altogether. To return again to the letters, you will find many written
in a familiar style to friends, including yourself; sometimes referring
to matters of public or private interest, sometimes relating to
bereavements, which form, alas! an ever recurring theme, or to other
matters which circumstances brought into prominence. I have discussed
almost nothing else, except as I have spoken of my state of mind, or
have imparted some bit of news to my friends. I approve, you see, what
Cicero says in his first letter to his brother, that it is the proper
aim of a letter to inform the one to whom it is addressed of something
of which he was ignorant. These considerations account for the title
which I have selected. For, on thinking over the matter, although the
simple rubric "epistles" was quite appropriate, I rejected it, both
because many older writers had chosen it, and because I myself had
applied it to the verses to my friends which I mentioned above,[12] and
consequently disliked to resort to it a second time. So I chose a new
name, and entitled the volume _Letters of Familiar Intercourse_,[13]
letters, that is, in which there is little anxious regard to style, but
where homely matters are treated in a homely manner. Sometimes, when it
was not inappropriate, there may be a bit of simple narration or a few
moral reflections, such as Cicero was accustomed to introduce into his
letters.
To say so much about a small matter is justified by the fear of
censorious critics, who, instead of producing work of their own to
be judged, set themselves up as the judges of others' talents--a
most audacious and impudent set, whose only safety lies in holding
their tongues. Sitting upon the shore with folded hands, we are safe
in expressing any opinions we please upon the art of navigation.
By keeping the letters secret you will at least shield these crude
productions, that I have carelessly thrown off, from such impudence.
If ever I put the last touches to this work, I will send you, not a
Phidian Minerva, as Cicero says, but an image, in some sort, of my mind
and character, hewn out with great labour. When it reaches you, place
it in some safe niche.
So far, so good. The next matter I would gladly say nothing about, but
a serious ailment is not easily concealed; its very symptoms betray it.
I am ashamed of a life which has lapsed into weakness. As you will see,
and as the order of the letters testifies, the language of my earlier
years was sober and strong, betokening a valiant heart. I not only
stood firm myself, but often consoled others. The succeeding letters
become day by day weaker and more dispirited, nor have the lamentations
with which they are filled a sufficiently manly tone. It is these that
I would ask you to guard with special care. For what would others say
to sentiments which I myself cannot re-read without a blush? Was I
indeed a man in my youthful days, only to become a child when I reached
maturity?
With a disingenuousness which I reprehend and deplore, I conceived
the plan of changing the order of the letters, or concealing from you
entirely those that I condemn. Neither subterfuge would have deceived
you, since you possess the originals of these melancholy missives, and
are aware of the year and day upon which each was written. Consequently
I must arm myself with excuses. I have grown weary in the long and
arduous battle. While courage and valour stood by me, I made a stand
myself and encouraged others to resist; but when, by reason of the
strength of the enemy and the fierceness of his onset, I began to
lose my footing, and my spirits began to droop, that fine, bold tone
promptly deserted me, and I descended to those weak laments which are
so displeasing. My affection for my friends may perhaps extenuate my
offence, for while they remained unharmed I never groaned on account
of any wound of fortune. But when almost all of them were hurried away
in a single great catastrophe, nay when the whole world seemed about
to perish,[14] it would have been inhuman, rather than courageous,
to remain unmoved. Before that who ever heard me complain of exile,
disease, litigation, elections, or the whirl of public affairs?[15] Who
ever heard a tearful regret for my father's house, for lost fortune,
diminished fame, squandered money, or absent friends? Cicero, however,
shows such a want of manliness in the way he writes of such grievances
that his sentiments often offend as much as his style delights me.
Add to this his litigious epistles, and the complaints and insults
which, with the utmost fickleness, he directs against distinguished
men whom he himself has but just been lauding to the skies! On reading
these I was so shocked and discomposed that I could not refrain in my
irritation from writing to him and pointing out what offended me in his
writings, as if he were a friend and contemporary.[16] Ignoring the
space of time which separates us, I addressed him with a familiarity
springing from my sympathy with his genius. This letter suggested
others of the kind. For instance, on re-reading, after some years,
Seneca's tragedy of _Octavia_,[17], I felt the same impulse to write
to him, and later I wrote, on various themes, to Varro, Virgil, and
others.[18] A few of these, which I have inserted in the latter part
of this work, might produce the utmost astonishment in the mind of the
reader, were he not forewarned. The rest I burned up in that general
holocaust of which I told you above.
