No More Learning

Hence the anticipation
of immeasurable labours occasionally damped his application. But from
this depression of spirits he was much relieved by the encouragement of
John of Florence, one of the secretaries of the Pope, a man of learning
and probity. He soon distinguished the extraordinary abilities of
Petrarch; he directed him in his studies, and cheered up his ambition.
Petrarch returned his affection with unbounded confidence. He entrusted
him with all his foibles, his disgusts, and his uneasinesses. He says
that he never conversed with him without finding himself more calm and
composed, and more animated for study.

The superior sagacity of our poet, together with his pleasing manners,
and his increasing reputation for knowledge, ensured to him the most
flattering prospects of success. His conversation was courted by men of
rank, and his acquaintance was sought by men of learning. It was at this
time, 1326, that his merit procured him the friendship and patronage of
James Colonna, who belonged to one of the most ancient and illustrious
families of Italy.

"About the twenty-second year of my life," Petrarch writes to one of his
friends, "I became acquainted with James Colonna. He had seen me whilst
I resided at Bologna, and was prepossessed, as he was pleased to say,
with my appearance. Upon his arrival at Avignon, he again saw me, when,
having inquired minutely into the state of my affairs, he admitted me to
his friendship. I cannot sufficiently describe the cheerfulness of his
temper, his social disposition, his moderation in prosperity, his
constancy in adversity. I speak not from report, but from my own
experience. He was endowed with a persuasive and forcible eloquence.
His
conversation and letters displayed the amiableness of his sincere
character. He gained the first place in my affections, which he ever
afterwards retained. "

Such is the portrait which our poet gives of James Colonna. A faithful
and wise friend is among the most precious gifts of fortune; but, as
friendships cannot wholly feed our affections, the heart of Petrarch, at
this ardent age, was destined to be swayed by still tenderer feelings.
He had nearly finished his twenty-third year without having ever
seriously known the passion of love. In that year he first saw Laura.
Concerning this lady, at one time, when no life of Petrarch had been yet
written that was not crude and inaccurate, his biographers launched
into the wildest speculations. One author considered her as an
allegorical being; another discovered her to be a type of the Virgin
Mary; another thought her an allegory of poetry and repentance. Some
denied her even allegorical existence, and deemed her a mere phantom
beauty, with which the poet had fallen in love, like Pygmalion with the
work of his own creation. All these caprices about Laura's history have
been long since dissipated, though the principal facts respecting her
were never distinctly verified, till De Sade, her own descendant, wrote
his memoirs of the Life of Petrarch.

Petrarch himself relates that in 1327, exactly at the first hour of the
6th of April, he first beheld Laura in the church of St. Clara of
Avignon,[A] where neither the sacredness of the place, nor the solemnity
of the day, could prevent him from being smitten for life with human
love. In that fatal hour he saw a lady, a little younger than himself[B]
in a green mantle sprinkled with violets, on which her golden hair fell
plaited in tresses. She was distinguished from all others by her proud
and delicate carriage. The impression which she made on his heart was
sudden, yet it was never effaced.

Laura, descended from a family of ancient and noble extraction, was the
daughter of Audibert de Noves, a Provencal nobleman, by his wife
Esmessenda.