Studies in the Poetry of Italy Part 8

[14] The sun's.

[15] Symbol of active life, as Rachel is of contemplative life.

[16] Forest near Ravenna.

[17] The Empyrean.

[18] Carducci says Dante is a "most great poet because he is a great man, and a great man because he had a great conscience."

CHAPTER IV

PETRARCH

It is hard for people to-day to realize the enormous difference between the medieval and modern world. The former was full of superst.i.tion and nave belief; authority reigned supreme; in religion no one dreamed of questioning the decrees of church and pope; in philosophy a question was settled by a quotation from Aristotle or his scholastic representative, St. Thomas Aquinas. This same blind following of authority was exemplified in art--painters imitated slavishly their predecessors, and up to the appearance of Cimabue and Giotto no one dreamed of improving on the stiff conventionalities of the Byzantine artists. In scholarship, criticism--_i. e._, individual judgment--was unknown; in science, all such old-world fables as the mandragora, dragons, phenix, and unicorn were devoutly received as true zoology, while the Ptolemaic system of astronomy was unquestioned. The idea of progress was utterly unknown; the world had been created exactly as it was, and would remain so till the coming of Christ, when a new heaven and a new earth would be formed.

So, in the political and social world, the thought that the existing state of things could change would have seemed absurd. It needs no words of mine to demonstrate the vast difference between these conceptions and the present world, with its idea of illimitable progress, its criticism of all things high and low, its denial that authority in church and state is just, simply because it is old; its eager acceptation of all innovations; its cultivation of the individual in all departments of life; to say nothing of the vast field opened up by the discoveries of positive science.

Dante stands at the end of the old order of things, rising like a mighty mountain peak over the dead plain of medieval mediocrity.

Yet he is not an innovator; he does not inaugurate a new period of civilization. When he died he left no school of followers to carry on his work; he closed an epoch rather than opened one. It is true that for a hundred years or more men did imitate his Divine Comedy, but only in the outward form thereof, neglecting the poetical and aesthetical side, for which indeed Dante's contemporaries had little or no appreciation.

It is only in the nineteenth century that Dante has become a power in Italy as voicing the universal desire for a united fatherland.

The man who begins the mighty movement of the Renaissance, from which modern civilization takes its rise, is Francesco Petrarch. It is strange to think that he, so utterly different in mental att.i.tude from Dante, was seventeen years old when the latter died. Yet the change which he represents was being slowly prepared by his predecessors. As we have seen, the study of the Latin language and authors had never fully died out in the Middle Ages; especially in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the cla.s.sic writers--Vergil, Ovid, Statius, Livy--were read more and more, not, however, as examples of literary excellence, or as revealing the culture of antiquity, but as mines of practical wisdom, or as supplying quotations and examples for philosophical and theological discussions. The cla.s.sic writers were made to fit in with medieval ways of thinking, and thus subordinated to the then existing state of civilization. With Petrarch, however, comes a complete change in all these respects. For him the cla.s.sic writers were the _ne plus ultra_ of elegant form; he strove to penetrate into their spirit, to appreciate fully the peculiar excellence of each one; and above all to clear antiquity from its barnacle-like covering of medieval traditions and superst.i.tions and to present Roman civilization, its learning, science, and art, as it was. To him the Middle Ages were a period of degradation, which had long hidden from view the past glories of Rome; and he now, for the first time in history, broke away from the present and immediate past, and turned his eyes back to ancient times. In so doing he founded the Renaissance in Italy, and laid down the lines along which all subsequent students of cla.s.sical antiquity were to follow. In all these respects Petrarch is justly considered, not only the founder of modern cla.s.sical scholarship, but the founder of modern civilization as well.

He has been referred to by more than one historian as the Columbus of a new intellectual world.

The life of Petrarch is intensely interesting, and, contrary to the case of Dante, the difficulty in giving an outline of it consists not in the absence of well-ascertained facts, but in an embarra.s.sment of riches.

For we know more of the details of Petrarch's life than we do of any other ancient writer.

Francesco Petrarch was born in 1304 at Arezzo, whither his father, a prominent lawyer of Florence, had gone on being exiled in 1302, at the same time as Dante. After moving about some time in Italy, the family finally settled at Avignon, in southern France, then famous as the seat of the Roman papacy during the so-called Babylonian captivity. From 1315 to 1319 Francesco was sent to school at the neighboring town of Charpentras; in 1319 he went to the University of Montpellier to study law, and in 1323 went to the University of Bologna. At the university, however, he neglected law for the cla.s.sic writers, and he tells us how one day his father appeared and burnt all his Latin books, with the exception of Vergil and Cicero's Rhetoric, which by means of tears and entreaties he succeeded in saving from the flames.

