Francesco Petrarca, whose real name is said to have been Petracco, was born at Arezzo, in Tuscany, July 20, 1304. His father was a notary at Florence, who had been employed in the service of the state; but in the civil strife excited by Corso Donati, chief of the faction of the Neri, he, with the rest of the Bianchi, including Dante, whose friend he is recorded to have been, was banished from the Republic in 1302. When the death of the Emperor Henry VII. deprived the exiles of all hope of return, Petracco took his family to Avignon, at that period the seat of the Pontifical Court. The boy Francesco then saw for the first time scenes and objects, with which his destiny was irrevocably connected; and he has left on record the impression which at ten years of age the fountain and wild solitude of Vaucluse had made upon his imagination. He was sent to study the canon law at the University of Montpellier, where he remained four years, devoting his time to Cicero, Virgil, and the ProvenÇal writers, much more than to the doctors of jurisprudence. From Montpellier he went to Bologna; and formed an acquaintance with the celebrated Cino da Pistoia, from whom, although distinguished no less as a jurist than as a poet, Petrarch learned more poetry than law. On his father’s death, which occurred when he was about twenty years old, he returned to Avignon. His mother died soon after; and the moderate patrimony which he inherited was so much diminished by the dishonesty of his guardians, that at the age of twenty-two, he found himself without fortune or profession, and with no resource, but that of entering the church.

Avignon was then the chosen abode of fashion, luxury, and vice. Petrarch mingled in its gay society, without yielding to its corruptions, or withdrawing himself from the philosophical studies which interested him above all other pursuits. A great conformity of tastes, and a common superiority to the low objects of ambition with which they were surrounded, made him the friend of Jacopo Colonna, afterwards Bishop of Lombez. This prelate introduced Petrarch to his brother, the Cardinal Colonna, who resided at Avignon; and in whose palace, in 1331, the poet acquired the friendship of old Stefano Colonna, the illustrious head of that family, and drew from his discourse a stronger love of Italy, of freedom, and of glory. But his affectionate, enthusiastic temper was not to be exhausted even by these objects: soon, without ever being entirely diverted from the interest of friendship or patriotism, he became the vassal of that long and illustrious passion to which he owes the immortality of his name. April 6, 1327, on Easter Monday, in the church of the Nuns of Santa Clara, Petrarch, being then twenty-three years of age, saw for the first time, and loved at sight, Laura de Noves, the bride of Hugo de Sade, a young patrician of Avignon. From this time his life was passed in wandering from place to place, sometimes at the several courts of Italian princes; sometimes in solitary seclusion at Vaucluse; often at Avignon itself, where from the lofty rock on which stands the old Pontifical Palace, he could see Laura walking in the gardens below, which with all the adjacent part of the town belonged to the family of de Sade.