Just as Cicero was absorbed in his trials, so was I at one time in
mine. But to-day--that you may know my present temper--it would not be
inappropriate to attribute to me that serenity which comes, as Seneca
says, even to the most untried, the serenity of despair itself. Why
indeed fear, when one has so many times striven with death itself?
Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem.
You will see me work and speak with growing courage from day to day. If
I should hit upon any subject worthy of my pen, the style itself will
be more vigorous. Many themes will undoubtedly offer themselves. My
writing and my life I foresee will come to an end together.
But while my other works are finished, or bid fair to be, these
letters, which I began in an irregular fashion in my early youth, and
am now bringing together in my old age and arranging in a volume,--this
work the love of my friends will never permit me to finish, since I
must conscientiously reply to their messages; nor can I ever persuade
them to accept the oft-repeated excuse of my other occupations. When
you shall learn that I have at last begged to be freed from that duty,
and have brought this work to an end, then you may know that I am dead
and freed from all life's burdens. In the meantime I shall continue
to follow the path which I have entered upon, not looking for its end
until darkness comes upon me. Pleasant work will take the place of
repose with me. Moreover, having placed the weakest of my forces in
the centre, as orators and generals are wont to do, I shall take care
that, as I showed a solid front in beginning my book, so my rear-guard
too shall not be wanting in courage. Indeed, I may make better head
against the attacks and buffets of fortune, thanks to a gradual process
of hardening which has gone on through life. In short, although I dare
not assert how I shall demean myself in the stress of circumstances, I
am firmly resolved not to succumb to any trial hereafter. "Beneath the
crash of worlds undaunted he appears." You may picture me thus armed
with the good thoughts of Virgil and Horace, which I used often to
read and praise in my earlier years, and which, in my latter days of
calamity, stern necessity has forced me to make my own.
My communion with you has been very pleasant, and I have, in my
enjoyment, been led half unconsciously to prolong it. It brought back
your face over land and sea, and kept you with me until evening. I took
up my pen this morning, and the day and this letter are coming to an
end together.
Well, this which I dedicate to you, my brother, is a fabric, so
to speak, of many coloured threads. But should I ever find a
resting-place, and the leisure I have always sought in vain (and there
is the promise of such a change), I intend to weave for you a more
worthy and certainly more uniform web. I should be glad to think that
I am among the few who can promise and confer fame; but you can lift
yourself into the light without my aid, borne on the wings of your own
genius. However, if I am able to rise, in spite of all the difficulties
which beset me, you hereafter shall assuredly be my Idomeneus, my
Atticus, and my Lucilius. Farewell.
* * * * *
The selection and copying of the letters, which Petrarch appears to
have begun about 1359, when he was fifty-five years old, proved to
be a trying task that dragged through five or six years. Writing to
Boccaccio, in 1365, he describes a clever youth of Ravenna who had come
to him two years before and, among other duties, had assisted him in
editing the correspondence.[19] "My prose epistles to my friends,"[20]
he says, "are very numerous; would that they were proportionately
valuable! What with the confusion of the copies and the pressure of
my other occupations I had almost despaired of editing them. Four
friends had promised me their aid, but after a trial had left the
task half done; yet this young man has, quite by himself, completed
the collection, which does not include all indeed, but as many of
them as will go into a not too huge volume. Counting this one, they
amount to three hundred and fifty,[21] which, if it please God, you
shall sometime behold, written in his hand. You will not find the
ill-defined though sumptuous penmanship affected by our copyists, or
rather painters, of to-day, which delights us at a distance, but, as
if invented for any other purpose than to be read, strains and tires
the eyes when we look at it intently, thus belying the saying of the
prince of grammarians that the word _letter_ comes from _legere_, to
read. This youth's characters are, on the contrary, compressed[22] and
clear, carrying the eye with them, nor will you discover any faults of
orthography or grammatical errors."
