the disorders of his own age, and from his worship of antiquity he derived generous inspirations and innocent illusions. That these illusions sometimes misled him in the choice of his friends, cannot reasonably be questioned. His candour exposed him without defence to the calculations of an astute policy, which, masking its real designs under the captivating name of Italy, completed the deception by the interested benefits which it conferred upon letters; but he passed through the courts of the petty Italian tyrants without any one having impeached his character, or cast a shade of suspicion on his memory. In his youth he had a natural daughter, near whom he died soon after her marriage; and his son, whom he survived, was cherished with an affection and bewailed with a sorrow that long served to keep alive the regret which the remembrance of his weaknesses had left in his mind. He seems to have been impressed with a deep sense of religion; and, amongst the habits of a simple and studious life, it is related that he rose regularly at midnight for prayer. Superior to the pedantry which then and long afterwards clung to learning, this great poet was also an amiable man. His conversation was confiding and animated; his manners were frank and polished. His soul, ardent, but open to all the gentler affections, had a natural craving for friendship, which was to him a necessary of life; and he had many friends, all of whom appear to have been faithful to him, and equally swayed by the double authority of his counsel and his example. Boccaccio, whose benefactor he had been, and who had previously been little else than a man of pleasure, became irreproachable, if not austere, in his morals, after his acquaintance with Petrarch. It was by means of his friends that Petrarch exercised a kind of literary dictatorship in France, in Spain, and in England; it was through his friends that he was enabled to carry on that European correspondence which everywhere rekindled the study and admiration of the ancients. He represented in his own person the republic of letters, and his life forms a grand epoch in their history.

He studied with diligence alchemy, astrology, scholastic theology, and Aristotle, with his interpreter Averroes. Even at the time when, by his advice, Galeazzo Visconti founded the university of Pavia, he himself directed the course of study, and formed the mind of Malpighino, who afterwards became so famous amongst the restorers of letters by the name of John of Ravenna. His letters De Scriptis Veterum Indagandis and De Libris Ciceronis attest the extent of the researches he made to recover manuscripts of the ancient authors, which he then copied with his own hand. It was thus that he restored to the literary world the Oratorical Institutions of Quintilian, though incomplete and mutilated, and the letters of Cicero, the manuscript of which is preserved in the Laurentian Library at Florence, with the copy which he had made from it. He equally recovered some of Cicero's orations which had been lost; and it is further known that he had preserved the famous treatise De Gloria; but having lent it to his master Convenziole, this old man sold it for subsistence, and Petrarch afterwards attempted in vain to trace it out, as well as the Antiquities of Varro, which he had seen in his youth, and a book of letters and epigrams ascribed to Augustus. It was he also who first made Sophocles known in Italy; and his avidity for manuscripts had become so generally understood, that he received from Constantinople a complete copy of the poems of Homer. After the gift which he made to Venice, as already mentioned, he lost no time in Petrarca, forming another library. In an age when chronology and geography were still unknown, he had made a chronological collection of imperial medals, and got together a very considerable number of geographical charts. He himself was the author of a map of Italy, which continued to be consulted a century after his death; and all his biographers have mentioned his researches respecting the island of Thule.

The rest of Europe did not then possess men who had attained the same splendour and universality of fame. France, which had received from her troubadours the oldest modern literature, could only boast of a few learned men; such as Nicolas Oresme, Pierre Berchoire, and Froissart. Chaucer, who was preparing to found a literature in England, saw Petrarcha in Italy, and was perhaps indebted to him for the acquaintance of Boccaccio, whom he has so frequently imitated in his works. Another Englishman, Richard de Bury, one of the correspondents of Petrarcha, founded a library at Oxford, and diffused throughout his country a taste for books. As yet Spain had only her early historical romancers, and some theologians; but two centuries later, the poetical admirer of Laura found in Boscan an imitator at the court of Castile; whilst Bembo, Tarsia, Molina, and many others, opened in Italy the dangerous school of the Petrarchists.

