Everything about Francesco Petrarch totally explained
Francesco Petrarca (
July 20,
1304 –
July 19,
1374), known in
English as
Petrarch, was an
Italian scholar,
poet, and one of the earliest
Renaissance humanists. Petrarch is often popularly called the "father of
humanism". Based on Petrarch's works, and to a lesser extent those of
Dante Alighieri and
Giovanni Boccaccio,
Pietro Bembo in the 16th century created the model for the modern
Italian language, later endorsed by the
Accademia della Crusca. Petrarch is credited with perfecting the
sonnet, making it one of the most popular art forms to date. His sonnets were admired and imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model for lyrical poems.
Petrarch was also known for being one of the first people to call the
Middle Ages the
Dark Ages.
Biography
Petrarch says he was born on
Garden Street of the city of
Arezzo, just at the dawn on a Monday. He was the son of
Ser Petracco. He spent his early childhood in the village of
Incisa, near
Florence. Petrarch spent much of his early life at
Avignon and nearby
Carpentras, where his family moved to follow
Pope Clement V who moved there in 1309 to begin the
Avignon Papacy. He studied law at
Montpellier (1316–20) and
Bologna (1320–23) with a lifelong friend and schoolmate called Guido Sette. Because his father was in the profession of law he insisted that he and his brother study law also. Petrarch however was primarily interested in writing and Latin literature and considered this seven years wasted. Additionally he proclaimed that through legal manipulation his guardians robbed him of his small property inheritance in Florence which only reinforced his dislike for the legal system. Protesting he declared, "I couldn't face making a merchandise of my mind", as he viewed the legal system as the art of selling justice.
Petrarch was a prolific letter writer and counted Boccaccio among his notable friends to whom he wrote often. After the death of their parents, Petrarch and his brother Gherardo went back to
Avignon in 1326, where he worked in numerous different clerical offices. This work gave him much time to devote to his writing. With his first large scale work,
Africa, an epic in Latin about the great Roman general
Scipio Africanus, Petrarch emerged as a European celebrity. On April 8, 1341, he became the first
poet laureate since antiquity and was crowned on the holy grounds of Rome's Capitol. He was the first laureate of the tradition in modern times to be given this honor.
He traveled widely in Europe and served as an ambassador and has been called "the first tourist" because he traveled just for the pleasure alone, which was the basic reason why he climbed Mont Ventoux. During his travels, he collected crumbling Latin manuscripts and was a prime mover in the recovery of knowledge from writers of Rome and Greece. He encouraged and advised
Leontius Pilatus's translation of
Homer, from a manuscript purchased by Boccaccio; although he was severely critical of the result. Petrarch had acquired a copy, which he didn't entrust to Leontius, but he knew no
Greek; Homer, Petrarch said, "was
dumb to him, while he was
deaf to Homer". In 1345 he personally discovered a collection of
Cicero's letters not previously known to have existed, the collection
ad Atticum. He remarked:
» Each famous author of antiquity whom I recover places a new offence and another cause of dishonor to the charge of earlier generations, who, not satisfied with their own disgraceful barrenness, permitted the fruit of other minds, and the writings that their ancestors had produced by toil and application, to perish through insufferable neglect. Although they'd nothing of their own to hand down to those who were to come after, they robbed posterity of its ancestral heritage.
Disdaining what he believed to be the ignorance of the centuries preceding the era in which he lived, Petrarch is credited with creating the concept of a historical "Dark Ages".
Petrarch claimed that on
April 26,
1336, with his brother and two servants, he climbed to the top of
Mont Ventoux (1,909 m; 6,263 ft). He wrote an account of the trip, composed considerably later as a letter to his friend
Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro. The accuracy of Petrarch's account is open to question; particularly the assertion that he was the first to climb a mountain for pleasure since
Philip V of Macedon, and that an aged peasant had warned him off the unclimbable mountain.
Jean Buridan had climbed the same mountain a few years before, and other ascents are recorded from the Middle Ages, including
Anno II, Archbishop of Cologne.
Jakob Burckhardt's rhapsody on the subject has been often repeated since.
J.H. Plumb writes in his book
The Italian Renaissance of
Morris Bishop's version of Petrarch's
Ascent of Mont Ventoux showing Petrarch's climb in 1336 was epoch making. This was because Petrarch did this climb on his own volition and not because anything was forced upon him. Petrarch's letter of the ascent to his confessor, the monk
Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro, rings of aesthetic gratification to grandeur and majesty, a modern attitude that's quoted to this day in many books and
journals pertaining to
mountaineering.