It is safe to infer that the additional labour involved in duplicating
from the outset all his letters, so that he might retain copies
of them, was not undertaken without the expectation of ultimately
bringing them together into a collection for publication, like the
correspondence of Seneca and that of Abelard, with both of which he
was familiar. (Of Cicero's letters he knew little if anything until
he himself discovered a copy of part of them at Verona, in 1345, when
he was already forty-one years old, too late for them to exercise any
decisive influence upon the formation of his epistolary style.[23])
He had, moreover, long before the editing began, promised his friend
"Socrates" that these prose epistles should be dedicated to him.[24]
There can even be no doubt that individual letters were destined for
a more or less wide circle of readers, as is shown by their careful
composition and, here and there, by a naive confession, as in the
repetition for the benefit of others of the earlier part of the story
of the goldsmith, with which the friend to whom he was writing was
already familiar.[25] Indeed he closes his collection with an explicit
appeal to the "candid reader, whoever thou art," exhorting him by their
common love for the same studies not to allow himself to be disturbed
by the confusion and unstudied language of the work, but to recall the
excuses offered in the Preface.[26]
The entire prose correspondence of Petrarch falls into four divisions.
The largest group, the one that he discusses in the Preface given
above, embraces three hundred and forty-seven letters, which were
written between the years 1332 and 1362.[27] To this collection, which
filled the "not too huge volume," he decided to give the unassuming
general title of _De Rebus Familiaribus_, by which he meant to imply
that every-day topics were therein discussed with his friends, with no
especial attention to style. He evidently wished to avoid any possible
inference that he supposed that so miscellaneous and heterogeneous a
mass of work could possess real literary form and merit. The title may
fairly enough, if not literally, be translated _Letters of Friendly
Intercourse._
A second and much smaller collection was formed from those which
could not be included in the main volume without unduly increasing
its bulk.[28] About seventy of these have been re-discovered, and
constitute the so-called _Miscellaneous Letters (Epistolæ Variæ)_.
But the editing of this earlier correspondence did not bring the work
to a close; the love of his friends admitted no conclusion to the
task. "Their messages," he declares, "will still continue to come
and I must continue to reply to them." Consequently a new division
of the correspondence was formed, the important _Epistolæ de Rebus
Senilibus,--Letters of Old Age_,--which were written during the last
twelve years of the poet's life. A short dedication to "Simonides"
(_i.e._, Francesco Nelli) is prefixed to them.[29] There are one
hundred and twenty-four in this group, some of them very long.
Lastly, there is a little group of about twenty letters, some of which
contained such frank strictures upon the régime of the popes at Avignon
that Petrarch found it expedient to put them by themselves and to
suppress the names of those to whom they were addressed. These, the
_Epistolæ sine Titulo_,[30] are so acrid in tone, and so unmeasured
in the abuse which they heap upon the degraded churchmen, that their
author has sometimes mistakenly been reckoned as a forerunner of the
Reformation; but, as we shall see, he had no thought of questioning a
single dogma of the Catholic Church.
Of the _Letters of Friendly Intercourse_, scarcely half appear in the
most complete of the older printed editions,[31] but they have, not
long since, been edited in full by Giuseppe Fracassetti, who includes
no less than one hundred and twenty-eight never before printed. The
_Epistolæ Variæ--Miscellaneous Letters_--are also to be found in his
excellent edition.[32] The _Letters of Old Age_ were early printed
in their entirety, but unfortunately have not been reproduced since
1581. If one would read them in the original he must still turn to the
miserable Basle editions of the works, which would almost appear to
have been printed by persons unfamiliar with the rudiments of Latin, so
numerous and incredible are the typographical errors which not only try
the reader's temper but often entirely obscure the meaning.
How far Petrarch modified the original form of the letters in editing
them is an important question, but one upon which we have but little
information. He says in the Preface that the unworthy expedient
occurred to him of suppressing such letters as exhibited his past
weakness, or so changing their order that he should at least appear in
a more favourable light. But this, he decided, would be quite useless,
since his friends possessed the properly dated originals. On the other
hand, he certainly destroyed a large number of his papers. What canons
he adopted in his selection we cannot determine, but obviously the
temptation to exclude those which might seem to place him in a false
position must have been almost irresistible. Moreover, he did not
hesitate, as we have seen, in order to avoid repetition and monotony,
to so alter the language that he felt it necessary to ask his friends,
in some instances, to destroy their original copies lest they should be
hurt by the changes he had made.
