Aldo S. Bernardo Petrarch, Laura, and the Triumphs 1974
Petrarch, Laura, and theTriumphs
Aldo S. Bernardo
State University of New York Press Albany 1974 title: Petrarch, Laura, and the Triumphs author: Bernardo, Aldo S. publisher: State University of New York Press isbn10 | asin: 0873952898 print isbn13: 9780873952897 ebook isbn13: 9780585087047 language: English
Petrarca, Francesco,--1304-1374--Relations with
subject women, Noves, Laura de,--1308-1348, Petrarca, Francesco,--1304-1374.--Trionfi. publication date: 1974 lcc: PQ4511.B47 1974eb ddc: 851/.1
Petrarca, Francesco,--1304-1374--Relations with
subject: women, Noves, Laura de,--1308-1348, Petrarca, Francesco,--1304-1374.--Trionfi. Published with assistance from the University Awards Committee of State University of New York Petrarch, Laura, and the Triumphs First Edition Published by State University of New York Press
99 Washington Avenue, Albany, New York 12210 © 1974 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Bernardo, Aldo S.
Petrarch, Laura, and the Triumphs. Bibliography: p. Includes index.
1. Petrarca, Francesco, 1304-1374with womenLaura de Noves. Relationship. 2. Noves, Laura de, 1308-1348.
3. Petrarca, Francesco, 1304-1374. Trionfi. I. Title. PQ4511.B47 851'.I 74-22084
ISBN 0-87395-289-8
ISBN 0-87395-290-I microfiche
To My Beloved Mother who instilled in me the love of learning
Contents
Preface ix
Introductory Notes xiii
1. Laura and the Critics
1 i. De Sanctis
2 ii. Croce 5 iii. Calcaterra 6 iv. Contini
14 v. Bosco
14 vi. Noferi 18 vii. Ramat
21
2. Laura and the Rime
26 i. The First Form of the Collection
26 ii. The Second Form of the Collection 28 iii. The Third Form of the Collection 29 iv. The Fourth Form of the Collection
32
3. Laura in Petrarch's Latin Works
64 i. The Prose Letters
64 ii. Letters in Verse 68 iii. The Coronation Oration 75 iv. The Secretum
77 v. The Bucolicum Carmen
81
4. Petrarch's Triumphs and the Critics
88 i. Calcaterra
88 ii. Goffis
91
5. Triumphus Cupidinis 102 i. Triumphus cupidinis I
102 ii. Triumphus cupidinis 11 104 iii. Triumphus cupidinis III 107 iv. Triumphus cupidinis IV 108
6. From the Triumphus Pudicitiae to the Triumphus Famae 115 i. Triumphus pudicitiae
115 ii. Triumphus mortis I 119 Bibliography 219
Index 223
Preface
Only in Petrarch's coronation oration is it possible to gain real insight into his quasi- mystical attitude toward poetry. In it one senses the poet's thorough dedication to the art not only as an activity reserved for the chosen few, but one on a par with the loftiest human activity of all, maintaining, protecting, and defending one's homeland. Poets, like Caesars, are deeply involved in assuring a better and happier future for mankind. Both must possess a spark of divinity, for mere labor and dedication do not assure either Caesars or poets. This is why the ultimate reward for both is symbolized in the laurel crown whose leaves partake of qualities assuring an eternity of fame. Through his song the poet must instill in his reader or listener a desire for virtue, in the sense of ben far, just as in his battle and struggles a ruler seeks to accomplish a stable future for his
1 subjects.
Petrarch with a nearly ideal subject for his kind of poetry. A central point of the study is that in the Africa, "Scipio summarizes in Latin a humanistic ideal whose counterpart Petrarch had tried all his life to define in Italian through the image of Laura: a concept of virtue that complements a concept of glory in a way that makes both acquire near-
Petrarch's aesthetic and moral philosophy there is the central conviction that ultimate truth lies in the perfect fusion of the values inherent in poetry, history, and philosophythat is to say, in beauty, glory and virtue. Just as in Scipio Petrarch thought he saw the ultimate answer to the obvious clash between classical and Christian values, so in Laura he sought a resolution to the conflict between spirit and flesh. tion oration and as applied in the Africa, it is odd to speak of his love poetry as mere outcries of the heart over an unrequited love simply because it is written in the vernacular. The fact that so much of Petrarch's vernacular poetry was written during his sojourns in Provence when the great bulk of his writing was in Latin, plus the fact that he continued revising his lyrics down to the very last years of his life would seem to support the contention that he deemed his subject matter rather than the language used of truly central importance. From the moment he decided to give a definitive form to his collection of lyrics he indicated his intention to endow the resulting body of poetry with dimensions of meaning reflecting the high seriousness of learned Latin poetry.
