Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) was an Italian poet of the Proto-Renaissance.

Childhood and youth

Francesco was born on July 20, 1304 in the city of Arezzo, located near Florence in the Italian region of Tuscany.

His father, Pietro di ser Parenzo dell Incesi, nicknamed Petracco, lived before that in Florence, worked as a lawyer. By political convictions, he belonged to the "white" party, for which he was expelled from the city along with the thinker and theologian Dante. Pietro and his wife wandered around the Tuscan cities for a long time. During the endless wanderings, they had a son, and when Francesco was already nine years old, the parents reached France and finally settled in the southeastern commune of Avignon.

Here, in Avignon, the boy went to school, where he learned Latin and was especially carried away by ancient Roman literature, worked hard to study the writings of Cicero. By this time, his first poetic samples belong, the young lyricist gradually began to develop his own style. During his studies, Francesco decided to change his surname from Parenzo to Petrarch, which became famous.

In 1319 he graduated from school. The father wished his son to continue the dynasty of lawyers and study law. The young man went to study in the large French city of Montpellier. From there he returned to his homeland - to Italy, where he continued to receive education at the oldest European educational institution - the University of Bologna.

church order

In 1326, Father Francesco died. Now the young man was able to admit to himself that he was not at all interested in jurisprudence, he studied this science exclusively at the insistence of his father. He was more interested in literature, he read the works of classical writers.

After graduating from the university, Petrarch did not engage in legal practice. But he had to exist for something, since after the death of his father he received no inheritance, except for the manuscripts of Virgil's writings. The young man returned to Avignon (here the residence of the popes was in French captivity) and took holy orders. Having received a junior church rank, he settled at the papal court. Junior ranks had the right to enjoy the advantages of dignity, while not performing church duties.

Laura

On April 6, 1327, an event occurred that changed the life of Francesco. He remembered this sunny April day until his last hour. In the small church of Saint Clare, located on the outskirts of Avignon, there was a service (it was just Good Friday). He saw a young woman, Laura de Noves.

Francesco is a young, but already quite famous and recognized poet at the papal court. Laura was three years older than him (she was 26, he was 23), married, by that time she had given birth to her husband several children (she had eleven sons and daughters in total). Her blond hair and huge eyes, glowing with kindness, fascinated Petrarch. It seemed to him that Laura embodies absolute femininity and spiritual purity.

Francesco loved Laura with all his heart. This woman became his muse, inspiration, he dedicated all his poems to her. Miraculously, he described the moment when he first saw her eyes. For the poet, nothing could change the attitude towards this woman: neither the figure spoiled from numerous births, nor the hair that turned gray and lost its former beauty, nor the deep wrinkles that distorted the beautiful face. He loved his Laura and such, who had lost her beauty from worries and age. She still remained an unfulfilled dream for the poet, because love was unrequited.

Many times he saw her at church services, met her on the streets of Avignon when she walked arm in arm with her husband. Francesco stopped at these moments and could not take his eyes off Laura. In all the years he had known her, they had never spoken a single word. But every time he froze at the sight of his beloved woman, she gave him a gentle and warm look. And then he raced home. The inspired poet worked all night without going to bed. Poems flowed from Petrarch like a raging river.

mature years

While studying at the university, Francesco had a friend Giacomo Colonna, who belonged to a powerful and ancient Italian family, which played a significant role in the history of medieval Rome. Petrarch became very close to this family clan, they later helped him in advancing his literary career.

In 1331 Giacomo invited Petrarch to Bologna. The poet came by invitation and was hired as a secretary to Giacomo's brother, Cardinal Giovanni Colonna. This departure from Avignon, rather, was associated with an unrequited love for Laura. The poet was tormented by the fact that he had the opportunity only occasionally to see his beloved, but he could not speak to her or touch her.

Cardinal Giovanni Colonna treated Francesco very well, he saw in him more of a son than a servant. The poet lived quietly in Bologna and created. He began to study the classical literature of Rome and the works of the fathers of Christianity. Petrarch traveled for a long time.

In 1335, Francesco moved to the south of France and settled in a secluded place in Vaucluse. Here he wrote his poetic works, the main inspiration of which was still Laura.

Mount Ventoux (1912 m above sea level) is located near the town of Vaucluse. The first conqueror of this peak was Petrarch with his brother, this event took place on April 26, 1336. There is unspecified information that the French philosopher Jean Buridan had already visited the summit before that day. However, the ascent of Petrarch was officially recorded.

Literary works

Francesco's lyrical works were very popular, such literary fame, in addition to the patronage of Cardinal Colonna, allowed the poet to collect a certain amount of money and in 1337 acquire a house on the Sorgue River. Here, at the source of the river, Vaucluse was located - the Secluded Valley. Petrarch adored this place. In the sea of ​​worldly storms, his small house in this quiet place served as a pier for the poet, where he enjoyed the opportunity to be alone and roam the natural expanses. He was hiding here from the hustle and bustle of the cities, which tired the creative nature.

Francesco got up very early and went out to contemplate the rural valleys: green lawns, coastal reeds, rocky cliffs. He loved to go into the forests, for which the locals gave him the nickname Sylvan in honor of the mythical forest character. Petrarch not only led a similar lifestyle, but also looked like Sylvanus in clothes. The poet walked around in simple peasant attire - a coarse woolen cloak with a hood. He ate modestly: fish caught in Sorga and fried on a spit, bread and nuts.

His poetic works were judged according to their merit, and at the same time three cities invited Francesco to be crowned with a laurel wreath - Paris, Rome and Naples.

He arrived in Rome, where on April 8, 1341, on the feast of Easter, the poet was crowned with a laurel wreath on the Capitoline Hill. Europe recognized his unsurpassed poetic gift and deep knowledge of ancient literature. The birth of modern poetry began with Petrarch, and his "Book of Songs" is recognized as a model of literary creativity of the highest standard. And this day, April 8, 1341, many researchers of the literary heritage call the beginning of the Renaissance.

The best works of Petrarch that have come down to our times:

  • an epic poem about Scipio who defeated Hannibal - "Africa";
  • the book “On Glorious Men”, it collected biographies of prominent ancient personalities;
  • the book-confession "My Secret", it is built in the form of dialogues between Petrarch and St. Augustine before the court of Truth;
  • treatise "On Memorable Events";
  • "Penitential Psalms";
  • the poem "The Triumph of Love";
  • the poem "The Triumph of Chastity";
  • a collection of poems "Without an address";
  • "Bucolic Songs";
  • prose treatises "On a solitary life" and "On monastic leisure."