Few subjects have been discussed more largely, with greater minuteness of examination, or with greater licence of conjecture, than the history of the love of Petrarch. Some have chosen to treat with ridicule the idea of a passion, subsisting through a long and eventful life, without gratification, and nearly without hope; others have thought the difficulty obviated by supposing, in defiance of all apparent evidence, that Laura was not so insensible as the laws of morality required. A few have wished to rescue the character of the poet from the imputation of having loved a married woman, and have dragged certain obscure spinsters out of doubtful epitaphs and registers, to dispute the claim of Laura de Sade. A few more, and but a few, although the race is not extinct, have denied the existence of Laura altogether; either considering her as a mere poetical fancy, or still more boldly resolving her into some allegory, political or religious. But none of these theories, maintained at various times, and with various degrees of ingenuity, almost from the age of Petrarch until the present day, have shaken the received opinion on the four main points of the question; namely, that Laura was no creation of the poet’s brain, but a woman; that she was married; that Hugo de Sade was her husband; and that her virtue was proof against the passion of Petrarch. When all the circumstances of the case, including the peculiarities of sentiment which characterize the time, are fairly taken into consideration, there will appear no such miraculous improbability as has been presumed in the duration of Petrarch’s attachment. That it partook of the vehement character of true passion, is evident from many passages in his epistles and philosophical works, where he may be supposed to speak with less disguise than in his Canzoniere; but a natural vanity, the habit of refining his feelings into intellectual notions, and the then prevalent fashion of poetical constancy to a real object, may have contributed more than he could himself be aware to the durability of the sentiment. It is not to be forgotten, however, that at different periods of his life he had two natural children, a son and a daughter: still he maintained that notwithstanding these irregularities, he never loved any one but Laura. The Sonnets and Canzones, which, separately published, now together form the Canzoniere, soon elevated their author to the highest rank among living poets, and gave him in the eyes of his admirers a place beside the “creator della lingua,” the author of the Divina Commedia. Petrarch, however, whose mind was full of veneration for antiquity, and who was ardently desirous to recover all the monuments of classic literature that still preserved a hazardous existence in convents and other receptacles of the little learning of an ignorant age, for a long time, if not to the end of life, prided himself more on his Latin compositions, than on being the founder of a school of poetry in his native language. At one time he had commenced a Latin history of Rome, from the foundation of the city to the reign of Titus. But he was diverted from this work, by conceiving the idea of an epic poem, entitled ‘Africa,’ founded on the events which marked the close of the second Punic war, of which Scipio was the hero. For a year he laboured on it with enthusiasm; and it was received with admiration: but like most works of imagination composed in languages not rendered familiar to the writer in all their delicacy by vernacular and hourly use, and on subjects not consecrated by any feelings of national and domestic interest, they have long since been forgotten by all but the learned.

On one and the same day, August 23, 1340, he received at Vaucluse a letter from the Roman Senate, inviting him to accept the honour of a public coronation in the Capitol, and one from the Chancellor of the University of Paris, offering the same distinction. It has been said, and there is at least negative evidence in favour of the assertion, that this last invitation was unauthorized by any corporate decision of the university: if so, it probably resulted from the personal enthusiasm of the chancellor, Roberto Bardi, who was a Florentine, and a private friend of the poet. Either from a knowledge of this, or from a natural preference of the Imperial City, Petrarch decided at once in favour of Rome; and embarked for Naples, to demand a preliminary examination from Robert of Anjou, the reigning prince, himself devotedly attached to literature. The King and the Poet conferred on poetical and historical subjects: during three days questions were formally proposed, and triumphantly answered; after which Robert pronounced solemnly that Petrarch was worthy of the honour offered to him, and taking off his own royal robe, entreated the poet to wear it at the ceremony of his coronation. On Easter-day, April 8, 1341, Petrarch ascended the stairs of the Capitol, surrounded by the most illustrious citizens of Rome, and preceded by twelve young men chosen from the highest families, who repeated at intervals various passages of his poetry. After a short oration, he received the crown from the hands of the senator, Orso, Count of Anguillara, and recited a sonnet on those heroes of the ancient city, whose triumphal honours, after a cessation of centuries, he first was come to share, and to renew. Then, amidst the acclamations of the multitude, he was conducted to the church of St. Peter’s, where, taking from his head the laurel, he deposited it with religious care on the altar. After this ceremony he returned by land to Avignon, carrying with him letters patent of the King of Naples and of the senate and people of Rome, conferring on him by their joint authorities the full and free power of reading, discussing, and explaining all ancient books, composing new works (especially poems), and wearing on all occasions, as he might prefer, a crown of laurel, of ivy, or of myrtle. Shortly afterwards he was again at Naples, under very different circumstances. Appointed by Clement VI. to urge the claims of the Holy See to the Regency of that state, during the minority of Joanna, the grand-daughter of Robert of Anjou, he was treated with no less distinction and kindness than on the former visit; but, unsuccessful in his mission, and scandalized by the debauchery and cruelty which prevailed in the dissolute court, he soon quitted Naples and Italy for his beloved Vaucluse. There, however, at no great distance of time, a new excitement awaited him. In 1347, Rienzi, the famous demagogue, who began his career so nobly, and closed it with such circumstances of disgrace, obtained his brief and singular dominion. All the hopes of Italian independence, all the reverence for antiquity which had ever animated the spirit of Petrarch, now strongly impelled him to admire the restorer of those ancient names, which he trusted would realize his visions of ancient freedom and majesty. Even the massacre of the Colonna family, which Petrarch heard at Genoa as he was hastening to join the tribune at Rome, did not destroy these feelings, although it materially weakened them. But the fabric of Rienzi’s power was sapped by his own extravagances in less than a year; and nearly at the same time a more severe affliction fell upon Petrarch even than the disappointment of his hopes for the restoration of Italian liberty.