Exactly what Petrarch sang when he celebrated Laura is a question that was asked by the earliest commentators, but has been forgotten since the Romantics. The very fact that Petrarch, as Dante before him, turns to a special form and metre in his attempt to sing more appropriately of his beloved reveals a highly serious desire to endow Laura with a dimension that goes beyond her image in the Canzoniere. It is indeed the Triumphs that provide the catalyst sought by Petrarch to achieve the desired fusion of poetry, history and philosophy. This consisted of a female figure that was considerably different from the beloved of the Rime. Her role encompassed far more than one time, one place and one man, while her greatest moments were her victories over cupidity and over time. She was indeed a prefiguration of what the Romantics were later to call "the eternal feminine," and yet she was much more, for she was the outgrowth of what has been called "The
4 Chartrian ideal of a 'cohaerentia artium,' a perfect marriage of Philology and Mercury."
The purpose of this study is to analyze the poetic image of Laura from as many perspectives as possible. The book is really a companion volume to my Petrarch, Scipio and the 'Africa' (Johns Hopkins, 1962) since it attempts to examine Laura's image as exhaustively as the previous study did the image of Scipio. Starting with the views of the
Laura of the Triumphs thus seemingly emerges as a figure showing the way to man's moral, cultural and aesthetic fulfillment. As with Scipio in the Africa, however, she too suffers considerably from the ambiguities resulting from the unfinished state of the Triumphs. She nevertheless spawned a number of subsequent female figures that became an integral part of the imaginative literature of Humanism, as the Conclusion will show.
I am primarily indebted to the Guggenheim Foundation for a grant that allowed me to spend a semester in the libraries of Florence in 196465 when a close reading of the early commentators convinced me of the viability of my thesis. I am also grateful to the Research Foundation of State University of New York for a summer grant in 1970, and to the administration of SUNYBinghamton for a semester sabbatical in 1971. Finally, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my wife, Claudia, for her many sacrifices of time and pleasure, and to Reta Mohney for her patient typing of the manuscript. Unless otherwise stated, all translations into English are mine.
Introductory Notes
Quotations from the works of Petrarch are taken from the following editions unless otherwise indicated: Canzoniere Ed. by Gianfranco Contini (Turin, 1964). Triumphs Trionfi, ed. Carlo Calcaterra (Turin, 1927). Bucolicum carmen Ed. by Antonio Avena (Padua, 1906). Epistolae metricae Poemata minora, ed. by Domenico Rossetti, Vols. II-III (Milan, 1831-1834).
Epistolae familiares Le familiari, Vols. I-III ed. by V. Rossi and Vol. IV ed. by Rossi and Umberto Bosco (Florence, 1933-1942).
Epistolae seniles Lettere senile, trans. by G. Fracassetti, 2 vols. (Florence, 1869-1870). Secretum Prose, ed. by G. Martellott, P. G. Ricci, E. Carrara, and E. Bianchi (Milan and Naples, 1955), pp. 22-215.
- There is no disputing the fact that throughout Petrarch's life the two most consistent sources of inspiration for his poetry were Scipio and Laura. In these two personages Petrarch apparently saw the kind of foundations on which he felt that true poetry should
1
rest. In my book on Petrarch, Scipio and the Africa I have analyzed Scipio's role in Petrarch's poetic imagination. In this book I wish to do the same with Laura in an attempt to show that the two are really complementary and represent, as it were, the opposite sides of the same coin. Whereas in his abortive epic on Scipio's African campaigns Petrarch attempted a fusion of Livy, Cicero and Virgil in the hope of producing a distinctive work which enclosed the inherent values of History and Philosophy in the glittering wrappings of Poetry; in his Canzoniere and Triumphs Petrarch sought to sing and fuse the concomitant human ideals of Glory and Virtue within the wrappings of Beauty, starting with a highly personal vision and ending with on unsuccessful attempt to objectify the vision and apply it to Mankind generally.
Down through the ages, commentators and critics of Petrarch's Italian works have dealt with Laura in a great variety of ways. Generally speaking, the very earliest commentators showed concern either for her identity or for her allegorical significance. Following the
2
biography by the Abbé De Sade in the eighteenth century, interest in Laura's exact identity began to wane. Nineteenth century Petrarchan criticism became primarily philologicalaesthetic,
* A condensed version of Chapters One and Two was read at the SUNYBinghamton Conference on "Women in the Middle Ages" held in May, 1973, and is scheduled to appear in the Proceedings of that Conference.
