1515 Petrarch on Horoscopes Occult
Humanism Philosophy Miniature P. Incunable
VERY RARE De remediis utriusque
fortunae Venice
Francesco Petrarca (1304 – 1374) was an
Aretine scholar and poet in Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest
humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited for
initiating the 14th-century Renaissance. Petrarch is often called the
"Father of Humanism".
De remediis utriusque fortunae is a
collection of 254 Latin dialogues written by the humanist Francesco Petrarca
(1304-1374), commonly known as Petrarch. The dialogues, completed towards the
end of Petrarch's life, are treasure-chests of wisdom and humour which, despite
the passing of six centuries, have not lost their relevance. The writing is a
bouquet of moral philosophy, set out to show how thought and deed can generate
happiness on the one hand, or sorrow and disillusionment on the other. In a
recurring theme throughout the dialogues, Petrarch advises humility in
prosperity and fortitude in adversity.
Exceedingly rare with none selling worldwide
and no auction records to be found
Main author: Francesco Petrarca
Title: De remediis utriusque fortunae libri duo Francisci
Petrarchae
Published: Venetiis : In aedibus Alexandri Paganini Inclito lauretano
principe, IIII Idus Nouem [10 Nov.], 1515.
Language: Latin
Notes & contents:
·
Complete
collation: clxi-cccxxxv
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Publisher:
Venetiis : In aedibus Alexandri Paganini Inclito lauretano principe, IIII Idus
Nouem [10 Nov.], 1515.
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Francesco Petrarca (Italian pronunciation: [franˈtʃesko
peˈtrarka]; July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch
(/ˈpiːtrɑrk, ˈpɛtrɑrk/), was an Italian scholar and poet in Renaissance Italy,
and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters
is often credited for initiating the 14th-century Renaissance. Petrarch is
often called the "Father of Humanism".[1] In the 16th century, Pietro
Bembo created the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch's works,
as well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio, and, to a lesser extent, Dante
Alighieri.[2] Petrarch would be later endorsed as a model for Italian style by
the Accademia della Crusca. Petrarch's sonnets were admired and imitated
throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model for lyrical poetry.
He is also known for being the first to develop the concept of the "Dark
Ages."[3]
Contents [hide]
1 Biography
1.1 Youth and
early career
1.2 Mount
Ventoux
1.3 Later
years
2 Works
2.1 Laura and
poetry
2.2 Sonnet 227
3 Dante
4 Philosophy
5 Legacy
6 See also
7 Notes
8 References
9 English
translations
10 Further
reading
11 External
links
Biography[edit]
Youth and early career[edit]
Petrarch was born in the Tuscan city of Arezzo in 1304. He
was the son of Ser Petracco and his wife Eletta Canigiani. His given name was
Francesco Petracco. The name was Latinized to Petrarca. Petrarch's younger
brother was born in Incisa in Val d'Arno in 1307. Dante was a friend of his
father.[4]
Petrarch spent his early childhood in the village of Incisa,
near Florence. He spent much of his early life at Avignon and nearby
Carpentras, where his family moved to follow Pope Clement V who moved there in
1309 to begin the Avignon Papacy. He studied law at the University of Montpellier
(1316–20) and Bologna (1320–23) with a lifelong friend and schoolmate called
Guido Sette. Because his father was in the profession of law he insisted that
Petrarch and his brother study law also. Petrarch however was primarily
interested in writing and Latin literature and considered these seven years
wasted. Additionally he proclaimed that through legal manipulation his
guardians robbed him of his small property inheritance in Florence, which only
reinforced his dislike for the legal system. He protested, "I couldn't
face making a merchandise of my mind", as he viewed the legal system as
the art of selling justice.[4]
Petrarch was a prolific letter writer and counted Boccaccio
among his notable friends to whom he wrote often. After the death of their parents,
Petrarch and his brother Gherardo went back to Avignon in 1326, where he worked
in numerous clerical offices. This work gave him much time to devote to his
writing. With his first large scale work, Africa, an epic in Latin about the
great Roman general Scipio Africanus, Petrarch emerged as a European celebrity.