There seems to be no doubt that the _Letters of Friendly Intercourse_
are arranged in the codices, and published by Fracassetti, in the order
in which Petrarch first placed them. His intention was to observe
chronological sequence, for he says explicitly that with the exception
of the letters to dead authors, which he put together at the end of
the volume, almost all the rest remained in the order in which they
were written.[33] While this is true in general, there are many
obvious exceptions. Unfortunately he did not ordinarily indicate the
year, but only the day and the month upon which he wrote. It is very
probable, therefore, that in arranging the letters years later he was
often unable to determine just where a letter belonged. Fracassetti has
devoted a great deal of attention to establishing the dates, where it
is possible,[34] and has in this way done much to make the course of
the poet's life clearer.
There is but one letter among those which have been preserved to
which an earlier date than 1331 can be ascribed. The series begins,
therefore, in Petrarch's twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth year. Some
ninety of the letters were probably written before he was forty, but
the great bulk of them belong to his later years. Almost one-half of
those included in the various collections were composed after he had
reached fifty.
It will naturally be asked if any of the replies called forth by
Petrarch during toward half a century of indefatigable letter-writing
have come down to us. A few only have been preserved. Recently a
little volume containing thirty letters from his Florentine friend
Francesco Nelli, has been published.[35] Besides these, there are four
letters from Boccaccio,[36] one from Rienzo,[37] one from the Emperor
Charles IV.,[38] three from Guglielmo di Pastrengo,[39] five from the
enthusiastic young Humanist, Coluccio Salutati,[40] and perhaps a very
few others. With these exceptions, Petrarch's correspondence includes
only his own letters; and his friends often exist for us only in his
kindly allusions to them. This is pre-eminently true of "Socrates" and
"Lælius," to whom so many of the letters are addressed.
1: Of "Socrates," as Petrarch chose to call one of his most intimate
friends whose real name was Ludovico, we know almost nothing. He was
born in the Netherlands but appears to have spent most of his life in
Avignon, where he died in 1362. Although he never visited Italy he
would seem to have been thoroughly Italian in his tastes.
2: Laura, Cardinal Giovanni Colonna, and other friends of Petrarch fell
victims to the plague in that year.
3: It was probably Cicero's expressions of admiration in _De Oratore_
which led Petrarch to choose Isocrates as typifying the oratorical
style.
4: This reference is obscure.
5: Reading _reipublicæ_ for _rempublicam._
6: Petrarch learned upon visiting Arezzo, as he was returning from the
Jubilee in 1350, that the magistrates had ordered that no alterations
should be made in the humble house where he was born. See _Sen_.,
xiii., 3.
7: Petrarch refers this journey to his _ninth_ year in his _Letter to
Posterity._
8: Sidonius Apollinaris, a Christian writer of the fifth century, is
here the innocent victim of Petrarch's doubtless excusable ignorance.
In speaking of his own letters Sidonius says that he has modestly
refrained from attempting to imitate Cicero's style, and cites the fate
of Titianus, who brought derision upon himself by so doing. Unless,
as is quite possible, the text which Petrarch used was corrupt, it
is difficult to explain how, even if, as he admits (see below p.
143: Consequently I wonder more ...), he had never heard of Fronto,
the tutor of Marcus Aurelius, he could have so completely missed
the point. The offending passage reads: "Nam de Marco Tullio silere
me in stylo epistolari melius puto, quem nec Julius Titianus totum
... digna similitudine expressit. Propter quod illum cæteri quique
Frontonianorum [_i.e._, admirers of Fronto], utpote consectaneum
æmulati, cum veternorum dicendi genus imitaretur, oratorum simiam
nuncupaverunt."--Migne, _Patrologia Latina_, vol. lviii., pp. 444-5.
9: Sidonius was born in Lyons; the epithet "arvernus" refers to his
bishopric of Clermont, anciently called Arverni.
10: See note above, p. 141 (Phrases which pleased when they
occurred...).
11: Quintilian's _Institutes_, bk. x., ch. i., §§ 109-112.
12: _I.e._, the metrical epistles.
13: Familiarum rerum liber. See below, p. 153 _sqq_ (The entire prose
correspondence of Petrarch...)