» "For pleasure alone he climbed Mount Ventoux, which rises to more than six thousand feet, beyond Vaucluse. It was no great feat, of course; but he was the first recorded
Alpinist of modern times, the first to climb a mountain merely for the delight of looking from its top. (Or almost the first; for in a high pasture he met an old shepherd, who said that fifty years before he'd attained the summit, and had got nothing from it save toil and repentance and torn clothing.) Petrarch was dazed and stirred by the view of the Alps, the mountains around Lyons, the Rhone, the Bay of Marseilles. He took
St Augustine's
Confessions from his pocket and reflected that his climb was merely an
allegory of aspiration towards a better life."
The later part of his life he spent in journeying through northern Italy as an international scholar and poet-
diplomat. Petrarch's career in
the Church didn't allow him to marry, but he did father two children by a woman or women unknown to posterity. A son, Giovanni, was born in 1337, and a daughter, Francesca, was born in 1343. Both he later legitimized.
Giovanni died of the
plague in 1361. Francesca married
Francescuolo da Brossano (who was later named executor of Petrarch's
Last Will and Testament) that same year. In 1362, shortly after the birth of a daughter, Eletta (same name as Petrarch's mother), they joined Petrarch in
Venice, to flee the plague then ravaging parts of Europe. A second grandchild, Francesco, was born in 1366, but died before his second birthday. Francesca and her family lived with Petrarch in Venice for five years from 1362 - 1367 at
Palazzo Molina; although Petrarch continued to travel in those years.
About 1368 Petrarch and his daughter Francesca (with her family) moved and settled in
Padua, where he passed his remaining years in religious contemplation. He died in
Arquà in the
Euganean Hills on
July 19,
1374 - just one day short of his seventieth birthday.
Petrarch's will (dated
April 4,
1370) leaves 50
florins to Boccaccio "to buy a warm winter dressing gown"; various legacies (a horse, a silver cup, a lute, a
Madonna) to his brother and his friends; his house in Vaucluse to its caretaker; for his
soul, and for the poor; and the bulk of his estate to his son-in-law, Francescuolo da Brossano, who is to give half of it to "the person to whom, as he knows, I wish it to go"; presumably his daughter, Francesca, Brossano's wife. The will mentions neither the property in Arquà, nor his library;
Petrarch's library of notable manuscripts was already promised to Venice, in exchange for the Palazzo Molina. This arrangement was probably cancelled when he moved to Padua, the enemy of Venice, in 1368. The library was seized by the lords of
Padua, and his books and manuscripts are now widely divided over Europe. Nevertheless, the
Biblioteca Marciana traditionally claimed this bequest as its founding; although it was in fact founded by
Cardinal Bessarion in 1468.
Works
Petrarch is best known for his Italian poetry: notably the
Canzoniere and the
Trionfi ("Triumphs"). However, Petrarch was an enthusiastic Latin scholar and did most of his writing in this language. His Latin writings are quite varied and include scholarly works, introspective essays, letters, and more poetry. Among them are
Secretum ("My Secret Book"), an intensely personal guilt-ridden imaginary dialogue with
Augustine of Hippo;
De Viris Illustribus ("On Famous Men"), a series of moral biographies;
Rerum Memorandarum Libri, an incomplete treatise on the
cardinal virtues;
De Otio Religiosorum ("On Religious Leisure") and
De Vita Solitaria ("On the Solitary Life"), which praise the contemplative life;
De Remediis Utriusque Fortunae ("Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul"), a self-help book which remained popular for hundreds of years;
Itinerarium ("Petrarch's Guide to the Holy Land"), a distant ancestor of
Fodor's and
Lonely Planet; a number of invectives against opponents such as doctors, scholastics, and
the French; the
Carmen Bucolicum, a collection of 12 pastoral poems; and the unfinished epic
Africa. Petrarch also published many volumes of his letters, including a few written to his long-dead friends from history like
Cicero and
Virgil. Cicero, Virgil, and
Seneca were his literary models. Unfortunately most of his Latin writings are difficult to find today. However, several of his works are scheduled to appear in the Harvard University Press series I Tatti,
(External Link
). It is difficult to assign any precise dates to his writings because he tended to revise them throughout his life.