3
drama. As yet, no one, with the possible exception of Carlo Calcaterra, has undertaken a truly comprehensive study showing the evolution or even the vicissitudes of Laura as a purely poetic image either in the chronological succession of individual poems as Petrarch wrote them and as they appear in the Canzoniere, or in the ordering of the poems as the Canzoniere progressed from one form to the next. Nor, for that matter, has anyone attempted to indicate in any extensive degree the distinction or connection between the Laura of the Canzoniere and the Laura of the Triumphs. Since, however, previous criticism has afforded some insights into the problem, it might be well to examine briefly the views of those major critics who seemed to have the most to say on the subject. i. De Sanctis
of Petrarch the man of letters and Petrarch the poet by noting that ''Le sue fatiche di erudito gli hanno acquistato uno de' primi luoghi tra i benemeriti delle lettere; ma la gloria, il nome di grand'uomo glieli'hanno acquistato le sue rime. E giunto a noi, accompagnato con Laura" (p. 45). In tracing the particular directions taken by love poetry in Italy, De Sanctis states: "Il concetto fondamentale è l'amore religiosamente chiamato amicizia spirituale, e filosoficamente platonica, che suppone un'amata onesta ed un amante cortese e gentile; un amore fonte di virtù, e, come dice il Petrarca, 'd'animosa leggiadria,' tale cioè che dà animo ad opere leggiadre" (p. 49). Each love poet, furthermore, had his own personal world, "più o meno vasto," in which he believed and which influenced his imagination. Petrarch's world was Laura (p. 80). The fact that out causes De Sanctis to pose the problem of how best to define Laura. He concludes that "Laura è una Dea, non è ancora una donna . . . è il genere, il femminile." She has not yet assumed human for nor entered the stream of human events. She is rather Man's ideal in life's journey, his star, the beacon that marks his ultimate destination. As with earlier conventional types, she is an exemplar of perfection that directs the soul to the contemplation of heavenly things. "E scala al Fattore, i suoi occhi mostrano la via che conduce al cielo, da lei viene virtù e santità." And yet, as with Dante, Petrarch's Platonic- Christian tendencies prompted him to imply such super-human traits without losing sight of the beloved's earthly body. It is always Laura's physical beauties that provide the jumping-off point. Indeed, for De Sanctis, "Laura è la più bella creatura del Medio Evo, e non ha altra vicina che Beatrice. Il poeta ne ha fatta una gloriosa trasfigurazione" (pp.
85-88). De Sanctis' critical acumen emerges full force in his attempt to define this transformation. Laura, he says, is like an actress before the play starts. She is not yet mother, bride, or mistress; nor is she any particular woman in any particular situation. She is like a closed book and almost like inert, spiritless nature. "Di qui quella quietudine d'aspetti che è proprio della natura, e che esprime assenza di moto e di passione. . . ." She is in the middle of events and yet remains outside them; she is on earth and yet no human misery touches her. One almost feels that she is beyond death.
Although today this poetic creature appears cold and unreal, "è la creature più reale che il Medio Evo . . . poteva produrre. . . . Reale non solo in sé, ma ben più nel Petrarca; non in quello che sente, ma in quello che fa sentire, perché, se Laura è una Dea, Petrarca è un uomo." She cannot stand alone or apart. She lives only for Petrarch and with Petrarch. What the reader sees is not a particular Laura, but one as seen by Petrarch at a particular moment. The fact that Petrarch never seems to see her in precisely the same way twice than the woman. As a result, the reader is moved but not disturbed when ". . . il poeta obblia i moti del cuore, le discordie della coscienza, e come farfalla gira intorno alla luce dell'immagine. Questa è la sua tendenza; qui è la sua sincerità e il suo genio. Il dolore è bello, la lacrima è bella; anche la morte è bella, anche la morte l'innamora: non la morte di chicchessia, la morte di Laura" (pp. 108-112). So accustomed had Petrarch become to enjoying his visions of Laura in his imagination that when in Chiare, fresche e dolci acque (No. 126) the poet's ecstasy in beholding Laura's deification comes to an end, there is no lament over its end (p. 188).
Laura's death brings to an end all indecision and wavering. In the poet's grief one feels not only the death of Laura, but the death of all passion and of worldly disenchantments. The new situation "è una tomba, che a poco a poco si trasforma in un paradiso: è la morte, dal cui seno spunta la vita nuova." His grief thus remains purely elegiac; it does not become tragic. There is no resignation or rebellion, but an inexhaustible lament that lightens the poet's grief. As a pure creature of the poet's imagination, Laura in death appears more alive than ever. This theme of death being the true life gives rise to "un contenuto straordinariamente meraviglioso, un mondo che è proprio il rovescio del mondo volgare." The poet's heart, having died with Laura, "risuscita insieme con lei in questo paradiso dell'amore" (pp. 191-207).
