No More Learning

In the January of the following year, Pope Benedict presented our poet
with the canonicate of Lombes, with the expectancy of the first prebend
which should become vacant. This preferment Petrarch is supposed to have
owed to the influence of Cardinal Colonna.

The troubles which at this time agitated Italy drew to Avignon, in the
year 1335, a personage who holds a pre-eminent interest in the life of
Petrarch, namely, Azzo da Correggio, who was sent thither by the
Scaligeri of Parma. The State of Parma had belonged originally to the
popes; but two powerful families, the Rossis and the Correggios, had
profited by the quarrels between the church and the empire to usurp the
government, and during five-and-twenty years, Gilberto Correggio and
Rolando Rossi alternately lost and won the sovereignty, till, at last,
the confederate princes took the city, and conferred the government of
it on Guido Correggio, the greatest enemy of the Rossis.

Gilbert Correggio left at his death a widow, the sister of Cane de la
Scala, and four sons, Guido, Simone, Azzo, and Giovanni. It is only with
Azzo that we are particularly concerned in the history of Petrarch.

Azzo was born in the year 1303, being thus a year older than our poet.
Originally intended for the church, he preferred the sword to the
crozier, and became a distinguished soldier. He married the daughter of
Luigi Gonzagua, lord of Mantua. He was a man of bold original spirit,
and so indefatigable that he acquired the name of Iron-foot. Nor was his
energy merely physical; he read much, and forgot nothing--his memory was
a library. Azzo's character, to be sure, even with allowance for
turbulent times, is not invulnerable at all points to a rigid scrutiny;
and, notwithstanding all the praises of Petrarch, who dedicated to him
his Treatise on a Solitary Life in 1366, his political career contained
some acts of perfidy. But we must inure ourselves, in the biography of
Petrarch, to his over-estimation of favourites in the article of morals.

It was not long ere Petrarch was called upon to give a substantial proof
of his regard for Azzo. After the seizure of Parma by the confederate
princes, Marsilio di Rossi, brother of Rolando, went to Paris to demand
assistance from the French king.
The King of Bohemia had given over the
government of Parma to him and his brothers, and the Rossi now saw it
with grief assigned to his enemies, the Correggios. Marsilio could
obtain no succour from the French, who were now busy in preparing for
war with the English; so he carried to the Pope at Avignon his
complaints against the alleged injustice of the lords of Verona and the
Correggios in breaking an express treaty which they had made with the
house of Rossi.

Azzo had the threefold task of defending, before the Pope's tribunal,
the lords of Verona, whose envoy he was; the rights of his family, which
were attacked; and his own personal character, which was charged with
some grave objections. Revering the eloquence and influence of Petrarch,
he importuned him to be his public defender. Our poet, as we have seen,
had studied the law, but had never followed the profession. "It is not
my vocation," he says, in his preface to his Familiar Epistles, "to
undertake the defence of others. I detest the bar; I love retirement; I
despise money; and, if I tried to let out my tongue for hire, my nature
would revolt at the attempt. "

But what Petrarch would not undertake either from taste or motives of
interest, he undertook at the call of friendship. He pleaded the cause
of Azzo before the Pope and Cardinals; it was a finely-interesting
cause, that afforded a vast field for his eloquence. He brought off his
client triumphantly; and the Rossis were defeated in their demand.

At the same time, it is a proud trait in Petrarch's character that he
showed himself on this occasion not only an orator and a lawyer, but a
perfect gentleman. In the midst of all his zealous pleading, he stooped
neither to satire nor personality against the opposing party. He could
say, with all the boldness of truth, in a letter to Ugolino di Rossi,
the Bishop of Parma, "I pleaded against your house for Azzo Correggio,
but you were present at the pleading; do me justice, and confess that I
carefully avoided not only attacks on your family and reputation, but
even those railleries in which advocates so much delight. "

On this occasion, Azzo had brought to Avignon, as his colleague in the
lawsuit, Guglielmo da Pastrengo, who exercised the office of judge and
notary at Verona. He was a man of deep knowledge in the law; versed,
besides, in every branch of elegant learning, he was a poet into the
bargain. In Petrarch's many books of epistles, there are few letters
addressed by him to this personage; but it is certain that they
contracted a friendship at this period which endured for life.