In addition Petrarch collected his letters into two major sets of books called
Epistolae familiares and
Seniles, a plan suggested to him by knowledge of
Cicero's letters. He kept out of
Epistolae familiares a special set of 19 controversial letters called
Liber sine nomine that had much criticism against the
Avignon papacy. These were published "without names" to protect the recipients, all of whom had close relationships to Petrarch. The recipients of these letters included
Philippe de Cabassoles,
bishop of Cavaillon;
Ildebrandino Conti,
bishop of Padua;
Cola di Rienzo,
tribune of Rome;
Francesco Nelli, priest of the Prior of the Church of the Holy Apostles in
Florence; and
Niccolà di Capoccia, a cardinal and priest of
Saint Vitalis.
His "
Letter to Posterity" (the last letter in
Seniles) gives an
autobiography and a synopsis of his philosophy in life. It was written originally in
Latin and was completed in
1371 or
1372.
While Petrarch's poetry was set to music frequently after his death, especially by Italian
madrigal composers of the
Renaissance in the 16th century, only one musical setting composed during Petrarch's lifetime survives. This is
Non al suo amante by
Jacopo da Bologna, written ca. 1350.
Laura and poetry
On
April 6,
1327,
Good Friday, after giving up his vocation as a priest, the sight of a woman called "Laura" in the church of Sainte-Claire d'
Avignon awoke in him a lasting passion, celebrated in the
Rime sparse ("Scattered rhymes"). Later, Renaissance poets who copied Petrarch's style named this collection of 366 poems
Il Canzoniere ("Song Book"). Laura may have been
Laura de Noves, the wife of Count
Hugues de Sade (ancestor of the
Marquis de Sade). There is little definite information in Petrarch's work concerning Laura, except that she's lovely to look at, fair-haired, with a modest, dignified bearing. Laura and Petrarch had little or no personal contact. According to his "Secretum", she refused him for the very proper reason that she was already married to another man. He channeled his feelings into love poems that were exclamatory rather than persuasive, and wrote prose that showed his contempt for men who pursue women. Upon her death in 1348, the poet finds that his
grief is as difficult to live with as was his former despair. Later in his "Letter to Posterity", Petrarch wrote: "In my younger days I struggled constantly with an overwhelming but pure love affair - my only one, and I'd have struggled with it longer hadn't premature death, bitter but salutary for me, extinguished the cooling flames. I certainly wish I could say that I've always been entirely free from desires of the flesh, but I'd be lying if I did."
While it's possible she was an idealized or pseudonymous character - particularly since the name "Laura" has a
linguistic connection to the poetic "laurels" Petrarch coveted - Petrarch himself always denied it. His frequent use of
l'aura, as in "Erano i capei d'oro a
l'aura sparsi" is also remarkable: for example, the line may both mean "her hair was all over Laura's body", and "the wind ("l'aura") blew through her hair". There is psychological realism in the description of Laura and Petrarch's love is nothing conventional - unlike some cliché women of
troubadours and
courtly love. Her presence causes him unspeakable joy, but his unrequited love creates unendurable desires, inner conflicts between the ardent lover and the
mystic Christian, making it impossible to reconcile the two, his quest for love a hopeless, endless agony.
Laura is unreachable - the few physical descriptions are vague, almost unpalpable as the love pines for, and such is perhaps the power of his verse, which lives off the melodies it evokes against the fading, diaphane image that's no more consistent than a ghost.
Francesco De Sanctis remarks much the same thing in his
Storia della letteratura italiana, and contemporary critics agree on the powerful music of his verse: Gianfranco Contini, in a famous essay on Petrarch's language ("Preliminari sulla lingua del Petrarca". Petrarca, Canzoniere. Turin, Einaudi, 1964) has spoken of linguistic indetermination - Petrarch never rises above the "bel pié" (her lovely foot): Laura is too holy to be painted, it's an awe-inspiring goddess. Sensuality and passion are rather suggested by the rhythm and music that shape the vague contours of the lady.
Dante
Petrarch's is a world apart from
Dante, and the
Divina Commedia. In spite of the
metaphysical subject, the Commedia is deeply rooted in the cultural and social milieu of turn-of-the-century
Florence: Dante's rise to power (1300) and exile (1302), his political passions call for a "violent" use of language, where he uses all the registers, from low and trivial to sublime and philosophical. Petrarch confessed to Boccaccio to have never read the
Commedia, remarks Contini, wondering whether this was true or if Petrarch wanted to distance himself from Dante. Dante 's language evolves as he grows old, from the courtly love of
Dolce Stil Novo (Vita Nuova) to the
Convivio and
Divina Commedia, where Beatrice is sanctified as the Goddess of philosophy - the philosophy announced by the Donna Gentile at the death of Beatrice.