There is for De Sanctis the birth of a second Laura following her death, a heavenly figure that slowly causes the earthly image to vanish and is itself ultimately replaced by the Virgin. Throughout the process the poet struggles not to lose sight of the living image. When he turns to heaven, he does so to find his beloved there. "Questo cielo del Petrarca è per ora non l'annullamento, ma la sanctificazione della passione, la trasfigurazione di Laura." Despite the disappearance of the physical Laura, the new one appears still more real because the goddess has now become a real woman with a soul. "L'equivoce è finito:
When, towards the end, Petrarch begins to see his love story as though another's and to view it with the calm eye of a spectator, Laura vacillates and dies. "E se si volge a Dio, non è già passione, ma stanchezza d'ogni passione." The Triumphs suffer the same fault, for they too view Man "fuori dell'azione e della passione, nel punto che sono soggiaciuti, vale a dire quando ogni storia ed ogni interesse è finito. . . ." When, however, the Triumphs become essentially a second framework within which to view the drama of the two lovers, then do we once again glimpse the master's hand despite a certain weariness. Even at the very end, when the poet comes closest to imparting epic qualities to his poem, it is the lyrical tone that interferes and we find Laura assuming the proportions of Creation itself as the poet sings: "La notte che seguì l'orribil caso/ Che spense 'l Sol, anzi 'l ripose in cielo" (pp. 227-237). ii. Croce For Benedetto Croce also Petrarch's love represents a complicated experience, not so much because it roared into his life like a blinding hurricane, but because it penetrated all
5
of his being completely and forever and became its center and its fulcrum. Since this love caused the poet to dare "patteggiar con la morte," it follows that the very soul of that love was indeed a passion and not a religious, moral, political or other ideal. While it is true that the poet does call upon the Christian God and the Virgin for support, "il suo Dio o la sua dea, il suo ethos, la sua politica appassionante si chiamò Laura." This pervasive love is highly human, entailing as it does "il ricambio e il possesso," and the poet's perennial disappointed hope. When the poet asserts that his love raises him to the Eternal Good and teaches him the straight path to heaven, it is a mere manner of speaking, for basically he himself does not believe it. His happiness resides not in heaven but in Laura who is no ladder to something else, but is rather herself all, the beginning and end. When, finally, the lover's hopes become dashed by the death of his beloved, he passes from a beautiful dream of profane love "al sogno di una sorta di umanizzamento e profanamento del paradiso." Dante would never have placed his Francesca in paradise, "ma il Petrarca v'innalzò Laura, così sensibilmente e sensualmente da lui amata e idoleggiata." His desire to turn from earthly things, his calling his love "non degno," his view of God as his true refuge, ''è cotesta un'aggiunta, perfettamente conforme a quel che abbiamo chiamato il suo mondo teorico, ma che non può spegnere la calda vita di quel che sentì e cantò da poeta." Croce thinks it wrong to call Laura an ideal which afforded Petrarch spiritual sanity, for his love was a passion "che tiranneggiarlo ed estasiarlo poteva e non punto infondergli il calmo vigore della regola accettata." Nor can the poet's love be viewed within a religious framework, for Laura never resembles a demon of perdition. What makes Petrarch's love poetry truly modern is that "in lui pel primo si vede l'aspirazione a un'inconseguibile beatitudine nell'amore di una creatura, magicamente concepita come datrice di perfetta beatitudine; la felicità ricercata nel sentimento e nella passione, ossia nel particolare non redento nell'universale ma posto esso come l'universale; con la disperazione e la malinconia che a ciò segue o s'accompagna, col senso continuo della caducità e della morte e del disfacimento." In Croce's opinion, the principal quality of Petrarch's poetry was defined by Carducci when, in speaking of his canzoni, he asserted that we see the poet continually "sighing among the laurels." iii. Calcaterra In his series of studies that appeared in 1942 under the significant title of Nella selva del
artistic development by analyzing the changing aspects of Laura's image as she appears in Petrarch's poetry. Following a general survey of the opposing schools of thought on greatness. In redefining Petrarch's spiritual dilemma, these critics agree that Petrarch's great struggle against the torments of the flesh was rooted in the conviction that sensual pleasure in itself could not be the end of man. Yet, his strong desire for glory and prominence, and his sense of superiority arising from his awareness that his personal ideals derived from his intimate knowledge of all that was best in antiquity, were counterbalanced by a sense of his own limits and those of human powers generally. This led to a strong awareness of the vanity of earthly striving and of the strong contrast between what is transitory and what is eternal (pp. 1-8).
It is at this point that Calcaterra begins to interject his own interpretation of the drama that Petrarch lived throughout his life. "Nei giorni radiosi della giovinezza, quando il volto di Laura gli apparve come la bellezza della vita, e l'arte del dire e la gloria come la ragione e il fine del suo operare, per sua stessa confessione fu così preso da un'ebrezza pagana e apollinea, che quasi pose in quelle affascinanti immagini la dolcezza del vivere, anzi l'apice della felicità (felicitatis apicem)." But he was also plagued by the sense of transitoriness of all things. It is within this context that Petrarch has St. Augustine remind him of the intimate religion of his early youth and express the fear that "quel fiore fuor di stagione fosse scosso e abbattuto dai forti venti di primavera, che, se fosse rimasto sano e intatto, avrebbe a suo tempo prodotto un frutto mirabile." For Calcaterra, the ''springtime of strong winds" fell between 1327 and 1342 when the poet's passion for Laura and desire for glory led him into a "splendid abyss" from which he managed to extricate himself following the spiritual crisis of 1335-1342 during which the Christian religion played the central role. The poet's spiritual state at this time could best be described by a phrase appearing in the Secretum with its clear Augustinian ring: "Sentio inexpletum quoddam in praecordiis meis semper." This, for Calcaterra, is not the inexpletum of a Leopardi or of an Amiel, but of a Christian wayfarer who had been bewitched by an evanescent earthly beauty, had consequently found himself trapped in a of Laura and on the green laurel, "simbolo della poesia ispiratagli dall'amore inafferrabile, giacché Laura, come Dafne per Apollo, non poteva essere per lui se non poesia. . . ." As a result, this earliest poetry, best represented in canzone No. 23, Nel dolce tempo della prima etade, is essentially literary, academic and Parnassian, as are all subsequent poems that repeat this same theme. They all have as their primary focus the spellbinding contemplation of a beautiful image.