In April, 1348, Laura expired of the dreadful malady which then ravaged Europe, and which is described by Boccaccio in the introduction to the Decameron. The second half of the Canzoniere is the monument of his glorious sorrow; which is however more calmly, and, to the apprehensions of many, more convincingly expressed, in the pathetic note to his own MS. of Virgil, now in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. It would be unjust to him not to relate this event in his own words. “Laura, illustrious for her own virtues, and long celebrated by my verses, was seen by me for the first time in my early manhood, in the year 1327, April 6, at six in the morning, in the church of S. Clara, at Avignon. In the same city, in the same month of April, on the same sixth day, and at the same hour, in 1348, this light was taken from the world, while I was at Verona, alas! ignorant of my unhappy lot. The melancholy news reached me in a letter from my friend Louis: it found me at Parma the same year, May 19, in the morning. That body, so chaste, so fair, was laid in the church of the Minor Friars on the evening of the day of her death. Her soul, I doubt not, is returned, as Seneca says of Scipio Africanus, to heaven, whence it came. To preserve the grievous memory of this loss, I write this with a sort of pleasure mixed with bitterness; and I write by choice upon this book, which often comes before my eyes, that hereafter there may be nothing for me to delight in in this life, and that, my strongest chain being broken, I may be reminded by the frequent sight of these words, and by the just appreciation of a fugitive life, that it is time to go forth from Babylon; which, by the help of God’s grace, will become easy to me by vigorous and bold contemplation of the needless cares, the vain hopes, the unexpected events which have agitated me during the time I have spent on earth.” The authenticity of this note has been contested: to us it bears internal evidence of being genuine, not merely in the unpretending pathos of the conclusion, but in the minuteness of the earlier details. It is the luxury of grief to connect the memory of the dead with our thoughts, and employments, and even abodes at the moment of their death; and the pen of the literary forger is not likely to trace so simple and unpretending a statement.

The jubilee of 1350 led Petrarch again to Rome. When he passed through Arezzo, the principal citizens of the town led him with pride to the house in which he was born; declaring that nothing had been changed there, and that the municipal authorities had enforced this scrupulous respect for the great poet’s birth-place by injunctions to the successive proprietors of the mansion. Not long afterwards, Boccaccio, his friend and his compeer in the great literary triumvirate of Italy, came to him at Padua, to announce in the name of the senate at Florence that he was restored to his rights of citizenship, and to offer him the superintendence of the recently established university. Petrarch did not accept the proposal. Twice in the course of his remaining life his name is found connected with great events. Admitted to the counsels of Gian Visconti, he accepted the mission of reconciling the republic of Genoa, which had yielded to that prince, with the state of Venice, elated by recent victories. But Petrarch was destined to be unsuccessful as a statesman. This embassy had no effect; nor were his subsequent efforts to infuse into the mind of Charles IV. the lessons of magnanimity, when that weak and avaricious emperor entered Italy, more beneficial either to Charles or to his country. Once, however, when employed by Galeazzo Visconti in a subsequent mission to the same prince, he was able to dissuade him from recrossing the Alps: unless we suppose that the distracted state of Germany had more to do with keeping the emperor at home, than the eloquence of the poet, or the skill of the politician. The second plague in 1362 deprived the now aged poet of the few early friends who remained to him, Azo of Correggio, and the two who in his letters are usually denominated LÆlius and Socrates, and had, like himself, been intimate with Jacopo Colonna. He was then resident in Venice; where, in 1363, Boccaccio came to visit him in company with Leontius Pilatus of Thessalonica, who had instructed the Florentine novelist in Greek. At a former period Petrarch had commenced the study of that language under a Grecian monk named Barlaam; and though now sixty years of age, he returned to the task with enthusiasm and with perseverance. He was hospitably and honourably received by the republic, to which he presented his valuable collection of manuscripts.