After the presentation of the wreath, Petrarch spent about a year in Rome, where he lived at the court of the Parma tyrant Azzo di Correggio. In the spring of 1342 the poet returned to Vaucluse.

Death of Laura

The beloved of the great poet died on the same day when he first saw her, April 6. It was 1348, the plague was raging in Europe. No one has ever been able to find out if Laura was happy in her marriage. Did she guess about the ardent love of the poet, who did not dare to tell her about his feelings?

Petrarch experienced the death of Laura painfully and for a long time. At night, he sat in a closed room and, by dim candlelight, sang his beautiful muse in sonnets. They were written:

  • "Poems on the Death of Donna Laura";
  • "Triumph of Glory";
  • "Triumph of Death"

After her death, Francesco lived for another 26 years, and all this time he did not stop loving Laura as reverently and enthusiastically. Over the years, he dedicated about four hundred poems to her, which were later collected in Petrarch's most famous work, the Book of Songs.

Last years of life and death

Francesco dreamed of resurrecting the greatness of ancient Rome. He became interested in the adventurous politics of Cola di Rienzi and began preaching about the restoration of the Roman Republic. Thus spoiled his relationship with Cardinal Colonna and left France.

The poet made a long (almost four-year) trip to Italy, during which he made many acquaintances. Among his new friends was the Italian lyricist and writer Giovanni Boccaccio.

Petrarch was offered a chair in Florence, but he refused. Francesco settled at the court of the aristocratic Visconti family in Milan. He carried out several diplomatic missions, and in 1361 he left Milan. The poet wanted to move to Avignon or Prague, but these attempts were unsuccessful, and he stayed in Venice with his illegitimate daughter.

Despite his mad platonic love, Petrarch had many passionate physical liaisons with women. Some of them had illegitimate children from the poet. In 1337 his son Giovanni was born, and in 1343 his favorite daughter Francesca was born. She looked after her father until his death.

The last years of the poet were spent in the small Italian town of Padua. He was patronized by the local ruler Francesco da Carrara. Petrarch had his own house, where he lived quietly with his beloved daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren. The only thing that marred his old age was bouts of fever.
Petrarch died on July 19, 1374, only one day left to live until his 70th birthday. He was discovered in the morning, dead at his desk, pen in hand. Probably, true poets die in this way: deducing their last lines on paper to their descendants.

In honor of the great Italian Petrarch, a crater was named on the planet Mercury, and an asteroid was named after his only and unfulfilled dream - Laura, which was discovered in 1901 by the German astronomer Max Wolf.