In the Secretum Petrarch condemns this early bent for pure imagery as "delirationes." Yet he could not turn his back upon it, and came to regard it as an example of his "primo giovenile errore," and of his "vario stile." Already in 1338 he had admitted that he had become ''preda degli spiriti immondi e ludibrio dei cani famelici delle passioni." In time his poetic horizons widened beyond the Daphnean. The irreproachable conduct of Laura inspired him to superimpose a Christian view of woman on his beloved. He thus began to endow his image of Laura with the characteristics necessary to convert her into a ladyguide to the Christian heaven. Later, indeed, he anchored the entire architecture of the Canzoniere in the spiritual contrast between the two configurations with the ultimate victory of the latter, and even referred to the region where his love had evolved as ". . . il mio Parnaso" (pp. 8-18). The general architecture of the Canzoniere is consequently not only aesthetic but moral and religious in its attempt to reflect this "redenzione interiore" (p. 32). The structure emerges from the alternating of the two basic themes of the Parnasia laurus with its Apollonian contemplation, and the di sesto d'aprile with its implication of Christian redemption (p. 44).
In Chapter II Calcaterra deals with the poem, Giovane donna sotto un verde lauro, and gives a lengthy analysis of Petrarch's use of myth. He touches upon Petrarch's reputation as the great myth expert of his day, showing, among other things, how in his works they appear strictly as artistic embellishments and as indestructible fantasies of life. He then
Petrarch's poetry and of Petrarch's awareness of the strong pulls exercised upon him by both the profane and the sacred (pp. 50-55). For Calcaterra, the true beauty of the Canzoniere emerges when the two themes of Laura-Daphne and Lauraguide-to-heaven are complemented by an imaginative handling of the inexpletum quoddam (p. 71).
The prevailing Daphne theme of the earlier poems ended with the writing of the Secretum and of the poem on Glory, No. 119. From that moment the poet's search turned to the laurel of Virtue, having assimiliated the Ciceronian-Senecan concept that virtue possesses a loftier value than glory. This new direction is also symbolized in the "Triumph of Chastity" when Laura solemnly places her crown and Cupid's spoils in the Temple of Chastity in Rome. Calcaterra finds it significant that in sestina No. 142, which presumably closed the first form of the Canzoniere, the two concepts are juxtaposed as if calling for a choice, and that in the second part of the poem the poet turns to a "new love" and a "new tree" which are the Christian God and Heaven (pp. 75-77). Yet, the perennial wavering recurs shortly afterwards, in No. 148, where the traditional laurel appears once again. Indeed, in the final form of the Canzoniere, the very last poem on Laura alive, No. 263, is a hymn to the laurel. Following Laura's death, the image of the earthly laurel breaks in poem No. 269. The poet's attempt to sanctify the laurel in No. 228 is never followed through, but in his ordering of the poems so as to ''far quasi un poema lirico del giovenile errore e della sua purificazione," a point of juncture is reached in the tercets of No. 289 which express the conviction that the poet had procured a justifiable glory for his beloved inasmuch as she had "oprato virtute" in him. In such wise does the poet fuse the two themes of the donna lauro and Laura inexpugnabilis et firma who iuvenilem eius animum ab omni turpitudine revocaverat. By the time we reach poem No. 318 we learn that "Quel vivo lauro," though now in heaven, had left deep roots in the poet's heart (p. 80). implications of the laurel and its tie-in with the name of his beloved that "In alcuni momenti il poeta si addentrava veramente, estasiato, in una selva di lauro . . ." (pp. 103- 104).
Having already shown the indisputable connection between Laura and Petrarch's personal aspiration for the poetic laurel by recalling that in the Eclogue Amor pastorius it is Laura herself who crowns him, Calcaterra in Chapters IV and V of his book discusses Petrarch's poetics as reflected particularly in the coronation ceremony, in Petrarch's oration for the occasion, and in the Eclogue Dedalus. The events leading to the coronation which occurred on Easter Sunday of 1341, the substance of the oration with its source in a verse of the Aeneid, its stress on the magical qualities of poetry, and its extensive classical borrowings, the depositing of the crown on the altar of St. Peter's, the elaborate ceremonies that prevailed throughout the coronation with their implications of the close ties between classical and Christian Rome, and the fact that the crown had been bestowed upon Petrarch for his accomplishments as poet, historian, and teacher tell us a great deal about Petrarch's view of poetry.
