Clement VI. on his assumption of the triple crown; and joined with him in this embassy was Niccola Gabrino, better known by his historic name of Cola di Rienzi. About this time Petrarca's brother Gherardo abandoned the world for a monastic life; being moved thereto, it is said, by the death of a woman whom he loved, and whose loss is commemorated by Francesco in the sonnet commencing—
" La bella donna che cotanto amavi."
(The beautiful lady whom thou lovedst so much.)
In 1343 Pope Clement VI. sent Petrarca on a mission to Queen Giovanna, who had mounted the Neapolitan throne on the death of her uncle King Robert, and under whose youthful sway the court presented a widely altered aspect. The great Roman revolution effected by Rienzi in 1347 was hailed by Petrarca as the new birth of Italian liberty; and his letters and his verses were not spared to incite the tribune to further deeds. Notice the canzone beginning—
" Spirto gentil che quelle membra reggi"—
(Choice spirit who rulest those members)—
which is very generally explained as addressed to Rienzi, though by some appropriated to Stefano Colonna. In 1348 a fearful pestilence ravaged Europe, and amongst its victims was Laura—to other eyes less beautiful than when, twenty-one years before, precisely to the month, day, and hour, she had captivated the heart of her Tuscan lover; but ever regarded by him as invested with the pristine charm. A note in his own handwriting records his bitter sorrow at her death, of which the news reached him in Verona; and for some days afterwards he is described as scarcely breaking silence, or eating except at the importunity of friends. The second part of the Canzoniere, concluding with six short poems called "I Trionfi" (The Triumphs), from which Titian is said to have painted four well-known pictures, was composed after her death. In the following July Cardinal Giovanni Colonna died; having outlived by some years his brother Giacomo, bishop of Lombes. In 1350 Petrarca addressed a remarkable letter to the Emperor Charles IV., exhorting him to come and succour Italy; and this being the great year of jubilee, towards the close of summer, after the manner of pious pilgrims Francesco repaired to Rome, taking Florence in his way; and thus for the first time beholding his mother city. In 1351 Florence, ashamed of the long alienation of this her celebrated son whom other states delighted to honour, appropriated a sum of money to redeem his confiscated property; and charged his friend and fellow-citizen, Giovanni Boccaccio, with a letter to Petrarca, then resident in Padua, informing him of what had been done, and urging him to honour by his presence the infant Florentine university—a request finally not complied with. In this same year Petrarca directed a highly complimentary epistle to Andrea Dandolo, doge of Venice, exhorting him to make peace with Genoa; and received in answer a letter which lauded his eloquence and learning, but declined to adopt his counsel. A corresponding document subsequently addressed by the poet to the doge of Genoa, proved equally without result. In 1354 Petrarca, sent by Visconti of Milan to Venice, once more treated of peace; but though honourably received, was again unsuccessful. The long list of Petrarcas friends, patrons, and admirers includes popes and princes, warriors and men of letters; and various were the missions, diplomatic or otherwise honourable, which he undertook, visiting divers foreign countries and courts, and possibly the English shores; at home amongst great men, but ever affable towards those of lower degree. At the marriage of Violante Visconti with Prince Lionel of England, Petrarca sat at table with the august bride and bridegroom and their most distinguished guests. In 1370 he retired to Arquà, a village in the Luganean hills, where alone of all his numerous residences the house he occupied is shown to the curious; and here occurred that colloquy with certain disciples of Averroes which led to their stigmatizing Petrarca as a worthy man but illiterate; and to his confessing his own ignorance, but maintaining theirs, in his book "De sui ipsius et multorum aliorum Ignorantia." His last public appearance occurred in 1373, when in the suite of Francesco Novello da Carrara he harangued the Venetian senate. On the first day, awed by his august auditory, and oppressed by old age and fatigue, he stood silent; but on the next performed his assigned part with great applause. Petrarca left an illegitimate daughter, Francesca, elsewhere called Tullia, married to Francesco da Brossano of Milan. To this couple he bequeathed his property, after leaving legacies to various friends and domestics; and