On April 8, 1341, he became the first poet laureate since antiquity and was
crowned by Roman Senatori Giordano Orsini and Orso dell'Anguillara on the holy
grounds of Rome's Capitol.[5][6][7]
He traveled widely in Europe and served as an ambassador and
has been called "the first tourist"[8] because he traveled just for
pleasure,[9] which was the basic reason he climbed Mont Ventoux.[10] During his
travels, he collected crumbling Latin manuscripts and was a prime mover in the
recovery of knowledge from writers of Rome and Greece. He encouraged and
advised Leontius Pilatus's translation of Homer from a manuscript purchased by
Boccaccio, although he was severely critical of the result. Petrarch had acquired
a copy, which he did not entrust to Leontius,[11] but he knew no Greek; Homer,
Petrarch said, "was dumb to him, while he was deaf to Homer".[12] In
1345 he personally discovered a collection of Cicero's letters not previously
known to have existed, the collection ad Atticum.
Disdaining what he believed to be the ignorance of the
centuries preceding the era in which he lived, Petrarch is credited or charged
with creating the concept of a historical "Dark Ages".[3]
Mount Ventoux[edit]
Main article: Ascent of Mont Ventoux
Summit of Mont Ventoux
Petrarch recounts that on April 26, 1336, with his brother
and two servants, he climbed to the top of Mont Ventoux (1,912 meters (6,273
ft)), a feat which he undertook for recreation rather than necessity.[13] The
exploit is described in a celebrated letter addressed to his friend and
confessor, the monk Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro, composed some time after the
fact. In it Petrarch claimed to have been inspired by Philip V of Macedon's
ascent of Mount Haemo and that an aged peasant had told him that nobody had
ascended Ventoux before or after himself, 50 years before, and warned him
against attempting to do so. The nineteenth-century Swiss historian Jacob
Burckhardt noted that Jean Buridan had climbed the same mountain a few years
before, and ascents accomplished during the Middle Ages have been recorded,
including that of Anno II, Archbishop of Cologne.[14][15]
Petrarch portrait by Altichiero
Scholars[16] note that Petrarch's letter[17][18] to Dionigi
displays a strikingly "modern" attitude of aesthetic gratification in
the grandeur of the scenery and is still often cited in books and journals
devoted to the sport of mountaineering. In Petrarch, this attitude is coupled
with an aspiration for a virtuous Christian life, and on reaching the summit,
he took from his pocket a volume by his beloved mentor, Saint Augustine, that
he always carried with him.[19]
For pleasure alone he climbed Mount Ventoux, which rises to
more than six thousand feet, beyond Vaucluse. It was no great feat, of course;
but he was the first recorded Alpinist of modern times, the first to climb a
mountain merely for the delight of looking from its top. (Or almost the first;
for in a high pasture he met an old shepherd, who said that fifty years before
he had attained the summit, and had got nothing from it save toil and
repentance and torn clothing.) Petrarch was dazed and stirred by the view of
the Alps, the mountains around Lyons, the Rhone, the Bay of Marseilles. He took
St. Augustine's Confessions from his pocket and reflected that his climb was
merely an allegory of aspiration towards a better life.[10]
As the book fell open, Petrarch's eyes were immediately
drawn to the following words:
And men go about to wonder at the heights of the mountains,
and the mighty waves of the sea, and the wide sweep of rivers, and the circuit
of the ocean, and the revolution of the stars, but themselves they consider
not.[17]
Petrarch's response was to turn from the outer world of
nature to the inner world of "soul":
I closed the book, angry with myself that I should still be
admiring earthly things who might long ago have learned from even the pagan
philosophers that nothing is wonderful but the soul, which, when great itself,
finds nothing great outside itself. Then, in truth, I was satisfied that I had
seen enough of the mountain; I turned my inward eye upon myself, and from that
time not a syllable fell from my lips until we reached the bottom again. [...]