Similarly, the Eclogue Dedalus written some five years later affords further insights into this view. In it Petrarch accepts Virgil's account of Dedalus as the originator of the cult of Apollo in Italy, as the builder of the first temple to poetry in Italy, and as the first consecrator of the Italic progeny to the god of the arts. When Aeneas first landed in Cumae, it was at Delalus' temple to Apollo that he first worshipped and learned of his subsequent fate. Aeneas' vow to raise a similar temple in Rome if he succeeded in transporting the Trojan gods to Latium was presumably kept by Augustus centuries later when he erected such a temple on the Palatine. Through Dedalus, therefore, the tie between Troy and Rome was achieved. When later in the same Eclogue Petrarch connects the history of Florence and Rome, we see him emerge as the poet of a new graphical and artistic textures of the works. In a thorough and scientific way, Calcaterra shows how for Petrarch the date of April 6 (feria sexta aprilis) represented the true day of Christ's Passion without regard to the moveable recurrence of Good Friday. This explains the puzzling problem of how Petrarch was able to set his first meeting with Laura as well as her death on the day of Christ's death despite the fact that neither in 1327 nor in 1348 did Good Friday fall on April 6. In fact, April 6 was also traditionally considered the day on which man was created and Adam sinned. This finds its importance in the fact that Petrarch accepted fully St. Augustine's view that "omnis homo Adam et omnis homo Christus." By connecting his drama with Laura to all these divine events, Petrarch was consciously implying a connection with the Christian drama of the redemption (pp. 210- 226).
The extent to which these connections permeated Petrarch's thinking can be seen in his attempts to link them with other important events in his life. Not only did he presumably start the Africa on April 6, but he actually arranged for his coronation to take place within the same period. Following his qualifying examination administered by King Robert, he set out for Rome on April 4 of 1341, arrived in the Holy City on April 6 and was crowned on Easter Sunday. Within this context, even the poet's depositing of his crown on the altar of St. Peter assumes truly symbolic proportions. Thus, there is also a conscious connection between the Africa and the theme of the redemption of mankind.
Calcaterra sees still further ramifications in the death and burial of Laura taking place on April 6 of 1348. Since in that year Easter Sunday happened to fall on April 6 the poet was clearly implying both Laura's enjoyment of divine grace and her resurrection in Christ.
This is why the poet could view that date as marking his liberation from all earthly passion and his preparation for a resurrection in Christ.
21 which Petrarch saw surrounding all these events found symbolic overtones in the meaning of the digits 7 and 3 in medieval numerology. In short, as is the case with the Divine Comedy, the poet naturally expected his readers to feel the additional dimensions of meaning provided by this superstructure both in the Africa and in the two parts of the Canzoniere. For Calcaterra the full force of these various dimensions can even be felt in such individual verses as "Era de l'anno e di mia etate aprile" (pp. 227-237).
7 Calcaterra synthesized his views in a later study which appeared in 1949. Having
pointed out Petrarch's awareness of the originality of his poetry, Calcaterra asserts that the theme of Parnasia laurus was, in the poet's mind, at the heart of such an awareness. Unlike the poets of Provence for whom love was a "vassallaggio alla dama"; or Guinicelli for whom it was "gentilezza o nobilità di cuore"; or Cavalcanti for whom love was essentially "senso e passione"; or even Dante who considered it "nobilità e sublimazione alla salvezza"; Petrarch, conscious of being a victim of a forbidden love, transfigures his love into pure poetry. In short, Laura's refusal made his love a Parnassus and a Calvary and thus the very poetry of life.
Calcaterra disagrees with the position of contemporary critics who see in the Daphnean and Christian configurations an external framework that hampers the true poetry of the Canzoniere. In his opinion, for Petrarch "anche quelle figurazioni, che noi giudichiamo sovrastrutture, erano parte viva del mondo lirico, perché egli con l'immaginazione le vedeva non in margine al suo tormento, ma immedesimate con esso, quasi fossero verità poetiche innegabili, cioè da lui inscindibili." In fact, Petrarch developed a new kind of contemplation of the beloved in which she becomes one with the poet. This is why Petrarch's internal conflict seems to increase in intensity "quanto più la donna si allontana e si isola." What is more, the new form of contemplation actually underwent an evolution in the mind and art of Petrarch. "Lo stesso mito dafneo, del tutto pagano, su cui egli
Calcaterra sees in Petrarch's choice of poem No. 23 as the first canzone of the Canzoniere an indication of the poet's high regard for allegory as a poetic device. For Petrarch as for the great artists of his day, allegory was "una sintesi fantastica di modi d'essere dello spirito, che prendevano linea, colore, volto in forme concrete, le quali essi vedevano e quasi toccavano." Petrarch's use of allegory in Nos. 23 and 135 as well as in his Triumphs shows his originality in having "plasmate l'allegoria in raffigurazioni concrete dei propri stati d'animo, l'averla cioè soggettivata, non solo vedendo rinnovarsi nella propria vita lo spirito umanissimo e perenne dei miti antichi, ma facendone dirette e trasmutevoli imagini dei propri modi d'essere." Whence the poet's outcry: "Qual più diversa e nova/ cosa fu mai. . . . più mi rassembra: a tal son giunto, Amore." In this study Calcaterra also elaborates on the peculiar qualities of Petrarch's humanism resulting from his Augustinian