ITALY--THE AGE OF PETRARCH.
The enlightenment of an age of ignorance cannot be attributed to any
single person; yet it has been said with some justice, that as the
mediæval darkness lifted, one figure was seen standing in advance, and
that Petrarch was rightly hailed as 'the harbinger of day.' His fame
rests not so much on his poems as upon his incessant labours in the task
of educating his countrymen. Petrarch was devoted to books from his
boyhood. His youth was passed near Avignon, 'on the banks of the windy
Rhone.' After receiving the ordinary instruction in grammar and rhetoric,
he passed four years at Montpellier, and proceeded to study law at
Bologna. 'I kept my terms in Civil Law,' he said, 'and made some
progress; but I gave up the subject on becoming my own master, not
because I disliked the Law, which no doubt is full of the Roman learning,
but because it is so often perverted by evil-minded men.' He seems to
have worked for a time under his friend Cino of Pistoia, and to have
attended the lectures of the jurist Andrea, whose daughter Novella is
said to have sometimes taken the class 'with a little curtain in front of
her beautiful face.' While studying at Bologna, Petrarch made his first
collection of books instead of devoting himself to the Law. His old
father once paid him a visit and began burning the parchments on a
funeral pile: the boy's supplications and promises saved the poor
remainder. He tried hard to follow his father's practical advice, but
always in vain; 'Nature called him in another direction, and it is idle
to struggle against her.'
On Petrarch's return to Avignon he obtained the friendship of Cardinal
Colonna: and here the whole course of his life was fixed when he first
saw Laura 'in a green dress embroidered with violets.' Her face was
stamped upon his mind, and haunted him through all efforts at repose: and
perhaps it is to her influence that he owed his rank among the lyrical
poets and the crown bestowed at Rome. His whole life was thenceforth
devoted to the service of the book. He declared that he had the
writing-disease, and was the victim of a general epidemic. 'All the world
is taking up the writer's part, which ought to be confined to a few: the
number of the sick increases and the disease becomes daily more
virulent.' A victim of the mania himself, he laughs at his own
misfortune: yet it might have been better, he thought, to have been a
labourer or a weaver at the loom. 'There are several kinds of
melancholia: and some madmen will write books, just as others toss
pebbles in their hands.' As for literary fame, it is but a harvest of
thin air, 'and it is only fit for sailors to watch a breeze and to
whistle for a wind.'
Petrarch collected books in many parts of Europe. In 1329, when he was
twenty-five years of age, he made a tour through Switzerland to the
cities of Flanders. The Flemish schools had lost something of their
ancient fame since the development of the University of Paris. Several
fine collections of books were still preserved in the monasteries. The
Abbey of Laubes was especially rich in biblical commentaries and other
works of criticism, which were all destroyed afterwards in a fire, except
a Vulgate of the eighth century that happened to be required for use at
the Council of Trent. Petrarch described his visit to Liège in a letter
to a friend; 'When we arrived I heard that there was a good supply of
books, so I kept all my party there until I had one oration of Cicero
transcribed by a colleague, and another in my own writing, which I
afterwards published in Italy; but in that fair city of the barbarians it
was very difficult to get any ink, and what I did procure was as yellow
as saffron.'
A few years afterwards he went from Avignon to Paris, and was astonished
at the net-work of filthy lanes in the students' quarter. It was a
paradise of books, all kept at fair prices by the University's decree;
but the traveller declared that, except in 'the world's sink' at Avignon,
he had never seen so dirty a place. At Rome he was dismayed to find that
all the books were the prey of the foreigner. The English and French
merchants were carrying away what had been spared by the Goths and
Vandals. 'Are you not ashamed,' he cried to his Roman friends, 'are you
not ashamed that your avarice should allow these strangers every day to
acquire some remnant of your ancient majesty?'
He used to pore over his manuscripts on the most incongruous occasions,
like Pliny reading his critical notes at the boar-hunt. 'Whether I am
being shaved or having my hair cut,' he wrote, 'and whether I am riding
or dining, I either read or get some one to read to me.' Some of his
favourite volumes are described in terms of delightful affection. He
tells us how Homer and Plato sat side by side on the shelf,--the prince
of poets by the prince of philosophers. He only knew the rudiments of
Greek, and was forced to read the Iliad in the Latin version. 'But I
glory,' he said, 'in the sight of my illustrious guests, and have at
least the pleasure of seeing the Greeks in their national costume.'
'Homer,' he adds, 'is dumb, or I am deaf; I am delighted with his looks;
and as often as I embrace the silent volume I cry, "Oh illustrious bard,
how gladly would I listen to thy song, if only I had not lost my hearing,
through the death of one friend and the lamented absence of another!"'