Among the works of Petrarch are treatises, sonnets, canzones, sextines, ballads, madrigals in Latin and Italian: "Canzoniere" ("Book of Songs", Canzoniere, 1327-1374; consists of 2 parts, "On the Life of Madonna Laura" and "On the death of the Madonna Laura ", containing 366 poems in Italian: 317 sonnets, 29 canzones, 9 sextin, 7 ballads and 4 madrigals; in the latest edition of 1373, the collection is entitled Rerum vulgarium fragmenta - "Fragments in the vernacular"), "Africa" ​​(Africa , 1339-1342; epic poem in Latin about the 2nd Punic War), "My secret, or the Book of conversations about contempt for the world" ("De coutemptu mundi" or "De secreto conflictu curarum suarum", 1342 - 1343; autobiography in the form of a dialogue between Petrarch and Blessed Augustine - a philosophical treatise in Latin), "The Triumph of Love" (Triumphus Cupidinis, 1342 - 1343; didactic poem), "The Triumph of Chastity" (Triumphus Pudicitie, 1342 - 1343; didactic poem), "Bukoliki" (Basolicum carmen in XII aeglogas distinctum, 1346-1357; pastoral e eclogues of allegorical content), "On a solitary life" (De vita solitaria, 1346; treatise), "On monastic leisure" (De otio religioso, 1347; treatise), "The Triumph of Death" (Triumphus Mortis, 1350; poem), "The Triumph of Glory" (Triumphus Fame, 1350; poem), "Invectives against doctors" ( Invectiva contro medicum, 1351 - 1353), "On the means against any fortune" (De remediis ultriusque fortunae, 1353 - 1354; more than 250 dialogues), "Elderly letters" (Seniles, 1361 - 1374; 125 letters divided into 17 books) , "Triumphs" (1373; the final edition included six successive "triumphs": Love, Chastity, Death, Glory, Time and Eternity), "Letter to posterity" (Epistola ad posteros, 1374; unfinished autobiography in the form of a letter to posterity) ; treatises on ethical issues: "De remediis utriusque fortunae", "De vita solitaria", "De otio religioso", "De vera sapientia"; "Letters without an address" (Epistolae sine titulo); "De rebus memorandis libri IV" (a collection of anecdotes and sayings borrowed from Latin authors and modern times, arranged under headings); "Vitae virorum illustrium" (biographies of famous Romans); letters ("Epistolae de rebus fami iaribus et variae libri XXV", "Epistolae seniles libri XVII"); "The Way to Syria" (Itinerarium syriacum, a guide to the Holy Land), "Philologia" (Filologia, comedy lost) (Petrarca, Francesco) (1304-1374) Italian poet, recognized literary arbiter of his time and forerunner of the European humanist movement.
Born July 20, 1304 in Arezzo, where his father, a Florentine notary, fled in connection with political unrest. Seven months later, Francesco's mother took Francesco to Anchisa, where they remained until 1311. At the beginning of 1312, the whole family moved to Avignon (France). After four years of studying with a private teacher, Francesco was sent to law school in Montpellier. In 1320, together with his brother, he went to Bologna to continue the study of jurisprudence. In April 1326, after the death of their father, both brothers returned to Avignon. By that time, Petrarch had already shown an undoubted inclination towards literary pursuits.
In 1327, on Good Friday, in an Avignon church, he met and fell in love with a girl named Laura - nothing more is known about her. It was she who inspired Petrarch to write his best poems.
To make a living, Petrarch decided to take the priesthood. He was ordained, but hardly ever officiated. In 1330 he became a chaplain to Cardinal Giovanni Colonna, and in 1335 he received his first benefice.
In 1337 Petrarch purchased a small estate in Vaucluse, a valley near Avignon. There he began two works in Latin - the epic poem Africa (Africa) about the winner Hannibal Scipio the African and the book On Glorious Men (De viris illustribus) - a collection of biographies of prominent people of antiquity. Then he began to write lyrical poems in Italian, poems and letters in Latin, set about the comedy Philology (Filologia), now lost. By 1340, Petrarch's literary activity, his connections with the papal court, and long-distance travels had earned him European fame. On April 8, 1341, by decision of the Roman Senate, he was crowned with the laurels of the poet laureate.
1342-1343 Petrarch spent in Vaucluse, where he continued to work on the epic poem and biographies, and also, following the model of the Confession of St. Augustine, wrote the confession book My Secret (Secretum Meum) in the form of three dialogues between St. Augustine and Petrarch before the Court of Truth. At the same time, the Penitential Psalms (Psalmi poenitentialis) were written or begun; On memorable events (Rerum memorandum libri) - a treatise on the basic virtues in the form of a collection of anecdotes and biographies; the didactic poems Triumph of Love (Triumphus Cupidinis) and Triumph of Chastity (Triumphus Pudicitie), written in tercins; and the first edition of a book of lyrical poems in Italian - Canzoniere.
By the end of 1343, Petrarch went to Parma, where he stayed until the beginning of 1345. In Parma, he continued to work on Africa and the treatise On Memorable Events. He did not finish both works and, it seems, never returned to them. At the end of 1345 Petrarch again came to Vaucluse. In the summer of 1347, he enthusiastically met the uprising raised in Rome by Cola di Rienzo (later suppressed). During this period, he wrote eight of the twelve allegorical eclogues of Bucolic songs (Bucolicum carmen, 1346-1357), two prose treatises: On a solitary life (De vita solitaria, 1346) and On monastic leisure (De otio religioso, 1347) - on the beneficial influence secluded life and idleness on the creative mind, and also set about the second edition of Canzoniere.
Perhaps it was sympathy for the uprising of Cola di Rienzo that prompted Petrarch to make a trip to Italy in 1347. However, his desire to join the rebellion in Rome faded as soon as he learned of Cola's atrocities. He stopped again in Parma. In 1348, a plague claimed the lives of Cardinal Colonna and Laura. In 1350 Petrarch met and became friends with Giovanni Boccaccio and Francesco Nelli. During his stay in Italy, he wrote four more eclogues and the poem Triumph of Death (Triumphus Mortis), proceeded to the poem Triumph of Glory (Triumphus Fame), and also began Poetic Epistles (Epistolae metricae) and letters in prose.
The years 1351-1353 Petrarch spent mainly in Vaucluse, paying special attention to public life, especially the state of affairs at the papal court. At the same time, he wrote the Invectiva contro medicum (Invectiva contro medicum), criticizing the methods of the pope's physicians. Most of the letters written during this period and criticizing the situation in Avignon were later collected in the book Without an address (Liber sine nomine).
In 1353 Petrarch, at the invitation of the Archbishop of Milan, Giovanni Visconti, settled in Milan, where he acted as secretary, orator and emissary. At the same time he completed Bucolic Songs and the collection Without an Address; began a lengthy essay On the means against any fortune (De remediis ultriusque fortunae), which eventually included more than 250 dialogues on how to cope with luck and failure; wrote the Way to Syria (Itinerarium syriacum) - a guide for pilgrims to the Holy Land. In 1361, Petrarch left Milan to escape the plague that was raging there. He spent a year in Padua, at the invitation of the Carrara family, where he finished work on the collection Poetic Epistles, as well as the collection Letters on Private Matters (Familiarum rerum libri XXIV), which included 350 letters in Latin. At the same time, Petrarch began another collection, Seniles, which eventually included 125 letters written between 1361 and 1374 and divided into 17 books. In 1362 Petrarch, still fleeing the plague, fled to Venice. In 1366 a group of young followers of Aristotle attacked Petrarch. He responded with a caustic invective On the ignorance of one's own and of others (De sui ipsius et multorum ignorantia). In 1370 Petrarch bought a modest villa in Arqua, on the Euganean Hills. In 1372 hostilities between Padua and Venice forced him to take refuge for a time in Padua. After the defeat of Padua, he, together with its ruler, went to Venice to conduct peace negotiations. In the last seven years of his life, Petraraka continued to improve Canzoniere (in the last edition of 1373, the collection was titled in Latin Rerum vulgarium fragmenta - Fragments in the vernacular) and worked on the Triumphs, which in the final edition included six successive "triumphs": Love, Chastity, Death, Glory, Time and Eternity. Petrarch died in Arqua on July 19, 1374. Petrarch revised the cultural heritage of antiquity, carefully analyzing the texts of ancient writers and restoring their original appearance. He himself felt himself standing at the junction of two eras. He considered his age decadent and vicious, but he could not but learn some of his addictions. Such, for example, is the preference for the teachings of Plato and St. Augustine to Aristotle and Thomism, Petrarch's refusal to recognize secular poetry and active life as an obstacle to Christian salvation, a view of poetry as the highest form of art and knowledge, an understanding of the virtues as a common denominator of ancient and Christian culture, and, finally, a passionate desire to return Rome to the position of the center civilized world. Petrarch was tormented by a deep internal conflict caused by the clash of his beliefs and aspirations with the requirements for a Christian. It is to him that Petrarch's poetry owes its highest rises. The immediate sources of inspiration were the unrequited love for Laura and admiration for the valor and virtues of the ancients, embodied mainly in the figure of Scipio the African Senior. Petrarch considered Africa his main achievement, but Canzoniere - 366 various Italian poems, mainly dedicated to Laura, became his "miraculous monument". The sublime lyricism of these poems cannot be explained solely by the influence on Petrarch of the poetry of the Provencal troubadours, the "sweet new style", Ovid and Virgil. Drawing a parallel between his love for Laura and the myth of Daphne, which Petrarch understands symbolically - as a story not only about fleeting love, but also about the eternal beauty of poetry - he brings to his "book of songs" a new, deeply personal and lyrical experience of love, wrapping it in a new art form. Bowing before the achievements of ancient heroes and thinkers, Petrarch at the same time considers their achievements as a sign of a deep need for moral rebirth and redemption, longing for eternal bliss. The life of a Christian is fuller and richer, because he is given to understand that Divine light can turn the knowledge of the past into true wisdom. The same refraction of pagan mythology in the prism of the Christian worldview is also present in the love lyrics of Petrarch, where the theme of redemption sounds as a result. Laura as Beauty, Poetry and Earthly Love is worthy of admiration, but not at the cost of saving the soul. The way out of this seemingly insoluble conflict, redemption, consists rather in Petrarch's effort to achieve the perfect expression of his passion than in the renunciation with which the collection begins and ends. Even sinful love can be justified before the Lord as pure poetry. Petrarch's first meeting with Laura took place, according to him, on Good Friday. Petrarch further identifies his beloved with religious, moral and philosophical ideals, while at the same time emphasizing her incomparable physical beauty. So his love is on the same level with Plato's eternal ideas that lead a person to the highest good. But, although Petrarch is within the framework of a poetic tradition that originates with Andrei Chaplain and ended with a “sweet new style”, nevertheless, neither love nor the beloved is something unearthly, transcendent for him. Admiring the ancient authors, Petrarch developed a Latin style that was much more perfect than the Latin of that time. He did not attach importance to writings in Italian. Perhaps that is why some of the poems in Canzoniere have purely formal merits: in them he is fond of wordplay, striking contrasts and strained metaphors. Unfortunately, it was precisely these features that the imitators of Petrarch (the so-called Petrarchism) most readily adopted. Petrarch's sonnet, one of two typical sonnet forms (along with Shakespeare's), is distinguished by a two-part division into an initial eight-line (octave) rhyming abba abba and a final six-line (sextet) rhyming cde cde. In one form or another, Petrarchism manifested itself in most European countries. Having reached its peak in the 16th century, it periodically revived until recently. At an early stage, they imitated mainly the works of Petrarch in Latin, later the Triumphs and, finally, the Canzoniere, whose influence proved to be the most persistent. Among the famous poets and writers of the Renaissance who, to one degree or another, were influenced by Petrarch, are J. Boccaccio, M. M. Boiardo, L. Medici and T. Tasso in Italy; Marquis de Santillana, A. Mark, G. de la Vega, J. Boscan and F. de Herrera in Spain; K.Maro, J.Du Bellay, M.Sev, P.Ronsard and F.Deportes in France; J. Chaucer, T. Wyeth, G. H. Surry, E. Spencer, F. Sidney, T. Lodge and G. Constable in England; P. Fleming, M. Opitz, G. Weckerlin and T. Höck in Germany. During the period of romanticism, Petrarch also found admirers and imitators, of which the most notable are U. Foscolo and G. Leopardi in Italy; A. Lamartine, A. Musset and V. Hugo in France; H. W. Longfellow, J. R. Lowell and W. Irving in America.