After the death of his parents, in 1326, Petrarch settled down in Avignon and devoted himself to his favorite studies. As he was without means he entered the clergy and henceforth was relieved of all anxiety in regard to money. From this time on his life was spent in study, in the collection of a library, in writing books, in travel, and visits to his friends. Petrarch was very fond of traveling and his letters abound with interesting descriptions of the places he had seen. Yet, in spite of this pa.s.sion for travel, he loved also the quiet and tranquil existence of country life. Here he could indulge to his heart's content his love for nature, the beauty of which he was practically the first to describe in sympathetic language. It was to satisfy this love for nature and the "quiet life," that Petrarch bought a small property in Vaucluse, near Avignon, and here he never failed to return from time to time during all his later life, when tired of travel, weighed down by care, or depressed by the loss of friends and the "creeping steps of age."

Petrarch seemed to have had a peculiar faculty for making friends; he was loved and admired by high and low. Among these countless friends are worthy of especial mention the powerful Colonna family, father and two sons, who played so important a part in the history of Italy; King Robert of Naples; the Emperor Charles IV., who wished to have Petrarch accompany him to Germany; King John of France, who wished to retain him in Paris; Pope Urban IV., who offered him the position of papal secretary. There were scores of others of humbler rank, among them Boccaccio, his faithful admirer and lifelong friend. Not only kings and princes lavished honors on Petrarch, but cities as well: Florence offered to restore his father's property and make him professor at the university if he would live there; Venice gave him a palace in return for his library; and in 1340 the cities of Paris and Rome, at the same time, invited him to receive the laurel crown of poet.

After due deliberation Petrarch accepted the invitation of Rome, and on Easter Sunday, 1340, in the presence of an immense company of people, he was crowned at the capitol, amid the blare of trumpets and the acclamations of the a.s.sembled mult.i.tudes. This scene may be considered as the climax of Petrarch's victorious career.

No man outwardly ever had a happier life than he. He was well-to-do; was handsome and amiable; surrounded by friends; admired and flattered by all Europe; looked on as a great poet and a prodigy of learning. Surely, if any man could be content, Petrarch was that man. And yet he was not happy--owing to his peculiar character, his sensitiveness, his streak of melancholy, his immense vanity which could never be fully satisfied, and especially owing to the constant struggle that went on in his soul between the medieval ascetic view of life (which he could never wholly shake off) and the more worldly modern view, which he himself inaugurated. Owing to all these things, I say, there is a tinge of sadness in all his writings. Perhaps no man ever lived who ill.u.s.trated so well the beautiful words of the old Latin poet:

"E'en where the founts of pleasure flow, A bitter something bubbles up."

Indeed, Petrarch's character presents us with strange contrasts. He who loved travel so much is constantly writing about the joys of country life; constantly seen in the gay and often licentious courts of princes, he wrote a treatise in praise of the solitary life; receiving his living from the church and naturally religious, many of his acts were contrary to both religion and morality.

And yet Petrarch was not a hypocrite. No one can doubt his sincerity; these things are only the outward expression of that struggle which was constantly going on in his heart. Like St. Paul, he seemed always to be crying out, "The good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do."

The latter part of his life was thus spent in ever-increasing sadness.

In 1347 his friend, Colonna, died; in 1348, Laura; in 1347 his high hopes concerning the restoration of the ancient glory of the Roman Republic by Rienzi, the "last of the tribunes," were suddenly dashed by the fall and death of the latter. Henceforth Petrarch spent his life wandering from city to city, from court to court, surrounded by an aureole of glory, yet never at rest, except when he retired to the quiet seclusion of Vaucluse.

In 1370 he went to the university town of Padua, then the center of an active intellectual life. In the spring of the same year he started for Rome, in response to an invitation of the pope, but fell so grievously ill at Ferrara that he gave up his journey and settled down at Arqua, a village not far from Padua, where he died July 18, 1374. He was found dead in his library, bending over a folio volume.

As may be supposed from Petrarch's enthusiasm for the Latin authors, most of his own works were written in that language. It is a generous trait of literary and scholarly, as well as of religious, enthusiasts that they are not content to receive the treasures of art and learning, but feel impelled to impart their own joys to others. Petrarch was not only an eager student, but devoted his life to making known to others the riches and glory of ancient Rome. All this he does in his numerous Latin works. These include, in poetry, bucolics and eclogues, imitated from Vergil; poetic epistles, imitated from Horace; and especially his "Africa," from which he expected immortality, an epic poem on the life of Scipio Africa.n.u.s. Of especial importance in the development of the Renaissance and the Revival of Learning are his prose Latin works. Chief among these we may mention his history of Ill.u.s.trious Men; his moral and religious tractates--The Remedy of Fortune, the Solitary Life; and especially his letters, six hundred in number, written in a Latin style which infinitely surpa.s.sed anything produced till then, and which founded a branch of literature which was most popular throughout all the Renaissance.

For our purpose here, however, we can only discuss in detail Petrarch's Italian poetry--he wrote no Italian prose. It is this which gives him his place in literature as the first great lyric poet of modern times.

We have seen that Italian lyrical poetry began in Sicily, and that, carried thence to Bologna and Tuscany, it formed a new school, which found its highest expression in Dante. Petrarch once more founds a new school of lyrics, which, while still in some respects recalling the writings of his predecessors, is yet in spirit far different from them.