[W]e look about us for what is to be found only within. [...] How many times,
think you, did I turn back that day, to glance at the summit of the mountain
which seemed scarcely a cubit high compared with the range of human
contemplation [...][17]
James Hillman argues that this rediscovery of the inner
world is the real significance of the Ventoux event.[20] The Renaissance begins
not with the ascent of Mont Ventoux but with the subsequent descent—the
"return [...] to the valley of soul", as Hillman puts it. Arguing
against such a singular and hyperbolic periodization, Paul James suggests a
different reading:
In the alternative argument that I want to make, these
emotional responses, marked by the changing senses of space and time in
Petrarch’s writing, suggest a person caught in unsettled tension between two different
but contemporaneous ontological formations: the traditional and the modern.[21]
Later years[edit]
Petrarch spent the later part of his life journeying through
northern Italy as an international scholar and poet-diplomat. His career in the
Church did not allow him to marry, but he is believed to have fathered two
children by a woman or women unknown to posterity. A son, Giovanni, was born in
1337, and a daughter, Francesca, was born in 1343. Both he later
legitimized.[22]
Petrarch's Arquà house near Padua where he retired to spend
his last years
Giovanni died of the plague in 1361. In the same year
Petrarch was named canon in Monselice near Padua. Francesca married
Francescuolo da Brossano (who was later named executor of Petrarch's will) that
same year. In 1362, shortly after the birth of a daughter, Eletta (the same
name as Petrarch's mother), they joined Petrarch in Venice to flee the plague
then ravaging parts of Europe. A second grandchild, Francesco, was born in
1366, but died before his second birthday. Francesca and her family lived with
Petrarch in Venice for five years from 1362 to 1367 at Palazzo Molina; although
Petrarch continued to travel in those years. Between 1361 and 1369 the younger
Boccaccio paid the older Petrarch two visits. The first was in Venice, the
second was in Padua.
About 1368 Petrarch and his daughter Francesca (with her
family) moved to the small town of Arquà in the Euganean Hills near Padua,
where he passed his remaining years in religious contemplation. He died in his
house in Arquà on July 19, 1374 – one day short of his seventieth birthday. The
house hosts now a permanent exhibition of Petrarchian works and curiosities;
among others you find the famous tomb of Petrarch's beloved cat who was
embalmed. On the marble slab there is a Latin inscription written by Antonio
Quarenghi:
Etruscus gemino vates ardebat amore:
Maximus ignis ego; Laura secundus erat.
Quid rides? divinæ illam si gratia formæ,
Me dignam eximio fecit amante fides.
Si numeros geniumque sacris dedit illa libellis
Causa ego ne sævis muribus esca forent.
Arcebam sacro vivens a limine mures,
Ne domini exitio scripta diserta forent;
Incutio trepidis eadem defuncta pavorem,
Et viget exanimi in corpore prisca fides.[23]
Petrarch's will (dated April 4, 1370) leaves 50 florins to
Boccaccio "to buy a warm winter dressing gown"; various legacies (a
horse, a silver cup, a lute, a Madonna) to his brother and his friends; his
house in Vaucluse to its caretaker; for his soul, and for the poor; and the
bulk of his estate to his son-in-law, Francescuolo da Brossano, who is to give
half of it to "the person to whom, as he knows, I wish it to go";
presumably his daughter, Francesca, Brossano's wife. The will mentions neither
the property in Arquà nor his library; Petrarch's library of notable
manuscripts was already promised to Venice, in exchange for the Palazzo Molina.