In his treatise on Fortune, Petrarch has left us a study on
book-collecting in the form of a dialogue between his natural genius and
his critical reason. He argues, as it were, in his own person against the
imaginary opponent. A paraphrase will show the nature and the result of
the contest.
'_Petrarch._ I have indeed a great quantity of books.
_Critic._ That gives me an excellent instance. Some men amass books for
self-instruction and others from vanity. Some decorate their rooms with
the furniture that was intended to be an ornament of the soul, as if it
were like the bronzes and statues of which we were speaking. Some are
working for their own vile ends behind their rows of books, and these are
the worst of all, because they esteem literature merely as merchandise,
and not at its real value; and this new fashionable infliction becomes
another engine for the arts of avarice.
_Pet._ I have a very considerable quantity of books.
_Crit._ Well! it is a charming, embarrassing kind of luggage, affording
an agreeable diversion for the mind.
_Pet._ I have a great abundance of books.
_Crit._ Yes, and a great abundance of hard work and a great lack of
repose. You have to keep your mind marching in all directions, and to
overload your memory. Books have led some to learning, and others to
madness, when they swallow more than they can digest. In the mind, as in
the body, indigestion does more harm than hunger; food and books alike
must be used according to the constitution, and what is little enough for
one is too much for another.
_Pet._ But I have an immense quantity of books.
_Crit._ Immense is that which has no measure, and without measure there
is nothing convenient or decent in the affairs of men.
_Pet._ I have an incalculable number of books.
_Crit._ Have you more than Ptolemy, King of Egypt, accumulated in the
library at Alexandria, which were all burned at one time? Perhaps there
was an excuse for him in his royal wealth and his desire to benefit
posterity. But what are we to say of the private citizens who have
surpassed the luxury of kings? Have we not read of Serenus Sammonicus,
the master of many languages, who bequeathed 62,000 volumes to the
younger Gordian? Truly that was a fine inheritance, enough to sustain
many souls or to oppress one to death, as all will agree. If Serenus had
done nothing else in his life, and had not read a word in all those
volumes, would he not have had enough to do in learning their titles and
sizes and numbers and their authors' names? Here you have a science that
turns a philosopher into a librarian. This is not feeding the soul with
wisdom: it is the crushing it under a weight of riches or torturing it in
the waters of Tantalus.
_Pet._ I have innumerable books.
_Crit._ Yes, and innumerable errors of ignorant authors and of the
copyists who corrupt all that they touch.
_Pet._ I have a good provision of books.
_Crit._ What does that matter, if your intellect cannot take them in? Do
you remember the Roman Sabinus who plumed himself on the learning of his
slaves? Some people think that they must know what is in their own books,
and say, when a new subject is started: 'I have a book about that in my
library!' They think that this is quite sufficient, just as if the book
were in their heads, and then they raise their eyebrows, and there is an
end of the subject.
_Pet._ I am overflowing with books.
_Crit._ Why don't you overflow with talent and eloquence? Ah! but these
things are not for sale, like books, and if they were I don't suppose
there would be many buyers, for books do make a covering for the walls,
but those other wares are only clothing for the soul, and are invisible
and therefore neglected.
_Pet._ I have books which help me in my studies.
_Crit._ Take care that they do not prove a hindrance. Many a general has
been beaten by having too many troops. If books came in like recruits one
would not turn them away, but would stow them in proper quarters, and use
the best of them, taking care not to bring up a force too soon which
would be more useful on another occasion.
_Pet._ I have a great variety of books.
_Crit._ A variety of paths will often deceive the traveller.
_Pet._ I have collected a number of fine books.
_Crit._ To gain glory by means of books you must not only possess them
but know them; their lodging must be in your brain and not on the
book-shelf.
_Pet._ I keep a few beautiful books.
_Crit._ Yes, you keep in irons a few prisoners, who, if they could escape
and talk, would have you indicted for wrongful imprisonment. But now
they lie groaning in their cells, and of this they ever complain, that an
idle and a greedy man is overflowing with the wealth that might have
sustained a multitude of starving scholars.'
Petrarch was in truth a careless custodian of his prisoners. He was too
ready to lend a book to a friend, and his generosity on one occasion
caused a serious loss to literature. The only known copy of a treatise by
Cicero was awaiting transcription in his library; but he allowed it to be
carried off by an old scholar in need of assistance: it was pledged in
some unknown quarter, and nothing was ever heard again of the precious
deposit.
He returned to Avignon in 1337, and made himself a quiet home at
Vaucluse. His letters are full of allusions to his little farm, to the
poplars in the horse-shoe valley, and the river brimming out from the
'monarch of springs.' In these new lawns of Helicon he made a new home
for his books, and tried to forget in their company the tumults that had
driven him from Italy. In 1340 he received offers of a laureate's crown
from Rome, the capital of the world, and from Paris, 'the birth-place of
learning.' 'I start to-day,' he wrote to Colonna, 'to receive my reward
over the graves of those who were the pride of ancient Rome, and in the
very theatre of their exploits.' The Capitol resounded to such cheers
that its walls and 'antique dome' seemed to share in the public joy: the
senator placed a chaplet on his brow, and old Stephen Colonna added a
few words of praise amid the applause of the Roman people.