Great Soviet Encyclopedia: Petrarca (Petrarca) Francesco (July 20, 1304, Arezzo - July 19, 1374, Arcua, near Padua), Italian poet. The son of a Florentine notary who moved in 1312 to Provence. In 1316 P. studied law in Montpellier, in 1320 - in Bologna. In 1326 he accepted a spiritual title, was a minorite (a member of the Franciscan order). The ancestor of the humanistic culture of the Renaissance, P. has not yet completely departed from the Middle Ages. But he critically overestimated scholasticism, asserted the freedom of the individual and attached great importance to poetic creativity. The philosophical treatise in Latin “On Contempt for the World” (“Secretum”, 1342-43) reflected the collision of the spiritual “I” of the poet, striving for literary glory and praising love for a woman, with ascetic morality, from which he has not yet freed himself. The thirst for poetic fame was also expressed in a short autobiography, Letter to Descendants (Posteritati, 1374). P. - one of the first European humanists who idealized the ancient world. He is the author of the Latin poem "Africa" ​​(1339-1342), which tells in the style of Virgil's "Aeneid" about the 2nd Punic War, as well as the shepherd's eclogues of allegorical content "Bucoliki" ("Bucolicum carmen". 1346-57).
In the lyrics of P. in Italian there are political verses. In the canzone "My Italy" P. bitterly writes about the fragmentation of the country, about anarchy and civil strife. Another canzone - "Noble Spirit" he dedicated to Cola di Rienzo, whom he calls to save the Italian people. But of particular importance in P.'s work is the love lyric dedicated to Laura - the woman whom he, according to him, met in the church in 1327. The canzoniere consists of 2 parts - "On the life of the Madonna Laura" and "On the death of the Madonna Laura" and contains 317 sonnets, 29 canzones, 9 sextins, 7 ballads and 4 madrigals. This is a kind of poetic diary, which also showed the contradiction between the ascetic medieval consciousness and the approval of a new vision of the world. Associated with Provencal and Sicilian poetry, as well as with the Dolce style Nuovo school, P.'s lyrics, however, represent a new stage in the development of Italian and European poetry. The image of the beloved woman became concrete and vital in P., and love experiences are shown in all their inconsistency and variability. P. updated not only the content of poetry, but created a perfect poetic form, his verse is musical, the images are elegant, stylistic devices (antithesis and rhetorical question), reflecting the confused state of his soul and giving drama to the sonnets, do not violate the smoothness of the verse and the harmony of the nature of his poetry. In addition to lyricism, P. dedicated to Laura the allegorical poem "Triumphs" (1354), written by tercins. The poem is didactic and permeated with asceticism.
P.'s lyrics had a huge impact on the development of European poetry (the so-called Petrarchism). Along with Dante and G. Boccaccio P. is the creator of the Italian literary language.

Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Humanitarian University

Yekaterinburg city

Faculty of Social Psychology

Specialty "Socio-cultural service and tourism"

Correspondence form of education

Course 2 (2006 y.o.)

FULL NAME. student: Vyatkina Svetlana Vladimirovna

Discipline

WORLD CULTURE AND ART

Test

Lyrics of Petrarch

Lecturer: Drozdova A.V.

Delivery date:

Result k\r

return date

Yekaterinburg - 2007

Introduction

Biography milestones

Lyrics of Petrarch

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

On the XIV century. Italy has an early renaissance. By this time, such grandiose transformations as the transition from the hegemony of rural to the hegemony of urban culture belong; the formation of large states and nations; formation of national languages ​​and national cultures. The next generation of figures of Italian culture after Dante formulates new values ​​- the ideas of humanism. Humanists, in search of support for a new view of the world, turn to antiquity, study the works of ancient thinkers. But it's not just a return to old values. Humanism is characterized by the combination of ancient anthropocentrism (“Man is the measure of all things”), which applied only to free people, with the medieval idea of ​​equality arising from theocentrism (“All people are equal before God”). A unique feature of the Italian Renaissance is the rise of the most significant writers precisely at an early stage, in the 14th century, called Trecento in Italian. One of them was Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374).