The letters of Petrarcha, which were printed for the first time in 1484, are now regarded as the most curious portion of his Latin works. These letters, which were not written exclusively, for his friends, contain valuable details in regard to his life, as well as the manners and the history, literary, and political, of the fourteenth century. The court of Avignon is by no means spared; and the author was too good an Italian not in some instances to overcharge a little his portraits. His expression is animated, but not always natural, and his prose often betrays the poet. His books of moral philosophy somewhat resemble those commonplaces which were treated by the Greek rhetoricians of the middle age. The treatise De Otio Religiosorum was a tribute of complaisance to the Carthusian friars of Montreuil, amongst whom his brother had taken the habit of the order; and it was at the request of Francesco da Carrara that he collected the principal maxims of Plato and Cicero on politics, under the title of De Republica optime administranda. The compilation in question, and his treatise De Officio et Virtutibus Imperatoris, were printed separately at Berne, 1602, in 12mo. In his retreat at Arqua, he also wrote a philosophical work against the disciples of Aristotle, under this piquant denomination, De Ignorantia sui ipsius et multorum. His Historical Essays, of which some fragments have been preserved, entitled Rerum Memorandarum libri iv., in addition to the facts which he has borrowed from preceding writers, contain some particulars belonging to contemporaneous history, which are nowhere else to be found. The perusal of the Confessions of St Augustin appears to have suggested to him the most singular of all his compositions, namely, the three dialogues, De Contemptu Mundi, to which he attached so much importance as to call them "his secret."

The harangues of Petrarcha are not always exempt from declamation, and, more than any of his other productions, betray the influence of the false taste against which he so successfully strove. But his Latin poetry has particular claims to the attention of men of letters. His poem of Africa is a detailed recital of the second Punic war, but almost always cold and colourless. It is a chronicle rather than a poem, and appears as if it had been left unfinished. The mens divinior is wanting; invention there is none; and we are astonished to find that the poetry of Virgil Petrarcha produced so little inspiration. His elegies, like those of Boccaccio, are almost always satirical allegories, having reference to contemporaneous events. The tenth is consecrated to the memory of Laura. In his three books of Epistles, versified with more facility than might have been expected in that iron age, there are some interesting and instructive details. In fact, the Latin diction of Petrarcha, on which, curious to say, he founded his claims to distinction as an author, though generally superior to the bald and rude style of his contemporaries, is nevertheless far below that of his models.

But Petrarcha's best title to distinction rests upon his Canzoniere. It is there that he shows himself truly inspired, and displays in profusion all the riches of his original genius. The ancient erotic poets, strangers to any ennobling sentiment, had celebrated pleasure rather than love. Petrarcha was the first, and for a long time the only poet, who made a virtue of love. He formed for himself a language, as Dante had done; his turns of expression are almost as bold; above all, he reproduced those graces of colouring and that delicious harmony with which Dante had related the misfortunes of his Francesca; and, after the publication of the Canzoniere, the Italian idiom ceased to have in it anything barbarous. When we read the verses of Petrarcha, we can almost fancy that we hear the sound of his lyre, from which, on every occasion, he extracts sounds of ineffable sweetness. His sonnets, from their form, frequently remind us of some of the smaller odes of Horace, and, for grace as well as simplicity of details, recall the manner of Anacreon. For this kind of poetry Petrarcha was indebted to his predecessors; but it was he who rendered these little poems more perfect and more difficult; and the laws which his example prescribed have not yet been abrogated.

The Canzoni of Petrarcha are odes the form of which he borrowed from the troubadours, whilst to the substance he imparted the elevation and dignity of epic composition. The Italians have exhausted all the prescriptive terms of admiration upon those which Petrarcha appears to have preferred, and which he called the Three Sisters, odes which his commentators have since called the Three Graces. But whatever may be the perfection of style for which they are distinguished, a reader of the present day will always find difficulty in comprehending the long literary idolatry of which they have been the object. He is often more ingenious than natural, and more elaborate than correct; but a re-perusal of the second half of the Canzoniere, which is very generally preferred to the first, must satisfy any reader that nothing short of extreme injustice or inverterate prejudice can construe into a mere play of words or sport of ingenuity a grief which is stamped with all the characteristics of truth, deep feeling, and sincerity.

The most complete edition of the works of Petrarcha is that of Basel, 1581, in folio, which wants only a certain number of Letters, comprised in that of Geneva, 1601. The most ancient edition of his Latin works also bears the name of Basel, where it appeared in 1498, in folio. But it is in the libraries of Italy that his Letters and his Autograph Manuscripts must be sought for. The treatise De Reseditur urbisque Formae was printed at Cologne, 1471, in 4to, and has been thrice translated into French; and the historical work entitled Vite de' Pontefici et Imperatorum Romanorum, which has now become exceedingly scarce, appeared at Florence, 1478, in folio, and is said much earlier, as one of the most ancient specimens of Italian prints. In later times, his Italian poems and the Trionfi, is that of Venice, 1470, in large 4to. Amongst the subsequent editions, the most esteemed are,—Le Cose Volgari, by Aldo Manuzio, Venice, 1501, in 8vo; R. Petrarcha, Lyon, 1574, in

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1 Several biographers have given Petrarcha a sister, who, they say, was beloved by Pope Benedict XII. This fable, which has been received without question by many, is disproved by the fact, which Giuguené has clearly established, namely, that Petrarcha never had a sister.