No More Learning

It must be remembered, at the same time, that he wrote against the
church government of Avignon, and not that of Rome. He compares Avignon
with the Assyrian Babylon, with Egypt under the mad tyranny of Cambyses;
or rather, denies that the latter empires can be held as parallels of
guilt to the western Babylon; nay, he tells us that neither Avernus nor
Tartarus can be confronted with this infernal place.

"The successors of a troop of fishermen," he says, "have forgotten their
origin. They are not contented, like the first followers of Christ, who
gained their livelihood by the Lake of Gennesareth, with modest
habitations, but they must build themselves splendid palaces, and go
about covered with gold and purple. They are fishers of men, who catch a
credulous multitude, and devour them for their prey. " This "Liber
Epistolarum" includes some descriptions of the debaucheries of the
churchmen, which are too scandalous for translation. They are
nevertheless curious relics of history.

In this year, Gherardo, the brother of our poet, retired, by his advice,
to the Carthusian monastery of Montrieux, which they had both visited in
the pilgrimage to Baume three years before. Gherardo had been struck
down with affliction by the death of a beautiful woman at Avignon, to
whom he was devoted. Her name and history are quite unknown, but it may
be hoped, if not conjectured, that she was not married, and could be
more liberal in her affections than the poet's Laura.

Amidst all the incidents of this period of his life, the attachment of
Petrarch to Laura continued unabated. It appears, too, that, since his
return from Parma, she treated him with more than wonted complacency. He
passed the greater part of the year 1342 at Avignon, and went to
Vaucluse but seldom and for short intervals.

In the meantime, love, that makes other people idle, interfered not with
Petrarch's fondness for study. He found an opportunity of commencing the
study of Greek, and seized it with avidity.
That language had never been
totally extinct in Italy; but at the time on which we are touching,
there were not probably six persons in the whole country acquainted with
it. Dante had quoted Greek authors, but without having known the Greek
alphabet. The person who favoured Petrarch with this coveted instruction
was Bernardo Barlaamo, a Calabrian monk, who had been three years before
at Avignon, having come as envoy from Andronicus, the eastern Emperor,
on pretext of proposing a union between the Greek and Roman churches,
but, in reality for the purpose of trying to borrow money from the Pope
for the Emperor. Some of Petrarch's biographers date his commencement of
the study of Greek from the period of Barlaamo's first visit to Avignon;
but I am inclined to postpone it to 1342, when Barlaamo returned to the
west and settled at Avignon. Petrarch began studying Greek by the
reading of Plato. He never obtained instruction sufficient to make him a
good Grecian, but he imbibed much of the spirit of Plato from the labour
which he bestowed on his works. He was very anxious to continue his
Greek readings with Barlaamo; but his stay in Avignon was very short;
and, though it was his interest to detain him as his preceptor,
Petrarch, finding that he was anxious for a settlement in Italy, helped
him to obtain the bishopric of Geraci, in Calabria.

[Illustration: NICE. ]

The next year was memorable in our poet's life for the birth of his
daughter Francesca. That the mother of this daughter was the same who
presented him with his son John there can be no doubt. Baldelli
discovers, in one of Petrarch's letters, an obscure allusion to her,
which seems to indicate that she died suddenly after the birth of
Francesca, who proved a comfort to her father in his old age.

The opening of the year 1343 brought a new loss to Petrarch in the death
of Robert, King of Naples. Petrarch, as we have seen, had occasion to be
grateful to this monarch; and we need not doubt that he was much
affected by the news of his death; but, when we are told that he
repaired to Vaucluse to bewail his irreparable loss, we may suppose,
without uncharitableness, that he retired also with a view to study the
expression of his grief no less than to cherish it. He wrote, however,
an interesting letter on the occasion to Barbato di Sulmona, in which he
very sensibly exhibits his fears of the calamities which were likely to
result from the death of Robert, adding that his mind was seldom true in
prophecy, unless when it foreboded misfortunes; and his predictions on
this occasion were but too well verified.

Robert was succeeded by his granddaughter Giovanna, a girl of sixteen,
already married to Andrew of Hungary, her cousin, who was but a few
months older. Robert by his will had established a council of regency,
which was to continue until Giovanna arrived at the age of twenty-five.