The colossal authority of Petrarch was based primarily on his work as a humanist scientist. Petrarch was the creator of humanistic culture in Europe, the founder of a science that received the name of classical philology. Petrarch's personal model gave rise to such an influential phenomenon as Petrarchism. All his life he was engaged in the search for and study of ancient manuscripts and made a number of important discoveries in this regard; thus, he found two speeches of Cicero and his letters, as well as the main work of Quintilian "On the Education of an Orator." More than other ancient authors, Petrarch revered Cicero and Virgil, calling the former his "father" and the latter his "brother." In view of the poor knowledge of the Greek language, Petrarch's knowledge in the field of ancient literature was limited mainly to Roman literature. In Greek literature, he saw the primary source of Roman. Not being able to read Homer in the original, he used the Latin translation of his poems.

Biography milestones


Francesco Petrarca was the son of the Florentine notary Petracco, a friend and political associate of Dante. He was born in the city of Arezzo. In 1312, the notary Petracco moved with his family to the city of Avignon in southern France, he took a position in the papal secretariat, and settled his family in the town of Carpentras. Here, little Petrarch began his studies with the Latinist Convenevole da Prato, who instilled in him a taste for Roman literature. At the insistence of his father, he studied law, first in Montpellier, then at the famous University of Bologna, but left his hated classes in 1326, when he lost his father and mother. Returning to Avignon, he accepted a clerical rank, which gave him access to the papal court. Luxury, simony (sale of church positions) and other vices reigned here, causing deep indignation among many and subsequently severely branded by the great humanist in his “Letters without an address” and in a number of accusatory sonnets.

In 1327 he met a beautiful young woman in the church of St. Clare, whom he sang for many years in verse under the name of Laura. The fame of the "singer Laura" played a significant role in the personal fate of Petrarch. In 1330 he entered the service of Giovanni Colonna, an enlightened patron of the arts, who gave him the opportunity to study ancient writers. In 1337, Petrarch settled in the town of Vaucluse near Avignon, where he engaged in literary work, wrote poems about Laura, the poem "Africa", which brought him fame as a great poet and a wedding with laurels on the Capitol, a prose essay "On glorious men", the poem "Triumph Love" and other works.

Tormented by inner restlessness and curiosity, Petrarch traveled a lot. He lived in Milan with the Visconti rulers there, in Venice, in Padua, Rome, Pavia, even in Prague.

The last years the poet spent in the town of Arqua near Padua, where he built a small house for himself. Here he died quietly on the night of July 18-19, 1374, bending over an ancient manuscript.

Lyrics of Petrarch


Petrarch's admiration for the ancient world had the character of real passion. He strove to be completely transferred to the ancient world he adored, mastered not only the language, style, but also the way of thinking of Roman authors, wrote letters to Livy, Virgil, Seneca, Cicero, Homer, as his personal friends, constantly quoted them and looked for answers in their works. to contemporary questions. He considered himself a descendant of the ancient Romans, Italy - the heir to Roman glory, Italian literature - a continuation of Latin. Unlike Dante, Petrarch preferred to write not in Italian, but in Latin, which he considered the true literary language of Italy, and sought to cleanse Latin of medieval layers, bringing it closer to the language of the ancient classics. But in doing so, Petrarch, in essence, was moving backward, for he was moving literature away from the masses, making it accessible only to a narrow circle of educated people. In this regard, the activity of Petrarch was a preparation for the later academic rebirth of humanism, which took place in the 15th century.

Latin works of Petrarch can be divided into two groups: poetic and moral-philosophical works. Of the poetic works of Petrarch, written in Latin, the first place is occupied by the poem "Africa" ​​(1338-1342), created in imitation of Virgil's Aeneid. It consists of nine songs (the poem remained unfinished). This is a patriotic national epic celebrating the exploits of Scipio, the conqueror of Africa. Petrarch borrowed story material from the Roman historian Titus Livius; from the "Republic" of Cicero - a story about a dream of Scipio, during which the shadow of the commander's father predicts the fall of Carthage to him, tells about the afterlife and prophesies about the coming decline of Rome. The cult of antiquity is combined in Petrarch with the assertion of the national independence of Italy, with hatred of foreigners and feudal tyrants who rule in the "eternal city". In the last song of the poem, the Roman poet Ennius is displayed, who predicts that after many centuries a poet will appear who will glorify Scipio and receive a crown in Rome. This allusion to himself, inserted into a poem from ancient life, is a vivid manifestation of Petrarch's self-consciousness, his thirst for personal glory. The cult of antiquity provided support for this individualism, characteristic of the attitude of a Renaissance man.

Petrarch's contemporaries highly valued "Africa", considering it a masterpiece. Later criticism noted in the poem length, lack of action, weak composition. The strongest thing in the poem is not the epic beginning, but the lyrical places, in particular the fiery hymns to the motherland.

In addition to Africa, Petrarch wrote twelve more eclogues (1346-1356) in Latin verse in imitation of Virgil's Bucolics. However, Petrarch invested in the pastoral form a content completely alien to it. Some eclogues are sharply accusatory, condemning the Neapolitan court, the Roman nobility, the depravity of the papal curia. Other eclogues are deeply personal, intimate; Eclogue XI expresses the poet's grief over Laura's grave.

Petrarch's "Epistle" was also written in Latin verse, adjoining his prose letters, from which they differ only in their poetic form. Petrarch is the creator of the epistolary genre in modern European literature. Following the example of Cicero and Seneca, he turns his private letters into purely literary works, written in a masterful style and acquainting the reader with various incidents from the poet's personal life, with his thoughts, feelings, experiences, with his assessment of literary works and responses to social and political events. life. The form of a letter or a message attracted Petrarch with its ease, the ability to accommodate any content. Some of Petrarch's letters have no addressees at all; these "Letters without an address" are full of sharp satirical attacks against the depraved mores of the papal capital - the "new Babylon". Private letters vividly depict the poet's attention to his personality.

