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Petrarch
1304-1374
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| Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca) is buried in Arguà
Petrarca, Italy, Europe. |
Tomb of Petrarch
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Petrarch, who was a poet and a humanist, was born in
Arezzo, the son of a notary. His family were forced to leave
Florence in 1312 (at the same time as
Dante) when the Black Guelfs seized power and they moved
to Avignon in France. Petrarch later studied law at the
universities of Montpellier and Bologna.
In 1327
Petrarch met Laura in a church in Avignon and she became the
inspiration for much of his poetry. The exact identity of
Laura is not known but some say she may have been Laura de
Noves, the wife of Count Hugues de Sade. Petrarch's
Canzoniere (Songbook) subsequently became the template
for all European lyrical poetry.
Petrarch's poetry
was first translated into English by
Sir Thomas Wyatt who had encountered it while on
diplomatic visits to Italy from Henry VIII's court in 1527.
However, it was Petrarch's influence on the use of the
sonnet in English which is perhaps the most significant
development. It was Henry Howard, the
Earl of Surrey who took the original Petrarchan sonnet
and changed it to three quatrains and a final rhyming
couplet - creating the English sonnet which
Shakespeare, Spenser,
Sidney and others would make great
use of. (The Petrarchan sonnet had two quatrains and a
sestet.)
Petrarch was also a student of antiquity -
an interest which he shared with his friend Boccaccio and he
encouraged a revival of interest in Roman texts by
Virgil,
Cicero and Seneca and also arranged for a translation of
Homer.
In 1341 Petrarch was
crowned laureate in Rome. Petrarch spent the final four
years of his life at Arguà Petrarca. He died in Arguà
on 19th July 1374. His house is now a museum.
It was
announced in 2003 that Petrarch's tomb would be reopened to
make a reconstruction of his face (from his skull) to mark
the 700th anniversary of his birth - but when the tomb was
opened DNA tests revealed that the skull was not that of
Petrarch - which led to calls for the return of the
original. |
Those eyes, 'neath which my
passionate rapture rose,
The arms, hands, feet, the
beauty that erewhile
Could my own soul from its own
self beguile,
And in a separate world of
dreams enclose,
The hair's bright tresses, full
of golden glows,
And the soft lightning of the
angelic smile
That changed this earth to some
celestial isle,
Are now but dust, poor dust,
that nothing knows.
And yet I live! Myself I grieve
and scorn,
Left dark without the light I
loved in vain,
Adrift in tempest on a bark
forlorn;
Dead is the source of all my
amorous strain,
Dry is the channel of my
thoughts outworn,
And my sad harp can sound but
notes of pain.
Gli Occhi Di Ch' Io Parlai
(Translated by Thomas Wentworth Higginson)
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