perspective toward antiquity. Petrarch's view of history is anthropocentric without denying the divine. "Riguarda l'humanitas quale ha vissuto, combattuto e dolorato prima dell'avvento di Cristo e quale vive, combatte e dolora dopo la venuta del redentore." For him also Christ's birth lies at the center of history, but he holds that humankind continues to possess those qualities of Adam that required redemption. Thus, the deeds of the ancients, the lives of illustrious men, the works of historians, of philosophers and of poets, and even myths, anecdotes, and sentences retain a moral and poetic value as a mirror of humanity which has remained just as blind since the advent of Christ whose booming voice continues tirelessly to point the way of salvation. This is the nucleus of Petrarch's religious thought, and explains why he considered the ancient stories such as the myth of Parnasia laurus on which he "grafts" the myth of the dì sesto d'aprile, as images of our grieving and wayfaring humanity. So firmly were these convictions rooted in Petrarch's mind that he was able to view poetry as a legitimate means of justifying and purifying before God his inextinguishable love for a woman whom he was forbidden to desire by divine law. "In questa esplicita iv. Contini
8 In his famous Saggio d'un commento alle correzioni del Petrarca volgare Gianfranco
Contini uses a particularly happy phrase to define the manner in which Petrarch's poetic imagination viewed nature. In his analysis of poem No. 188 of the Canzoniere he formalistically summarizes Calcaterra's position regarding Petrarch's attitude toward classical mythology and toward the history of mankind. Having granted that there is some justification for viewing the poem as an example of a baroque Petrarch, especially in the opening quatrains, he proceeds to show how suddenly the reader is confronted with an unexpected development. ". . . il lauro lievemente ombrato sull'inizio viene a occupare il primo piano, la fronde sostituisce la luce, la sua vita si fa vegetale. . . . I richiamo della donna al lauro, di questo all'Apollo-sole lega le sostanze, fonda un sistema di universale compenetrazione della natura." Similarly in No. 34 the poet, in inviting Apollo-sun to contemplate his beloved Laura-laurel with him, changes the original "rami" to "braccia" in his reference to Laura's pose, and we have another example of "quell'amorosa compenetrazione" (pp. 22-23). The extent of such interpenetration may be seen in the amazing fact that the poet often sees himself assuming the same forms assumed by Laura, such as the phoenix in No. 135 or the laurel in No. 23. That the poet is aware of this phenomenon may be seen in the "Triumph of Love,'' capitolo III, verse 162 when he confesses "e so in qual guisa/ L'amante ne l'amato si transforme." In such wise do we see "l'interpenetrazione . . .serrare l'universo petrarchesco" (p. 46). It might be well to recall at this point that the fusion of Laura and Scipio that I documented in the central chapter of my book, Petrarch, Scipio and the 'Africa' provides still another example of the multiform aspects of such interpenetration. v. Bosco
The premise of the book takes the position that there is no true evolution of Petrarch's thought or works, for practically all of his works resulted from life-long revisions that ceased only with the poet's death. As a result every page of the poet that has come down to us reflects "tutto il Petrarca: immobile, nella sua perplessità, dal principio alla fine." The purpose of the book, therefore, is to try to untie the knot which holds together Petrarch's thought and poetry. By means of a thorough analysis of all the works of Petrarch which Bosco considers a single block, the book seeks to identify "l'individuazione del centro spirituale del Petrarca allo scopo, primo e ultimo, di capirne quanto meglio possibile la poesia" (pp. 7-11).
The book opens with a brief glance at Laura's role in Petrarch's works. After tracing the various approaches followed by commentators and critics down through the centuries in trying to define the role, Bosco concludes that while it is true that in Petrarch's life his love of Laura is but a single episode, it is "un episodio che il poeta lirico vuole rappresentarci come centrale e determinante; un episodio trasformato in 'mito' poetico." Whether Laura is historically real or not is basically unimportant. It is, however, important to define "l'essenza della più vasta speranza e disperazione, che al poeta piacque cantare sotto la specie della sua speranza e disperazione d'amore" (pp. 15-23). Bosco opens the following section, entitled "Amore e contemplazione," by minimizing the resemblance of Laura to Dante's Beatrice. Thus, in a poem such as No. 119 in which the figure of Glory recalls Laura, we do not have Laura becoming a symbol or an allegory. It is rather the symbol or allegory that assumes Laura's characteristics. What we really have in this poem, therefore, is an example of how the poet's love for Laura serves as a means for making the poet's complex sentiments appear lyrically concrete.
The same holds true of the manner in which Petrarch generally depicts Laura. There is a
. . . i' vi discovrirò de' miei martiri Qua' sono stati gli anni e i giorni e l'ore. (XII, 10-11)
In short, unlike the case in Dante's Vita nuova, we have in Petrarch's Canzoniere an attempt to portray a lady and a love which, though exceptional, remain strictly human. ". . . l'amore per Beatrice è direttamente ispirato da Dio; quello per Laura non ha altra radice che nel difettivo cuore di un uomo; e Dio rappresenta, nel romanzo psicologico . . . l'altro termine del contrasto." Through his awareness of loving an ideal image of the real, the poet experiences a "contemplative joy" that enables him to avoid an excess of realism or sensuality. It is for these reasons that "Il tema della sua poesia va oltre l'apparente materia di essa . . ." (pp. 27-41).