Petrarch's thought and style is relatively uniform throughout his life - he spent much of it revising the songs and sonnets of the Canzoniere rather than moving to new subject — matters or poetry. Here, poetry alone provides a consolation to personal grief, much less philosophy or politics (as in Dante), for Petrarch fights within himself (sensuality vs.
mysticism, profane verse vs.
Christian literature), not without. The strong moral and political convictions which had inspired belong to the Middle Ages and the libertarian spirit of the
commune, but Petrarch's moral dilemmas, his refusal to take a stand in politics, his reclusive life point to a different direction, or time. One in which moral values and faith are giving way and are constantly questioned. The free commune, the place that had made Dante an eminent politician and scholar is being dismantled: the
signoria is taking its place. Humanism and its spirit of empirical enquiry, however, are making progress - but papacy (especially after Avignon) and the empire (
Henry VII, the last hope of the white Guelphs, dies near Siena in 1313) have lost much of their original prestige.
Petrarch polished and perfected the known sonnet form inherited from
Giacomo da Lentini and which Dante widely used in his
Vita Nova to popularise the new courtly love of
Dolce Stil Novo. The tercet benefits from Dante's
terza rima (cfr.
Divine Comedy), the
quatrains prefer the ABBA-ABBA to the ABAB-ABAB scheme of the
Sicilians. The imperfect rhymes in u / closed o and i /closed e (inherited from Guittone's mistaken rendering of
Sicilian verse) are excluded, but the rhyming of open and closed o is kept. Finally, Petrarch's
enjambement creates longer semantic unities by connecting one verse to the following. Many of Petrarch's poems collected in the
Canzoniere (dedicated to Laura) were indeed
sonnets, and the
Petrarchan sonnet still bears his name.
Romantic composer
Franz Liszt set three of Petrarch's Sonnets (47, 104, and 123) to music for voice,
Tre sonetti del Petrarca, which he later would transcribe for solo piano for inclusion in the suite
Années de Pèlerinage.
Philosophy
Petrarch is traditionally called the father of Humanism and considered by many to be the "father of the
Renaissance." He was the first to offer a combining of abstract entities of classical culture and Christian philosophy. In his work
Secretum meum he points out that
secular achievements didn't necessarily preclude an authentic relationship with
God. Petrarch argued instead that God had given humans their vast intellectual and creative potential to be used to their fullest. He inspired humanist philosophy which led to the intellectual flowering of the Renaissance. He believed in the immense moral and practical value of the study of ancient history and literature - that is, the study of human thought and action. Petrarch was a devout Catholic and didn't see a conflict between realizing humanity's potential and having religious faith. A highly introspective man, he shaped the nascent humanist movement a great deal because many of the internal conflicts and musings expressed in his writings were seized upon by Renaissance humanist philosophers and argued continually for the next 200 years. For example, Petrarch struggled with the proper relation between the active and contemplative life, and tended to emphasize the importance of solitude and study. Later politician and thinker
Leonardo Bruni argued for the active life, or "
civic humanism." As a result, a number of political, military, and religious leaders during the Renaissance were inculcated with the notion that their pursuit of personal glory should be grounded in
classical example and philosophical contemplation.
Legacy
In
November 2003, it was announced that
pathological anatomists would be exhuming Petrarch's body from his casket in
Arquà Petrarca, in order to verify 19th century reports that he'd stood 1.83
meters (about six feet), which would have made him very tall for his period. The team from the
University of Padua also hoped to reconstruct his cranium in order to obtain a computerized image of his features to coincide with the poet's 700th birthday. The tomb had been opened previously in 1873 by Professor Giovanni Canestrini, also of Padua University. When the tomb was opened, the skull was discovered in fragments and a
DNA test revealed that the skull wasn't Petrarch's, prompting calls for the return of Petrarch's skull.
The researchers are fairly certain that the body in the tomb is Petrarch's due to the fact that the
skeleton bears evidence of injuries mentioned by Petrarch in his writings, including a kick from a
donkey when he was 42.
Footnotes
Further Information
Get more info on 'Francesco Petrarch'.
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