Among the prose Latin writings of Petrarch, it is necessary to single out his historical works, in which he tried to summarize the fragmentary knowledge of his contemporaries about ancient antiquity. In the book On Famous Men, Petrarch outlined the biographies of prominent Romans, as well as Alexander the Great, Pyrrhus and Hannibal. The model for Petrarch in writing this book was the well-known work of Plutarch on the heroes of antiquity, while the actual information was obtained by him from Titus Livy. The task of the book "On Famous Men" coincides with the task of "Africa": it was supposed to glorify ancient Rome, reviving the memory of the valor of its best sons. The book was of great importance for the formation of that cult of ancient heroism, which was organically part of the worldview of the people of the Renaissance. In addition, it was a school of patriotism, social activism and civic duty.

Another historical work of Petrarch - "On Memorable Things" - is a collection of extracts, sayings and examples taken from the writings of ancient authors, as well as a number of legends about prominent Italian figures, including Dante. The book was of great cultural and educational significance for its time. Of particular interest in Book II of this work is the section on witticisms and jokes with numerous examples that allow Petrarch to be recognized as the creator of the genre of a short novel-anecdote in Latin, subsequently developed by the humanist Poggio in his Facetia.

An important place among the Latin writings of Petrarch is occupied by moral and philosophical treatises, which clearly reflect the deep contradictions of his consciousness. On the one hand, Petrarch was an individualist who always brought his personality to the fore, he had an inquisitive, critical mind, a thirst for glory, a love of life and nature, and an enthusiastic bow to pagan antiquity. On the other hand, he dragged a heavy load of ascetic views and was powerless to break ties with the old, religious culture. As a result, there is a painful discord in the mind of Petrarch between pagan and Christian ideals, between love of life and life-denial. On this basis, Petrarch developed a kind of mental illness, which he calls accidia; this word, borrowed by Petrarch from the practice of Christian hermits, means discontent and dejection of the heart, oppressive sadness, discouraging any activity.

But the most striking expression of the ideological struggle experienced by Petrarch is his book On Contempt for the World (1343), which he called his “mystery”, because he wrote it not for others, but for himself, trying to understand the contradictions of his heart. This book represents the first confession of a restless personality in modern literature. It is written in the form of Petrarch's dialogue with Blessed Augustine, one of the founders of the medieval worldview, who himself experienced similar fluctuations in his youth, captured in his famous Confession.

The dialogue between Petrarch and Augustine, in essence, depicts the internal struggle in the mind of Petrarch himself. It is like a dialogue of his split soul. Augustine in the treatise is the spokesman for the orthodox, Christian-ascetic point of view; he calls on the poet to suppress all worldly thoughts and desires, including the pursuit of poetry, the search for fame, love for Laura, for all this is decay, and one should only think about inevitable death. Petrarch argues with Augustine hotly and passionately. He declares to him that he cannot refuse love and glory. At the same time, he claims that love for Laura lifts him up, because he loves in her not the flesh, but the immortal soul. In the end, Augustine prevails: he convinces Petrarch that his love for Laura is still an earthly feeling. He is ready to agree with him, ready to give himself up to the care of eternity, but first he must complete his earthly affairs. Thus, although Petrarch recognizes the moral superiority of Augustine, the humanistic side of his consciousness does not allow Christian-ascetic morality to suppress itself.

The ideological contradictions of Petrarch were expressed not only in his moral and philosophical treatises, but also in his lyrical poems, written, in contrast to the works considered, in Italian. Petrarch himself did not highly appreciate his Italian poems, calling them "trifles", "trinkets", because, in his opinion, only works written in Latin are full-fledged literature. But time has shown that Petrarch is great precisely for his Italian verses, in which he acted as a true blazer of new paths in the field of not only Italian, but also European lyrics.

Petrarch began to write Italian poetry at an early age. Like his predecessors, Provencal and Italian, including Dante, he developed mainly the genre of love lyrics. Petrarch called his beloved Laura and reported about her only that he first saw her on April 6, 1327. And that exactly 21 years later she died. After her death, Petrarch sang about her for another ten years and further divided the collection of poems dedicated to her, usually called "Canzoniere", into two parts, entitled "During the Life of the Madonna Laura" and "After the Death of the Madonna Laura". The composition of the "Canzoniere" somewhat diverges from the name of the collection, the canzones are by far not the most significant part of it, giving way to sonnets in first place. In addition to 317 sonnets and 29 canzones, the collection also contains images of other lyrical genres - sextine, ballads, madrigals. In addition to love poems, sonnets and canzones of philosophical and political content were included. Among the latter, the canzones “My Italy” and “High Spirit” are especially famous, as well as three anti-Vatican sonnets (136, 137 and 138), containing the sharpest denunciation of the papal court and the monstrous licentiousness that reigned there.

The name Laura seemed to many biographers of Petrarch to be fictitious, under which the troubadours liked to hide the names of their ladies. Petrarch constantly plays with these words, claiming that love for Laura brings him laurels, sometimes even calling his beloved a laurel.

Biographers of Petrarch managed to collect a small amount of data about her. It has been established that Laura was born around 1307 in the noble Avignon family of Noves, in 1325 she married the local nobleman Hugues de Sade, became the mother of 11 children and died in the plague year of 1348. The married position of Laura does not contradict her image in Petrarch's poetry: the poet portrayed her as a woman, not a girl, which was based on the old tradition of courtly lyrics. In Petrarch's poems there is no hint not only of Laura's reciprocal feeling for the poet, but even of a close acquaintance with her.

Far from all the poems in honor of Laura have come down to us, for the poet destroyed his early experiments, in which he had not yet mastered the poetic skill. The first of the poems that have come down to us (Canzona 1) is not older than 1330. It is written in the manner of the Provencal troubadours, whose songs were still alive in Avignon. Petrarch here is far from the “sweet new style” inherent in Italian poets, the spiritualization of love, its transformation into a symbol of virtue, a reflection of “divine goodness”. Love here is an imperious force, taking the poet's beloved as an ally, they turn the poet into an evergreen laurel. Echoes of the poetry of the troubadours are combined in the early lyrics of Petrarch with reminiscences from Roman poets, mainly from Ovid.

Poetic allegories, personifications, mythological parallels remain in Petrarch's poetry even further. But they do not prevent the poet from striving to speak about his feelings without any philosophical abstractions. True, he could not avoid the influence of the lyrics of Dante and his school. Like Dante, he portrays his beloved in the image of virtue, making her the focus of all perfections. But at the same time, he does not identify beauty with virtue, does not turn Laura into some kind of incorporeal symbol. She remains, first of all, a beautiful woman, whom the poet admires, finding new colors to describe her beauty, fixing the original and unique that is in her given pose, in this situation. Petrarch describes Laura's curls, her eyes, her tears, about which four sonnets are written; he draws Laura in a boat or in a carriage, in a meadow under a tree, shows her showered with a shower of flowers.