This arrangement was probably cancelled when he moved to Padua, the enemy of
Venice, in 1368. The library was seized by the lords of Padua, and his books and
manuscripts are now widely scattered over Europe.[24] Nevertheless, the
Biblioteca Marciana traditionally claimed this bequest as its founding,
although it was in fact founded by Cardinal Bessarion in 1468.[25]
Works[edit]
Petrarch's Virgil (title page) (c. 1336)
Illuminated manuscript by Simone Martini, 29 x 20 cm
Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan.
Petrarch is best known for his Italian poetry, notably the
Canzoniere ("Songbook") and the Trionfi ("Triumphs").
However, Petrarch was an enthusiastic Latin scholar and did most of his writing
in this language. His Latin writings include scholarly works, introspective
essays, letters, and more poetry. Among them are Secretum ("My Secret
Book"), an intensely personal, guilt-ridden imaginary dialogue with
Augustine of Hippo; De Viris Illustribus ("On Famous Men"), a series
of moral biographies; Rerum Memorandarum Libri, an incomplete treatise on the
cardinal virtues; De Otio Religiosorum ("On Religious Leisure")[26]
and De Vita Solitaria ("On the Solitary Life"), which praise the
contemplative life; De Remediis Utriusque Fortunae ("Remedies for Fortune
Fair and Foul"), a self-help book which remained popular for hundreds of
years; Itinerarium ("Petrarch's Guide to the Holy Land"); invectives
against opponents such as doctors, scholastics, and the French; the Carmen
Bucolicum, a collection of 12 pastoral poems; and the unfinished epic Africa.
He translated seven psalms, a collection known as the Penitential Psalms.[27]
Petrarch revived the work and letters of the ancient Roman
Senator Marcus Tullius Cicero
Petrarch also published many volumes of his letters,
including a few written to his long-dead friends from history such as Cicero
and Virgil. Cicero, Virgil, and Seneca were his literary models. Most of his
Latin writings are difficult to find today, but several of his works are
available in English translations. Several of his Latin works are scheduled to
appear in the Harvard University Press series I Tatti.[28] It is difficult to
assign any precise dates to his writings because he tended to revise them
throughout his life.
Petrarch collected his letters into two major sets of books
called Epistolae familiares ("Letters on Familiar Matters") and
Seniles ("Letters of Old Age"), both of which are available in English
translation.[29] The plan for his letters was suggested to him by knowledge of
Cicero's letters. These were published "without names" to protect the
recipients, all of whom had close relationships to Petrarch. The recipients of
these letters included Philippe de Cabassoles, bishop of Cavaillon;
Ildebrandino Conti, bishop of Padua; Cola di Rienzo, tribune of Rome; Francesco
Nelli, priest of the Prior of the Church of the Holy Apostles in Florence; and
Niccolò di Capoccia, a cardinal and priest of Saint Vitalis. His "Letter
to Posterity" (the last letter in Seniles)[30] gives an autobiography and
a synopsis of his philosophy in life. It was originally written in Latin and
was completed in 1371 or 1372 - the first such autobiography in a thousand years
(since Saint Augustine).[31][32]
While Petrarch's poetry was set to music frequently after
his death, especially by Italian madrigal composers of the Renaissance in the
16th century, only one musical setting composed during Petrarch's lifetime
survives. This is Non al suo amante by Jacopo da Bologna, written around 1350.
Laura and poetry[edit]
On April 6, 1327,[33] after Petrarch gave up his vocation as
a priest, the sight of a woman called "Laura" in the church of
Sainte-Claire d'Avignon awoke in him a lasting passion, celebrated in the Rime
sparse ("Scattered rhymes"). Later, Renaissance poets who copied
Petrarch's style named this collection of 366 poems Il Canzoniere ("Song
Book"). Laura may have been Laura de Noves, the wife of Count Hugues de
Sade (an ancestor of the Marquis de Sade). There is little definite information
in Petrarch's work concerning Laura, except that she is lovely to look at,
fair-haired, with a modest, dignified bearing. Laura and Petrarch had little or
no personal contact. According to his "Secretum", she refused him for
the very proper reason that she was already married to another man. He
channeled his feelings into love poems that were exclamatory rather than
persuasive, and wrote prose that showed his contempt for men who pursue women.