14: A reference to the plague of 1348; see above, pp. 113, 114. (We may
infer that he now enjoyed...)
15: This list of woes seems to have been suggested by Cicero's
experience rather than his own.
16: See the letters to Cicero, given below, p. 239 _sqq_. (He wrote to
the emperor and the pope...)
17: Petrarch elsewhere expresses doubts whether Seneca really wrote
this tragedy which, it is now generally believed, is by another hand.
See _Fam_., xxiv., 5.
18: See below, Part III., for examples of these letters.
19: _Fam_., xxiii., 19 (vol. iii., pp. 237, 238).
20: Familiares epistolæ.
21: There are but three hundred and forty-seven in the codices used by
Fracassetti. See _Let. delle Cos. Fam_., v., p. 110.
22: _Castigata, i.e_., without any flourishes such as disfigure the
manuscripts of the period. See the facsimile of Petrarch's own clear
handwriting, p. 238. (A PAGE OF PETRARCH'S COPY OF THE "ILIAD.")
23: The other great classical collections of letters, Pliny's,
appears to have been unknown to Petrarch. See, further, p. 230 _sq_.
(Petrarch's letters afford countless illustrations...)
24: See above, p. 134. (I was more indulgent to these,...)
25: See below, p. 172. (His age seemed to be the only obstacle)
26: _Fam_., xxiv., 13 (vol. iii., p. 307).
27: One earlier letter (1326), and a half dozen written later, have
found their way into this group.
28: _Fam_., xxiv., 13 (vol, iii., p. 306).
29: _Sen_., i., 1, and iii., 1.
30: In the Basle editions of the works, and in the editions of the
letters published in 1601, some letters are included among the
_Epistolæ sine Titulo_ which apparently do not belong there.
31: Not more than one-third are to be found in the Basle editions of
1554 and 1581.
32: _Francisci Petrarcæ Epistolæ de Rebus Familiaribus et Variæ_,
studio et cura Josephi Fracassetti, Tom. iii., 8°, Florentiæ, 1859-63.
33: _Fam_., xxiv., 13 (vol, iii., p. 306).
34: In the notes to his Italian version of the letters.
35: _Lettres de Francesco Nelli à Pétrarque_, publiées par Henry
Cochin, Paris, 1892.
36: In _Le Lettere di Boccaccio_, edited by Corazzini, Florence, 1877.
37: In the _Epistolario di Cola di Rienzo_, edited by Gabrielli, Rome,
1890.
38: In Mehus's _Vita Ambrosii_, p. 191. Translated into Italian by
Fracassetti, _Let. delle Cos. Fam_., iv., 85 _sq_.
39: These were formerly attributed to Petrarch, and are printed in the
Venetian edition of his letters (1503). See Fracassetti, _Let. delle
Cos. Fam_., ii., 439 _sqq_.
40: In the _Epistolarium de Coluccio Salutati_, edited by Novati, vol.
i.
II
PETRARCH AND HIS LITERARY CONTEMPORARIES
Quotidie epistolas, quotidie carmina omnis in caput hoc
nostri orbis angulus pluit;... jam nec Gallis modo,
sed Graiis et Teutonis et Britannis tempestatibus
litterarum pulsor, omnium ingeniorum arbiter, mei ipsius
ignarus.--_Fam_., xiii., 7.
The following letters have been selected with a view to illustrating
Petrarch's attitude toward the Italian language and literature, his
estimate of the other writers of his time, especially Dante and
Boccaccio, and, in general, his literary ideals, and habits of work.
An effort has been made to secure some continuity by the arrangement
of the matter and the accompanying explanations, but any strictly
logical presentation is precluded by the miscellaneous contents of the
letters themselves. The reader is left, in most cases, to make his own
deductions from Petrarch's words, but a brief excursus is added here
and there, with the hope of emphasising some of the more important
points.
The first two letters would indicate that there was a wide-spread
interest in literature during the fourteenth century, and that Petrarch
was looked upon as the highest tribunal before which the aspirant could
lay his work. Few of his letters are more instructive or are written
in a lighter and more felicitous tone than the one which follows.
_Petrarch's Passion for Work--The Trials of a Man of Letters_
_To the Abbot of St. Benigno_[1]