But admiring a beautiful model does not have a self-sufficient character in Petrarch. The description of Laura's beauty is only a pretext for expressing the feelings of the poet in love. She always remains a stern mistress; love for her is hopeless, she feeds only on dreams, makes him wish for death and seek relief in tears. These experiences, "impulses of a mournful heart", constitute the main poetic content of the Canzoniere. Like the treatise "On Contempt for the World", Petrarch's book of poems reveals his spiritual contradictions, she draws the poet's painful bifurcation between sublime Platonism and sensual earthly love, the sinfulness of which he is aware. He says: “On the one hand, I am stung by shame and sorrow, which draw me back, and on the other hand, I am not let go by a passion that, by force of habit, has grown so strong in me that it dares to argue with death itself.” The ideological conflict that dominates Petrarch's mind imparts drama to his love lyrics; it gives rise to the dynamics of images and moods, growing, colliding, turning into their own opposite. The internal struggle ends with the consciousness of the insolubility of the conflict. He feels the inferiority of his psyche, fixing it in the famous words: "Neither yes nor no completely sound in my heart." The impossibility of suppressing one's "sinful" feeling causes Petrarch's woeful exclamation: "And I see the best, but I tend to the worst!"

In the second part of the Canzoniere, dedicated to the deceased Laura, complaints about the severity of her beloved are replaced by grief for her loss. Her image is consecrated in memories; it becomes more alive and touching. Laura whispers comfort to the poet, gives him advice, dries her tears, sitting on the edge of his bed, and carefully listens to the story of his heartache. Like Dante, Petrarch turns his dead beloved into a saint. At the same time, being in a heavenly abode, Laura thinks about him all the time and turns back, trying to make sure that the poet is following her. After the death of Laura, the passionate struggle of the poet against his feelings ends, because it loses its earthly character. However, even here, Petrarch sometimes has doubts about the admissibility of love. "Canzoniere" ends with a canzone addressed to the Virgin Mary - the poet asks to beg for forgiveness from God for the love that he cannot refuse.

But Petrarch did not stop at the Canzoniere. Continuing to strive to reconcile the contradictions in his mind, the poet at the end of his life returns to the old cultural and poetic tradition. He turns from the "low" genre of love lyrics to the "high" genre of the allegorical vision-poem in the manner of Dante and his school. In 1352, he begins the poem in terzan "Triumphs", on which he worked in the year of his death. Petrarch shows here that in life Love triumphs over a person, from which Chastity frees him; Death triumphs over Chastity, Glory over it, Time over Glory, Eternity over Time. Accordingly, the poem falls into six "triumphs", built according to the old scheme of "visions". Petrarch is trying to connect the apotheosis of Laura with the image of the fate of mankind, for which he introduces a large amount of historical and legendary material into the poem. But for the Italian society of the second half of the XIV century. such learned allegorical poetry was a past stage, and the synthesis sought by Petrarch did not come about.

Conclusion


The historical significance of Petrarch's lyrics lies in his liberation of Italian poetry from mysticism, allegorism from abstraction. For the first time in Petrarch, love lyrics began to serve to glorify real earthly passion. She played a huge role in strengthening the humanistic worldview with its individualism and the rehabilitation of earthly ties. The individualistic style created by Petrarch became canonical for lyric poetry.

A characteristic feature of the poetic style of Petrarch compared to Dante is that Petrarch gives the poetic form an independent meaning, while for Dante the poetic form was only an instrument of thought. The lyrics of Petrarch are always artistic, they are distinguished by grace, incessant striving for external beauty. This moment introduces into his poetry the beginnings of aestheticism and even mannerisms. The researcher of Italian literature N. Tomashevsky, relying on the long tradition of analyzing Petrarch’s texts, wrote: “The unit of Petrarch’s poetry is not a word, but a verse or, rather, a rhythmic-syntactic segment in which a single word dissolves, becomes invisible. Petrarch paid primary attention to this unit, carefully processed it. Most often, his rhythmic-syntactic unit contains some complete judgment, an integral image. It is also indicative that Petrarch belongs to a small number of those Italian poets whose individual poems have become proverbial.

Petrarch left a huge stock of poetic images, forms and motifs as a legacy of European poetry, brought to perfection the genre of the sonnet, already developed by his predecessors, which has now become the property of all European literatures. All this allows us to see in him the true father of the new European lyrics, the teacher of all the great poets of the European Renaissance - Tasso, Ronsard, Spencer, Shakespeare (as a lyric poet).

Bibliography

1. Alekseev M.P., Zhirmusky V.M., Mokulsky S.S., Smirnov A.A. History of Western European Literature. Middle Ages and Renaissance. - M .: Academy, 2000. - 5th ed., Rev. and additional From 172-180.

2. Ilyina T.V. Art history. Western European art. - M .: Higher School, 2000. - from 90-92.

3. Lukov V.A. History of Literature: Foreign Literature from the Beginnings to the Present Day. - M .: Academy, 2003. - p. 94-99.


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Francesco Petrarca was an Italian poet of the 14th century who became the founder of early humanism. Considering the mentor of the writer-monk Barlaam of Calabria, he played a large role in the Italian Proto-Renaissance and became a cult poet of the Middle Ages.

Francesco Petrarca was born in Arezzo on July 20, 1304. His father was Pietro di Ser Parenzo, a Florentine lawyer who was expelled from Florence at the same time as Dante for supporting the "white" party. Parenzo had the nickname "Petracco" - probably because of this, the poet's pseudonym subsequently formed. The Parenzo family moved from one city of Tuscany to another, and when Francesco was nine years old, he settled in French Avignon. Subsequently, Petrarch's mother moved to the nearby city of Carpentras.

In Avignon, the boy began to attend school, studied Latin and became interested in the works of Roman literature. In 1319, Francesco graduated from school, after which his father advised him to study law. Although jurisprudence was not close to Francesco, the guy fulfilled the will of his father by enrolling in Montpellier, and soon at the University of Bologna. In 1326, Petrarch's father died, and the young man himself finally realized that classical writers were much more interesting to him than legislative acts.