Upon her death in 1348, the poet found that his grief was as difficult to live
with as was his former despair. Later in his "Letter to Posterity",
Petrarch wrote: "In my younger days I struggled constantly with an
overwhelming but pure love affair – my only one, and I would have struggled
with it longer had not premature death, bitter but salutary for me,
extinguished the cooling flames. I certainly wish I could say that I have
always been entirely free from desires of the flesh, but I would be lying if I did".
Laura de Noves
While it is possible she was an idealized or pseudonymous
character – particularly since the name "Laura" has a linguistic
connection to the poetic "laurels" Petrarch coveted – Petrarch
himself always denied it. His frequent use of l'aura is also remarkable: for
example, the line "Erano i capei d'oro a l'aura sparsi" may both mean
"her hair was all over Laura's body", and "the wind
("l'aura") blew through her hair". There is psychological realism
in the description of Laura, although Petrarch draws heavily on
conventionalised descriptions of love and lovers from troubadour songs and
other literature of courtly love. Her presence causes him unspeakable joy, but
his unrequited love creates unendurable desires, inner conflicts between the ardent
lover and the mystic Christian, making it impossible to reconcile the two.
Petrarch's quest for love leads to hopelessness and irreconcilable anguish, as
he expresses in the series of paradoxes in Rima 134 "Pace non trovo, et
non ò da far guerra;/e temo, et spero; et ardo, et son un ghiaccio":
"I find no peace, and yet I make no war:/and fear, and hope: and burn, and
I am ice".[34]
Laura is unreachable – the few physical descriptions are
vague, almost impalpable as the love he pines for, and such is perhaps the
power of his verse, which lives off the melodies it evokes against the fading,
diaphanous image that is no more consistent than a ghost. Francesco De Sanctis
remarks much the same thing in his Storia della letteratura italiana, and
contemporary critics agree on the powerful music of his verse. Perhaps the poet
was inspired by a famous singer he met in Veneto around 1350's.[35] Gianfranco
Contini, in a famous essay on Petrarch's language ("Preliminari sulla
lingua del Petrarca". Petrarca, Canzoniere. Turin, Einaudi, 1964) has
spoken of linguistic indeterminacy – Petrarch never rises above the "bel
pié" (her lovely foot): Laura is too holy to be painted; she is an
awe-inspiring goddess. Sensuality and passion are suggested rather by the
rhythm and music that shape the vague contours of the lady.
Sonnet 227[edit]
Original Italian[36] English
translation by A. S. Kline[37]
Aura che quelle chiome bionde et crespe
cercondi et movi, et se’ mossa da loro,
soavemente, et spargi quel dolce oro,
et poi ’l raccogli, e ’n bei nodi il rincrespe,
tu stai nelli occhi ond’amorose vespe
mi pungon sí, che ’nfin qua il sento et ploro,
et vacillando cerco il mio thesoro,
come animal che spesso adombre e ’ncespe:
ch’or me ’l par ritrovar, et or m’accorgo
ch’i’ ne son lunge, or mi sollievo or caggio,
ch’or quel ch’i’ bramo, or quel ch’è vero scorgo.
Aër felice, col bel vivo raggio
rimanti; et tu corrente et chiaro gorgo,
ché non poss’io cangiar teco vïaggio?
Breeze, blowing that blonde curling hair,
stirring it, and being softly stirred in turn,
scattering that sweet gold about, then
gathering it, in a lovely knot of curls again,
you linger around bright eyes whose loving sting
pierces me so, till I feel it and weep,
and I wander searching for my treasure,
like a creature that often shies and kicks:
now I seem to find her, now I realise
she’s far away, now I’m comforted, now despair,
now longing for her, now truly seeing her.
Happy air, remain here with your
living rays: and you, clear running stream,
why can’t I exchange my path for yours?