With him poetry is no longer a matter of chivalrous ideals, as with the troubadours, or of symbolism and philosophy, as with Guido Guinicelli and Dante, but the expression of his own genuine feelings. His Laura is not like the Beatrice of the Divine Comedy, a mere abstraction, a personification of virtue and symbol of religion, but is a woman of flesh and blood, beautiful and virtuous, but not ethereal and mystical--a woman, in fact,

"Not too bright or good For human nature's daily food."

In his songs, then, Petrarch describes real things--the beauty of Laura in all its details; her coldness and his suffering; and especially the conflicting feelings which tormented his soul. In his subjectivity, his psychological a.n.a.lysis of feelings, his use of poetry to express his own mental experiences; in his lovely descriptions of nature; and especially in his melancholy, the far-off antic.i.p.ation of the "Weltschmerz,"[19]

Petrarch is indeed the first modern lyrical poet.

He himself confidently expected immortality from his Latin works, which, alas! for the vanity of human expectations, are now forgotten by all except special students. He apparently looked with contempt on his Italian lyrics, yet this was only affectation, for even in his later years he carefully revised them. These songs and sonnets are still unsurpa.s.sed in Italian literature. Many, it is true, are artificial, and on account of puns, ant.i.theses, and conceits are repugnant to modern taste; yet the large number of his best poems are exquisite pictures of womanly beauty, with a charming landscape as a background, all enveloped in an atmosphere of lovely poetry, full of tenderness, pathos, and genuine feeling. Above all, they are written in a style and with a harmony of numbers unknown till then and not surpa.s.sed since.

Petrarch's Italian poetry consists of some 375 sonnets, ballads, and songs (of which the vast majority are sonnets), and in the twelve chapters, or books, of the so-called Triumphs. These are, with but few exceptions, consecrated to the story of his love for a certain woman named Laura, concerning whose actual existence as much contest has been waged as over that of Beatrice. It seems now pretty definitely ascertained that Laura was no mere fancy-picture, but a real being. She was the daughter of Audibert de Noves, and the wife of Ugo de Sade, to whom she bore eleven children. She died April 6, 1348, probably of the pest, which then was raging. Petrarch saw her for the first time April 6, 1327, and for twenty-one years worshiped her from a respectful distance. There is little story or event in all these sonnets.

Petrarch's love is not returned by Laura, he makes no progress in her affections, and his poems are devoted for the most part to descriptions of her beauty, coldness, and indifference, and his own state of wretchedness.

Among the many sonnets descriptive of Laura's beauty we may take the following, in which she is declared to be the most perfect example of Nature's handiwork:

"The stars, the elements, and Heaven have made With blended powers a work beyond compare; All their consenting influence, all their care, To frame one perfect creature lent their aid.

Whence Nature views her loveliness displayed With sun-like radiance sublimely fair; Nor mortal eye can the pure splendor bear: Love, sweetness, in unmeasured grace arrayed.

The very air illumed by her sweet beams Breathes purest excellence; and such delight That all expression far beneath it gleams.

No base desire lives in that heavenly light, Honor alone and virtue!--fancy's dreams Never saw pa.s.sion rise refined by rays so bright."

Capel Lofft.

In another sonnet he tells how he was affected the first time he saw her:

"Sun never rose so beautiful and bright When skies above most clear and cloudless showed, Nor, after rain, the bow of heaven e'er glowed With tints so varied, delicate, and light, As in rare beauty flash'd upon my sight, The day I first took up this am'rous load, That face whose fellow ne'er on earth abode-- Even my praise to paint it seems a slight!

Then saw I Love, who did her fine eyes bend So sweetly, every other face obscure Has from that hour till now appeared to me.

The boy-G.o.d and his bow, I saw them, friend, From whom life since has never been secure, Whom still I madly yearn again to see."

Macgregor.

Yet Laura is not only beautiful, but good; she unites in herself the highest excellencies of virtue as well as of beauty:

"High birth in humble life, reserved yet kind, On youth's gay flower ripe fruits of age and rare, A virtuous heart, therewith a lofty mind, A happy spirit in a pensive air; Her planet, nay, heaven's king, has fitly shrined All gifts and graces in this lady fair, True honor, purest praises, worth refined, Above what rapt dreams of best poets are.

Virtue and Love so rich in her unite, With natural beauty dignified address.

Gestures that still a silent grace express, And in her eyes I know not what strange light, That makes the noonday dark, the dusk night clear, Bitter the sweet, and e'en sad absence dear."

Macgregor.

Petrarch not only gives general descriptions of the beauty of his lady and of its effect, as his predecessors had done, but he gives over and over again details thereof, especially her eyes and hair:

"Say, from what vein did Love procure the gold To make those sunny tresses? From what thorn Stole he the rose, and whence the dew of morn, Bidding them breathe and live in Beauty's mold?

What depth of ocean gave the pearls that told Those gentle accents sweet, though rarely born?