[Born in Tuscany, 1304. Died at Argua, near Padua, 1374. Aged 70.]
The crown around the brow of Petrarch has many gems. He is poet,
diplomatist, scholar, and restorer of ancient letters. To the world, he
is the great Italian sonnetteer. This extremely artificial metrical
scheme, which seems, however, singularly congenial to his native speech,
afforded him the temptation, in the means, to write incessant effusions
on one love, really or ideally entertained. He was an ecclesiastic under
a law of celibacy. Thus separated from the object of his presumed
affections, he allied his soul to hers in verse. His love-strains are
studies, without number, of the passion, in its endlessly varying moods
and moments--half of them wreaths laid at the feet of the living
Laura--half, strewings on her untimely tomb. The flowers, disclosed by
the rapidly advancing Spring of the language, breathe the freshness,
sweetness, and innocent grace of the season. Ever since, every son of
song in Italy strikes this lute of a few chords, but Petrarch remains
its Apollo.
[By Carlo Finelli.]