In the last three sections of Part I of his book, Bosco discusses some of the more important themes that are sung in the Canzoniere and that go beyond the simple love of a woman. The first and perhaps most significant is Petrarch's overwhelming "senso della labilità." The tone for this theme of the transitoriness, instability, or frailty of all things human is set in the very last verse of the first poem: "quanto piace al mondo è breve sogno." For some critics Petrarch's love of Laura represents a completely separate thread from his sense of this transitoriness. In tracing the evolution of this motif in Petrarch's works, Bosco demonstrates that its source was neither Laura nor religion, but rather an instinctive and intuitive state of mind. When Petrarch in such a state turns to consider on the one hand the particular transitoriness of human beauty as personified in Laura and on the other the thought of God; and when the resulting contrast combines with the equally congenital tendency of the poet to contemplate long and deeply, we have what Bosco calls "uno dei caratteri salienti della lirica petrarchesca, cioè la contemplazione trepida, piena di perpetuo timore che l'oggetto contemplato si trasformi sotto gli occhi e dilegui, o della coscienza che esso non esista nella realtà." In his Secretum Petrarch repeats the
Aware that only heaven can assure stability of human effects, and incapable of accepting the end of earthly desires, feeling and joys, the poet has his glance constantly travelling from the earthly to the heavenly and the eternal (pp. 56-62).
This strong sense of the passing of all things human achieves lofty poetry through other supporting motifs as well. The weariness resulting from such contemplation leads to a desire for peace that in turn leads to both the desire and fear of death. Petrarch fears death because of a conviction that the state of men after death is really the same as before. ". . . chi si è qui affannato, si affannerà anche dopo morto." While death does afford a "riposato porto," it is a port "che conserva il salso odore del mare della vita, delle tempeste passate.'' Consequently, he wishes that God will grant him, instead of death, an eternal consolidation of his earthly affections by sublimating them. Just as Laura's severity in life symbolizes the vanity of all hope, so does her heartfelt concern and finally her love in death symbolize the dream of "finalmente raggiunta quiete spirituale." And if, for Petrarch, happiness is contemplation, it follows that supreme celestial happiness be conceived as an eternal contemplation of the "bel velo" which adorned Laura while alivea "velo" that will finally remain beautiful forever. "Contemplazione senza il più sottile tormento del senso della caducità: dunque felicità piena." This same desire for stability is reflected in a most unusual way even in the final poem to the Virgin. By recalling Laura in his description of the Virgin, the poet implies how celestial love is but the sublimation of the earthly (pp. 68-73). In subsequent sections of his book Bosco proceeds to examine other pertinent features of Petrarch's lyricism, but all are to a greater or lesser extent linked to the poet's inability to accept the concept that all things human and earthly are vain because of their instability and passing. Laura thus becomes Petrarch's principal means for seeking a resolution of his dilemma by affording a love and a beauty whose purity and indestructibility appear so vi. Noferi
10 In 1962 Adelia Noferi published a book entitled L'esperienza poetica del Petrarca
consisting of a series of studies that she had completed and published separately over a number of years. Miss Noferi also starts with the assumption that to grasp the depths of Petrarch's poetry one must constantly keep all of his works in mind and that there is very little evolution in his love poetry, representing as it does, a series of new starts to achieve perfection of expression. In fact each poem is a kind of nucleus around which there develops "tutto un sistema di rimandi, raccordi, allusioni," thereby making the poems "dei centri vivi di energia" (pp. 1-6). Miss Noferi does, however, see a kind of evolution in the figure of Laura as Petrarch's inspiration. Starting with the poet's well known cry in Fam. II, 9, "Simulatio esset utinam, et non furor," she proceeds to show how Laura evolves from a representative and evocative figure, to one possessing clearly Platonic overtones, to one reflecting first the nature of an "apology" and then the nature of a legend. By then appearing to be both remote and close the essentially distant mirage takes on the qualities of a ''myth." Petrarch's poetry achieves its greatest purity when he makes "coincidere tutti i suoi temi più vivi nel favoloso nome di Laura, e riscattarli in quella innocenza, al punto di una confluenza perfetta. . . .Non dunque un diario amoroso, e, accanto, gli spunti politici, religiosi, morali, filosofici, ma tutti quanti questi elementi consumati fino all'estrema essenza, . . . nella favola di quell'amore" (pp. 7-9). For Miss Noferi the sense of timelessness that one feels in reading the Canzoniere results from Petrarch's peculiar perspective. His very life remained throughout in a state of suspension between memory and hope, past and future. In fact there is no present in Petrarch's poetry. "Il tempo è quello che elude perpetuamente, ma tra la memoria e la bilità, anche, di poesia, un miraggio di gloria, altra illusione di eternità." If for the poet ultimate salvation and happiness consists in overcoming time and in the pursuit of an unachievable perfection, the Rime represent a poetic rather than ethical resolution of the problem by implying that "il lontano miraggio potrà essere identificato ugualmente nella compiuta forma di Laura, come nella compiuta perfezione divina." The factor that provides most of the dynamic movement of the poetry, however, is the poet's use of "memory": "una capacità davvero di fermare il tempo intorno a certi punti vivi, riscattarli, in una diversa esistenza, ormai assoluti e sicuri'' (pp. 28-65).