The only inheritance Francesco received after his father's death was a manuscript of Virgil's writings. Partly because of the difficult financial situation, partly because of the desire for spiritual enlightenment, after graduating from the university, Petrarch decided to accept the priesthood. The Italian settled at the papal court in Avignon and became close to representatives of the authoritative Colonna family (Giacomo Colonna had been a friend since his studies at the university).

In 1327, Francesco first saw Laura de Noves, whose unrequited love prompted him to write poetry, considered the pinnacle of skill in the field of Italian sonnets.

Creation

The greatest popularity of Petrarch was brought by poetic works written in Italian. The vast majority is dedicated to Laura de Noves (although her full name is still a mystery, and Laura de Noves is only the most suitable candidate for the role of Petrarch's muse). The poet himself tells about his beloved only that her name is Laura, whom he first saw on April 6, 1327 in the church of Santa Chiara, and that on April 6, 1348 this woman died. After the death of Laura, Francesco sang about this love for ten years.


The collection of canzones and sonnets dedicated to Laura is called "II Canzoniere" or "Rime Sparse". The collection consists of two parts. Although most of the works included in it describe Petrarch's love for Laura, in the "Canzoniere" there was a place for several poems of a different content: religious and political. Even before the beginning of the seventeenth century, this collection was reprinted two hundred times. Reviews of the sonnets contained in the Canzoniere were written by poets and scholars from different countries, recognizing the undeniable importance of Francesco's works for the development of Italian and world literature.

It is noteworthy that Petrarch himself did not take his Italian poetic works seriously. Although it was poetry that ensured success with the public, and initially Petrarch wrote exclusively for himself and perceived it as trifles and trifles that helped him ease his soul. But their sincerity and spontaneity came to the taste of the world community, and as a result, these works influenced both Petrarch's contemporaries and writers of subsequent generations.


The Italian-language poem of Petrarch called "Triumphs" is also widely known, in which his philosophy of life found its expression. In it, the author, with the help of allegories, talks about a chain of victories: love conquers a person, chastity conquers love, death conquers chastity, glory conquers death, time conquers glory, and, finally, eternity conquers time.

Italian sonnets, canzones, madrigals by Francesco influenced not only poetry, but also music. Composers of the 14th (while the Renaissance lasted), and then of the 19th centuries, made these verses the basis of their musical works. For example, he wrote "Petrarch's Sonnets" for piano, deeply impressed by the poet's poems dedicated to Laura.

Books in Latin

Francesco's significant works written in Latin include the following books:

  • Autobiography "Epistola ad posteros" in the format of a letter to future generations. In this creation, Petrarch tells the story of his life from the outside (he talks about the key events that occurred on his life path).
  • Autobiography "De contempu mundi", which translates as "On contempt for the world." The author wrote this work in the format of a dialogue with Blessed Augustine. The second autobiography of the poet tells not so much about the external manifestations of his life story, but about his internal development, the struggle between personal desires and ascetic morality, and so on. The dialogue with Augustine turns into a kind of duel between the humanistic and religious-ascetic worldview, in which humanism wins after all.

  • Invectives (angry diatribes) in relation to representatives of the cultural, political, religious spheres. Petrarch was one of the first creative figures who was able to look at the statements, teachings and beliefs of modernity from a critical point of view. Thus, his invective against the doctor, who considered science more important than eloquence and poetry, is widely known. Francesco also spoke out against a number of French prelates (representatives of the highest Catholic clergy), against Averroists (followers of the popular philosophical doctrine of the 13th century), Roman scientists of past years, and so on.
  • “Letters without an address” are works in which the author boldly criticizes the depraved customs of Rome in the 14th century. Petrarch throughout his life was a deeply believing Catholic, but he did not feel reverence for the highest spiritual orders, whose behavior he considered unacceptable, and did not hesitate to openly criticize them. "Letters without an address" are addressed either to fictional characters or to real people. Francesco borrowed ideas for writing works in this format from Cicero and Seneca.
  • "Africa" ​​is an epic poem dedicated to the exploits of Scipio. It also contains prayers and penitential psalms.

Personal life

The love of Petrarch's life was Laura, whose identity has not yet been established for certain. After meeting this girl, the poet, during the three years he spent in Avignon, hoped to catch her chance glance in the church. In 1330, the poet moved to Lombe, and seven years later he bought an estate in Vaucluse to live near Laura. Having taken the priesthood, Petrarch did not have the right to marry, but he did not shy away from carnal ties with other women. The story goes that Petrarch had two illegitimate children.

Laura herself, apparently, was a married woman, a faithful wife and mother of eleven children. The last time the poet saw his beloved was on September 27, 1347, and in 1348 the woman died.


The exact cause of death is unknown, but historians believe that it could have been the plague, which killed a significant part of the population of Avignon in 1348. In addition, Laura could have died due to exhaustion due to frequent childbirth and tuberculosis. It is not known whether Petrarch spoke about feelings, and whether Laura knew about his existence.

Poets note that in the event that Laura became the legal wife of Francesco, he would hardly have written so many heartfelt sonnets in her honor. For example, Byron spoke about this, as well as the Soviet poet Igor Guberman. In their opinion, it was the remoteness of his beloved, the impossibility of being with her that allowed Petrarch to write works that had a huge impact on all world literature.

Death

Even during the life of Petrarch, his literary works were appreciated by the public, and as a result, he received invitations to the coronation with a laurel wreath from Naples, Paris and Rome (almost simultaneously). The poet chose Rome, where he was crowned with a laurel wreath on the Capitol on Easter 1341. Until 1353, he lived on his estate in Vaucluse, occasionally leaving it for travel or preaching missions.

Leaving this place for good in the early 1350s, Francesco decided to settle in Milan, although he was offered a job in the department in Florence. Having settled at the court of the Visconti, he took up the execution of diplomatic missions.


Subsequently, the poet wanted to return to his native Avignon, but tense relations with authoritative Italian families prevented him from doing so. As a result, he moved to Venice and settled near the family of his illegitimate daughter.

But even here Petrarch did not stay long: he regularly traveled to various Italian cities, and in the last months of his life he ended up in the small village of Arqua. There, the poet died on the night of July 18-19, 1374, when he had only one day left to live until his 70th birthday. The story goes that Francesco passed away at his desk, writing his life story, pen in hand. He was buried in the local cemetery.

Bibliography

  • song book
  • Triumphs
  • About contempt for the world
  • Book of famous men
  • Letter to posterity
  • Letters without an address
  • bucolic songs
  • Penitential psalms

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