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HIS SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

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at Vaucluse, and his reappearace on the scene of public events-continued until near the close of his existence. Indeed some of the sonnets to the memory of Laura were written in the midst of his Italian travels; and the treatises or dialogues "On the Remedies of either Fortune," and "On the Ignorance of Himself and Others," were begun on the banks of the Po, or at the turbulent Court of the Viscontis. His political influence continued to increase, and he was still only on the verge of his greatest triumphs.

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CHAPTER XIII.

THE EMPEROR AND THE VISCONTIS.

THE failure of Rienzi to establish a civil government in Rome, and to restore the authority of the Roman Republic, was a great blow to Petrarch's hopes. But the object he had in view was an ideal Rome, caring little in what form or by what means the state of the Imperial city was revived. From Rienzi, therefore, he turned, within a short period, to the Emperor Charles IV. If the Pope could not be moved from Avignon-if the tribune of the Roman people was unworthy to be free-the next best course was to re-establish in Rome the one Imperial authority. That was the Ghibelline cause, to which Dante had devoted his treatise on Monarchy; and it was forcibly expressed by Petrarch in the letter addressed by him to Charles IV., on the 20th February 1350. In rhetorical language he invoked the advent of the Bohemian sovereign, as if he were an Italian prince, "for thou art Cæsar!" He drew a picture of Rome herself, under the figure of a venerable matron, pale, torn, and broken in all but her undaunted soul, to invite the presence of her lord. "The way is open," she said; "the task easy; the glory great. To Charles alone had Almighty God

THE COURT OF MILAN.

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reserved the glory of this enterprise." The call was not ⚫unheard: and, five years later, Petrarch himself entered Milan with the Imperial Court; but, as is usually the case with these visions of glory, the result was not what the poet had fondly anticipated.

It cannot be denied that Petrarch sought and courted that patronage of the great which Dante accepted or endured with scorn and disdain: in what was then the state of Italy, perhaps this condition of dependence was inevitable by either poet. But it is not to the honour of Petrarch that, after his estrangement from the Colonnas, and the extinction of his friends in that illustrious house, he passed, almost without an interval, to the Court of the Viscontis, who were justly regarded as the most despotic and cruel of the princely tyrants of Italy. The transition was the more singular as Azo di Correggio, Petrarch's early friend, had been betrayed and persecuted by Luchino Visconti. He seems to have thought, himself, that his conduct needed some justification, for thus he wrote from Milan to the prior of the Santi Apostoli :

"You know my habits. I love to shake off fatigue of mind by a change of place and things. Thus it came to pass that I was returning to France after two years' absence, and had reached Milan, when this greatest of Italians" (he means the Visconti) "cast his hand upon me-more gently, more honourably, than I deserved, or hoped, or even desired. I pleaded my occupations, my hatred of the crowd, my love of quiet; but he parried all my objections, and not only promised, but has provided, me with a solitary retreat in the midst of this vast eity. I therefore agreed to stay, changing nothing in my mode of life, and but little in my habitation, as long as I preserve all my liberty and independence. How long that

may be I know not; but apparently not long, if I compare myself and him, and the difference of our cares and pursuits. I am living in the outskirts of the city, near the Basilica of St Ambrose. My house is cheerful, on the left side of the church, which rears its leaden pinnacle and double towers before me; behind I look out on the city walls, and the ridge of the Alps, still crested with snow, though the summer is far spent. But the greatest of all my delights is, that I see not only the tomb, but the living image, of St Ambrose on the walls. I am sure it is like him-such is the dignity of the forehead, the majesty of the brow, the serenity of his eyes."

And again he wrote in the following letter:

I am in the But do not dis

"I was aware what might be said of me. hands of the public. My lot is an old one. trust. I shall be the more famous for this rub. The public see what I do; they know not what I think: so that my better part-indeed my inner self-lies hid. Be it so. We are judged by our actions. What does the public want? Under all the circumstances, I have done for the best; or, if not that, the least evil. Be it good or bad, I did what was necessary. Among other reasons for my staying, he urged that he too was an ecclesiastic,1 and most devout for a man of such high rank, and that for an honest man to shun his conversation was a mark of pride. At last, if I am to confess to you the whole truth, when I was curiously inquiring what he wanted of me, since I had none of the qualifications he required, he replied that he wanted nothing of me save my presence, to do honour to himself and to his Court. Conquered by this compliment, I blushed, was silent, and my silence gave, or was supposed to give, consent. I knew not what to answer. I wish I could persuade the public of all this as easily as yourself. But the public says what it pleases: we do what we can. Farewell."-Epist. Fam., xvi. ep. 11 and 12.

1 Giovanni Visconti was Archbishop as well as Lord of Milan. He died in 1354.

NEGOTIATIONS AND ROYAL MARRIAGES. 127

Certain it is that, in spite of these disavowals, Petrarch remained eight years at the Court of the Visconti ; and although he continued to live apart, like a student or an ecclesiastic, he became one of the chief ministers of that prince, and was loaded by him and his nephews with honours and rewards. Nor were his public services inconsiderable. In 1354 he went to Venice as the ambassador of Giovanni Visconti, to negotiate a peace with the republic of Genoa. He harangued the people of Milan on the day that the three brothers, Matteo, Barnabè, and Galeazzo, made their triumphal entry. He stood godfather to Marco Visconti. He witnessed the treaty of peace signed at Mantua between the Viscontis and the Emperor. He was sent by Galeazzo as their ambassador to Prague; and, upon the return of King John of France from his captivity in England, after the battle of Poictiers, Petrarch was chosen to proceed to Paris to congratulate him. In that transaction he had probably taken a more active part, for Galeazzo Visconti had lent the King of France (nomine mutui sive doni) the sum of 600,000 florins, as a contribution to his ransom; and in return the King agreed to bestow his daughter Isabella on the son of Galeazzo Visconti in marriage. Nor was this the only royal marriage in which Petrarch bore some part. In 1368 Violante Visconti was married with singular magnificence to Lionel, Duke of Clarence, second son of Edward III., and brother of the Black Prince; and, upon the invitation of the princes, whom he had helped to raise to these alliances with the royal houses of France and England, Petrarch took his seat at the royal table.

Whilst the poet was loaded with honours in other

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