At Parma, soon afterwards, Petrarch formed another library which he
called his 'second Parnassus.' At Padua he busied himself in the
education of an adopted son, the young John of Ravenna, who lived to be a
celebrated professor, and was nicknamed 'the Trojan Horse,' because he
turned out so many excellent Grecians. In a cottage near Milan the poet
received a visit from Boccaccio, who was at that time inclined to
renounce the world. He offered to give his whole library to Petrarch: he
did afterwards send to his host a _Dante_ of his own copying, which is
now preserved in the Vatican. The approach of a pestilence led Petrarch
to remove his home to Venice: and here he was again visited by Boccaccio,
this time in company with Leontio Pilato, a Calabrian Greek trading in
books between Italy and Constantinople.
Leontio was the translator of Homer, and expounded his poems from the
Chair of Rhetoric at Florence. He was a man of forbidding appearance, and
'more obdurate,' said Petrarch, 'than the rocks that he will encounter in
his voyage': 'fearing that I might catch his bad temper, I let him go,
and gave him a Terence to amuse him on the way, though I do not know what
this melancholy Greek could have in common with that lively African.'
Leontio was killed by lightning on his return voyage; and there was much
anxiety until it could be ascertained that his literary stock-in-trade
had been rescued from the hands of the sailors. It was not till the end
of the century that Chrysoloras renewed the knowledge of the classics:
but we may regard the austere Leontio as the chief precursor of the crowd
of later immigrants, each with a gem, or bronze, or 'a brown Greek
manuscript' for sale, and all eager to play their parts in the
restoration of learning.
Towards the end of his life Petrarch became tired of carrying his books
about. When he broke up the libraries at Parma and Vaucluse he had formed
the habit of travelling with bales of manuscripts in a long cavalcade;
but he determined afterwards to offer the collection to Venice, on
condition that it should be properly housed, and should never be sold or
divided. The offer was accepted by the Republic, and the Palazzo Molina
was assigned as a home for the poet and his books. Petrarch, however, had
other plans for himself. He wished to be near Padua, where he held a
canonry; and he accordingly built himself a cottage at Arquà, among the
Euganean Hills, about ten miles from the city. A few olive-trees and a
little vine-yard sufficed for the wants of his modest household; and
there, as he wrote to his brother, broken in body but easy in his mind,
he passed his time in reading, and prepared for his end. His only regret
was that there was no monastery near in which he might see his beloved
Gerard fulfilling his religious duties. He seems to have given up his
love for fine books with other worldly vanities. He offers excuses for
the plain appearance of a volume of 'St. Augustine' which he was sending
as a present. 'One must not,' said he, 'expect perfect manuscripts from
scholars who are engaged on better things. A general does not sharpen the
soldiers' swords. Apelles did not cut out his own boards, or Polycletus
his sheets of ivory; some humble person always prepares the material on
which a higher mind is to be engaged. So is it with books: some polish
the parchment, and others copy or correct the text; others again do the
illumination, to use the common phrase; but a loftier spirit will disdain
these menial occupations.' The scholar's books are often of a rough and
neglected appearance, for abundance of anything makes the owner 'careless
and secure'; it is the invalid who is particular about every breath of
air, but the strong man loves the rough breeze. 'As to this book of the
_Confessions_, its first aspect will teach you all about it. Quite new,
quite unadorned, untouched by the corrector's fangs, it comes out of my
young servant's hands. You will notice some defects in spelling, but no
gross mistakes. In a word, you will perhaps find things in it which will
exercise but not disturb your understanding. Read it then, and ponder
upon it. This book, which would enflame a heart of ice, must set your
ardent soul on fire.'
On a summer night of the year 1374, Petrarch died peacefully at Arquà,
alone in his library. His few remaining books were sold, and some of them
may still be seen in Rome and Paris. Those which he had given to Venice
suffered a strange reverse of fortune. How long the gift remained in the
Palazzo Molina we cannot tell. We conjecture that it was discarded in the
next century, before Bessarion presented his Greek books to the senate,
and became the actual founder of the library of St. Mark. The antiquary
Tomasini found Petrarch's books cast aside in a dark room behind the
Horses of Lysippus. Some had crumbled into powder, and others had been
glued into shapeless masses by the damp. The survivors were placed in the
Libraria Vecchia, and are now in the Ducal Palace; but it was long before
they were permitted to enter the building that sheltered the gift of
Bessarion.