a gift of books which he had made to Venice in 1362 formed the nucleus of the world-renowned library of St. Mark. Boccaccio, a warm admirer of Petrarca, describes him as tall and handsome, round-faced, grave and mild of aspect, with eyes at once gladsome and penetrating, and a merry but not undignified laugh; placid and joyous of speech, though seldom speaking except in answer, and then weightily; in dress conformable to custom; in music a lover not merely of the human voice and instrumentation, but also of the song of birds; patient, or if angered beyond reason, soon recollecting himself; truthful, very faithful; in religion eminently christian, though harassed (as Petrarca himself confesses) by temptations of the flesh. Elsewhere we read of his systematic fasts, his masses put up for the soul of Laura, his social habits, contempt of riches, and pious practices. His funeral was attended by Francesco da Carrara, with the bishop and chapter of Parma, and a throng of nobles and clergy, doctors and students; the body, laid on a bier covered with cloth of gold and overshadowed by a golden canopy lined with ermine, was carried to the church of Arquà, and there deposited in a ladye chapel built by Petrarca; and Francesco da Brossano raised to his memory a monument, supported by four columns, and approached by two steps, all alike of red marble. Besides the works already particularized in the course of this article, Petrarca has left many others, including several on biographical, political, philosophical, or religious themes; a Syrian Itinerary, composed, as has been suggested, for the use of Giovanni di Mandello, sometime podestà of Piacenza; Epistles, both in prose and in verse; and certain Latin Eclogues or Bucolics, avowedly allegorical. The question remains—Who was Laura? and is answered by the Abbé de Sade: She was the daughter of Audebert de Noves, syndic of Avignon, and the wife of Hugh, son of Paul de Sade; and was, in fact, my own ancestress, as family documents prove. This assertion has been endorsed by common opinion. Yet various writers, both prior and posterior to the abbe, have voted for some different Laura; and, of course, have found reasons to allege in their own favour. Amongst these recusants is Lord Woodhouselee, in his Historical and Critical Essay on the Life and Character of Petrarque, Edinburgh, 1812. Modern students have observed with astonishment that the elder biographers of Petrarca give no adequate account of this lady, whom he himself depicts as altering the tenor of his life. Boccaccio, indeed, the contemporary of Petrarca, in one place where he mentions Laura, explains her as a symbol of the laurel crown. Even in Petrarca's own record of his connection with her, apparent irreconcilable discrepancies have been noted, and special stress has been laid on the fact that in the year 1327 the 6th of April was indeed Monday in Holy Week; but certainly not Good Friday, in spite of Petrarca's distinct statement that so it was. To those who still prefer a flesh and blood Laura to a mysterious impersonation, it may be interesting to know that a pamphlet published in 1821 tells how in the Casa Peruzzi at Florence was preserved the alleged veritable effigy of Laura, sculptured by the painter Simone Memmi, and carried from place to place by the poet-lover in his frequent wanderings. On the back of the marble is inscribed the following quatrain attributed to Petrarca:—
" Splendida luce in cui chiaro si vede
Quel bel che può mostrar nel mondo Amore,
O vero exemplo del Sopran Valore
E d'ogni meraviglia intiera fede."—C. G. R.
PETRE, Edward, an English jesuit and clerk of the closet to King James II., was descended from the family of Lord Petre. He supported Sunderland in his intrigues against Rochester, and persuaded the king, over whom he exercised a pernicious influence, to make Sunderland president of the council (1686). Petre was made superintendent of the royal chapel, was lodged in the apartment at Whitehall which the king had occupied when duke of York, and was named in 1687 of the privy council. He hoped through the king's influence to obtain a cardinal's ha', and would probably have been made archbishop of York; but the pope disregarded James's solicitation, refused the dispensation required by a jesuit, and showed no intention of raising Petre to the cardinalate. On the landing of the prince of Orange, Petre opposed the departure of the king from Westminster; but as his life had been threatened by the populace, his advice was thought to be interested and was disregarded.—R. H.
PETRE, Sir William, was born at Tor-Newton in Devonshire, which had been the seat of his family. He was educated