After some more adventures and wanderings the old man fixed his residence at ArquÀ, a village situated on the Euganean hills, at four leagues distance from Padua. Here he led a life of abstinence and study, reposing from the toilsome vicissitudes to which he had been subjected, but not from his thirst for knowledge and desire of glory. His last years were solaced by his intimacy with Boccaccio, who seemed to supply the place of those numerous and valued early friends whom he had survived, and by the filial attentions of his daughter Francesca. The last important act of his life was his appearance before the Senate of Venice, in behalf of Francesco of Carrara, who had been forced to conclude a humiliating peace with the republic in 1373. It is said that he was so much awed by the majesty of the assembly, that on the first day on which he appeared before it, he was unable to deliver his address. The next day he recovered his spirits, or more probably his strength, and his speech in behalf of Carrara was loudly applauded. He returned to his retirement in a failing state of health, and his complaints were aggravated by imprudence, and disregard of medical advice. July 18, 1374, he was found dead in his library, his head resting on an open book. A stroke of apoplexy had thus suddenly terminated his life. All Padua assisted at his obsequies, and Francesco of Carrara led the funeral pomp. A marble tomb, which still exists, was raised to him before the door of the church of ArquÀ.

Such was the death and such the life of Francesco Petrarca, than whom few men have exerted more influence over their own times; have contributed more to form and polish the language of their native land; or have given a more decided tone to the literature of succeeding generations. This is not the place to enter into a minute analysis of his merits as a poet. If he did not create the kind of poetry in which he excelled, at least he carried it to perfection: if he could not save his style from being disfigured by feeble imitators, at least he left it in itself a noble work: if he did not avoid the false conceits and strained illustrations, which at the rise of a new literature are almost always found to possess irresistible attractions, he redeemed and even ennobled them by strains of simple passion, imagination, and melody, which will live as long as the language in which they are composed. His Latin writings, on which he wished his reputation to rest, are now much neglected. They are not indeed calculated for general reading; but they are highly valuable as records of the time and of the man. His letters form the most interesting, because the most personal, portion of them. Few men have laid bare their hearts so completely as Petrarch. His vanity, his dependence on the sympathy of others, led him to commit to writing every incident of his life, every turn in the troubled course of his feelings. But he gains rather than loses by this voluntary exposure. His Christian faith and Christian principles of philosophy, however swayed by occasional currents of passion, stand out beautifully amidst the corruptions of that age. It is as impossible to rise from a perusal of Petrarch’s poetry, and even more perhaps of his prose, without a feeling of love for the man, as of admiration for the author.

In early life he was distinguished for beauty, of which he was himself not insensible; for he left, in his ‘Letter to Posterity,’ a description of his own person, which we quote from Ugo Foscolo’s translation. “Without being uncommonly handsome, my person had something agreeable in it in my youth. My complexion was a clear and lively brown; my eyes were animated; my hair had grown grey before twenty-five, and I consoled myself for a defect which I shared in common with many of the great men of antiquity (for CÆsar and Virgil were grey-headed in youth), and I had a venerable air, which I was by no means very proud of.” He was then miserable, Foscolo continues, if a lock of his hair was out of order; he was studious of ornamenting his person with the nicest clothes; and to give a graceful form to his feet, he pinched them in shoes that put his nerves and sinews to the rack. These traits are taken from his own familiar letters.

The life and writings of Petrarch have been repeatedly illustrated at great length. The ‘Petrarcha Redivivus’ of Tomasini; the voluminous ‘MÉmoires sur Petrarque’ of the AbbÉ de Sade, who has taken up the subject as a matter of family history; and the works of Tiraboschi and Baldelli, are among the best authorities for our author’s history. To the English, and indeed to every reader, we must recommend the ‘Essays on Petrarch,’ by Ugo Foscolo; at the end of which there are some exquisite translations by Lady Dacre. The most complete edition of Petrarch’s works is the folio published at BÂsle in 1581. Among the numerous editions of his Italian poems, we may particularize that of Biagioli, 1822, as containing the notes of Alfieri; and that of Marsard, printed at Padua, as distinguished alike for its correctness and beauty of execution.