The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch | Page 7

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 Provençal nobleman, by his wife
Esmessenda. She was born at Avignon, probably in 1308. She had a
considerable fortune, and was married in 1325 to Hugh de Sade. The
particulars of her life are little known, as Petrarch has left few traces of
them in his letters; and it was still less likely that he should enter upon
her personal history in his sonnets, which, as they were principally
addressed to herself, made it unnecessary for him to inform her of what
she already knew.
While many writers have erred in considering Petrarch's attachment as
visionary, others, who have allowed the reality of his passion, have
been mistaken in their opinion of its object. They allege that Petrarch
was a happy lover, and that his mistress was accustomed to meet him at
Vaucluse, and make him a full compensation for his fondness. No one
at all acquainted with the life and writings of Petrarch will need to be
told that this is an absurd fiction. Laura, a married woman, who bore
ten children to a rather morose husband, could not have gone to meet
him at Vaucluse without the most flagrant scandal. It is evident from
his writings that she repudiated his passion whenever it threatened to
exceed the limits of virtuous friendship. On one occasion, when he
seemed to presume too far upon her favour, she said to him with

severity, "I am not what you take me for." If his love had been
successful, he would have said less about it.
Of the two persons in this love affair, I am more inclined to pity Laura
than Petrarch. Independently of her personal charms, I cannot conceive
Laura otherwise than as a kind-hearted, loveable woman, who could
not well be supposed to be totally indifferent to the devotion of the
most famous and fascinating man of his age. On the other hand, what
was the penalty that she would have paid if she had encouraged his
addresses as far as he would have carried them? Her disgrace, a stigma
left on her family, and the loss of all that character which upholds a
woman in her own estimation and in that of the world. I would not go
so far as to say that she did not at times betray an anxiety to retain him
under the spell of her fascination, as, for instance, when she is said to
have cast her eyes to the ground in sadness when he announced his
intention to leave