PETRALCA, FRANCESCO, the first and greatest lyric poet of Italy, was the son of a Florentine notary named Petracco, who belonged to the same political faction as the poet Dante, and went into exile along with him and others in 1302. Petracco took up his residence at Arezzo. and here the future poet was born in the month of July, 1304. His original name was Francesco di Petraceo, which lie subsequently changed to that by which he is now known. When Petrarca was about eight years of age, his father removed to Avignon, where the papal court was then held; and here, and at the neigh boring town ofCarpentras, the youth studied grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics. Con trary to his own inclination, but in compliance with the wish of his fattier, he spent seven years in the study•of law at Montpellier and Bologna; but in 1326 his father died, and Petrarca now devoted himself pai'dy to the gayeties of Avignon, and partly to classical studies, or rather to the study of the Latin classics, as it was only towards the end of his life that he attempted to master Greek. At this time he ranked among his friends, the jurist Soranzo, John of Florence, the secretary, Jacopo Colonna, bishop of Lombes, in Gascony, brotl_zr, 11.3 cc.fuir.;11 Giovrry;, Azzo da Corregio, lord of Parma, any many other noble and learned personages. Kis inistrions admirers—among whom were emperors, popes, doges, kings, and sovereign dukes—obviously thought themselves honored by their intimacy with the son of a poor notary, and some were even forward in proffering him their favor. But the great event in Petrarca s life (viewed iu the light of its literary consequences) was his tenderly romantic and ultimately pure passion for Laura—the golden-haired, beautiful Frenchwoman. Some slight obscurity still hangs over his relation to this lady, but it is almost certain that she was no less a paragon of virtue than of loveliness. Ile met her on April 6, 1327, in the chord) of St. Clara in Avignon, and at once and for ever fell deeply in love with her. The lady was then 19, and had been married for two years to a gentlemen of Avignon, named Ilugues de Sade. For ten years Petrarca lived near her in the papal city, and frequently met her at church, in society, at festivities, etc. He sung her beauty and his love in those sonnets whose mellifluous conceits ravished the ears of his contemporaries. and have not yet ceased to charm. Laura was not insensible to a worship, which made an emperor (Charles 1V.) beg to be introduced to her, and to lie allowed to kiss her forehead; but she seems to have kept the too-passionate poet at a proper distance. Only once did he dare to make au avowal of his love in her presence, and then 1w was sternly reproved. In 1338 Petrarca withdrew from Avignon to the romantic valley of Vaucluse, where he lived for some years, spending his time almost solely in literary pursuits.. A most brill iant honor awaited hint at Home, in 1841, where, on Easter tiny, lie was crowned in the capitol with the laurel-wreath of the poet. The ceremonies which marked this corona. lion were a grotesque medley of pagan and Christian representations. Petrarca was. however, as ardent a scholar as he was a poet; and throughout his whole life, he was occupied in the collection of Latin MSS., even copying some with his own hand. To
obtain these, lie traveled frequently throughout France. Germany, Italy, and Spain. His own Latin works were the first in modern times in which the language was classically written. The principal are his Epistoler, consisting of letters to his numerous friends and acquaintances, and which rank as the best of his prose works; De Vitis Virorum Ilns trium; De Remediis utthisque Fortune; De Vita Solitaria; Rerum Memorandarum Libci IV.; De. Coutempta Mandl, etc. Besides his prose epistles, Petrarca wrote 111l11111211illS epistles in Latin verse, eclogues, and an epic poem called Africa, on the subject of the second Punic war, It was this last production which obtained for him the laurel-wreatli at Rome. Petrarca, it may be mentioned, displayed little solicitude about the fate of his heatitiful Italian verse, but built his hope of his name being remembered on his Latin poems, which, it has been said, are now only remembered by his name. In 1253 he finally left Avignon. and passed the remainder of his life in Imly—partly where lie spent nearly ten years, and partly at Purina, Mantua, Padua, Verona, Ven• ice. and Rome. At last, in 1370, be removed to Arqua, a little village prettily situated among the Enganean hills, where he spent his closing years in hard scholarly work, much annoyed by visitors, troubled with epileptic fits, not overly rich, but serene in heart, and displaying in his life and correspondence a rational and beautiful piety. Ile was found dead in his library on the morning of July 18, 1374, his Iliad dropped on a book!—Petrarca was not only far beyond his age in learning, but had risen above many of its prejudices and superstitions.• He despised astrology,. and the childish medicine of his times; but, on the other hand, lie had no liking for the conceited skeptieisin of the mediaeval savants; and, in his De sit) Ipsius ct Multorum Aliorum Ignorantia, lie sharply attacked the irreligious speculations of those who had acquired a shallow freethinking habit from the study of the Arabico-Aristotelian school of writeN, such as Averrhoes. Petrarca became an ecclesiastic, lint was contented with one or two inconsiderable benefices, and refused all offers of higher ecclesiastical appoint ment. —The Italian lyrics of Petrarca—the chief of which are the Rime, or Canzonn.re, in honor of Laura—have done far more to perpetuate his fame than all his other works. Of Italian prose. he has not left a line. The Rime, consisting of sonnets, canzonets, madrigals, were composed during a period of more than forty years; and the later. ones —ill which Pet rarea's love for Laura, long since laid in her grave, appears purified from all earthly taint, and beautiful with something. of a beatific grace—have done as much to refine the Ranh language :is fhe Ditto« Cammcdia of Dante. Of his Rime there have been probably more than 300 editions; the first that of Venice, 1470; the most accurate, that by Ma•sand (Padua, 1819; Eng.. trans. by Macgregor, 1851). Collective editions of his works have been published (Basel, 1495, 1554, and 1581 et seg.). Of numerous lives of him the principal are those of Bellutello, Dc Slides, Tiraboselti, Ugo Foscolo, and Geiger (1870; in Eng., Campbell (1841); Reeve in Modern Classics for English Readers (1878).