Petrarch might have rejected as faulty Dante's proof from chronology, but they would have agreed that Rome was always peopled not with human, but with heavenly citizens, who were inspired by divine love in loving Rome. "Wherefore," Dante exclaims, "one should not need to inquire further to see that an especial birth and an especial destiny were decreed, in the mind of God, to that holy city. I am of the firm opinion that the stones that remain in her walls are deserving of reverence, and that she is worthy, beyond all that is praised and glorified by men."[59] A similar conviction in Petrarch's mind helps to explain his unquestioning devotion to Cicero and Augustine alike, and his mystical trust in the eternal youth of the hopelessly senile Holy Roman Empire.[60]
He was not disappointed in what he saw, in spite of the apprehension expressed by Cardinal Colonna that the city, in its terrible state of ruin,[61] would seem sadly different from the picture the poet had formed of it in his anticipations. On the contrary, his wonder and admiration were but increased by the sight of what remained of the ancient mistress of the earth. That she should have conquered the world no longer affords him surprise, but only that she did not conquer it sooner.[62]
Upon his return to Avignon, Petrarch found the city more disgusting than ever, and in turning over the question of a more agreeable home he bethought him of a valley not far away, which he had visited in his boyhood, and there he determined to take up his abode. Of the beauties of Vaucluse, where he spent most of the following fifteen years, and of his life and surroundings there, he has given us many a charming picture. This life of literary seclusion in the suburbs of a great city is so essentially modern in character that it serves to bridge the five centuries that separate us from Petrarch and to bring him into sympathy with the scholar and litterateur of to-day.
The form which Petrarch's desire for glory assumed in his earlier days was the aspiration publicly to receive the laurel crown of the poet. One of his most intimate friends came to the conclusion, as we have seen, that this yearning for the laurel had led the poet, by a skilful personification, to delude the world into the belief that it was a woman's charms that held him captive. Augustine is made to say in the Confessions that Petrarch's worldly madness reaches its climax in the worship that he paid, not only to Laura's person, but even to her name, so that he cherished, "with incredible levity," everything that resembled it in sound. "Wherefore thou hast so loved the imperial or poetic laurel, which was called by her name [Laurea], that since that time thou hast let scarcely a song escape thee without mentioning it."
However thoroughly convinced he may have become in later life of the vanity of such a distinction, Petrarch appears to have been willing as a young man to resort even to somewhat undignified, if not actually dishonest, expedients to accomplish his end. When he tells us that upon the same day (September 1, 1340) invitations to receive the laurel chaplet reached him from both Rome and Paris, we may safely look, primarily at least, to the poet's own contrivances, for an explanation of this double honour. Up to the time of his coronation he was known only by his Italian verses, since his great epic, the Africa, had but just been got under way. He had influential friends, however. At Paris his fellow-citizen Roberto de' Bardi, chancellor of the renowned university, was ready to do him a good turn; and at Rome his powerful friends the Colonnesi were in a position to help him to realise his cherished ideal. He seems, nevertheless, to have relied chiefly upon the aid of King Robert of Naples.[63] He was, it must be remembered, a subject of this monarch, to whom Avignon at that time belonged. It was doubtless his friend Dionisio da Borgo San Sepolcro who first brought the comparatively unknown poet to the attention of the King, and Robert showed his awakened confidence by despatching to him an epitaph of his own composition for criticism. Petrarch was, not unnaturally, dazzled by the royal verses: "Happy the pen," he exclaims, "to which such words were committed!" Far from venturing any strictures, he is doubtful what he should most admire, the classic brevity of the diction, the elevation of the thought, or the grace of expression.[64] It occurred to him later that he might employ the favour of Robert to gratify his own ambition. The following extract from a letter to Dionisio (January 4, 1339) tells us more, perhaps, than we should wish to know of his plans: "As for me, I intend soon to follow you [to Naples]. You well know how I regard the laurel. I have resolved, all things being considered, to be indebted for it to no one else than the King of whom we have just been speaking. If I shall seem sufficiently worthy in his eyes for him to invite me, all will be well. Otherwise, I may pretend to have heard something which will explain my coming, or I will, as if in doubt, so interpret the letter which he sent me containing such friendly and flattering recognition of an unknown man, that I shall appear to have been summoned."[65] Happily, however, subterfuges were unnecessary, as two invitations to receive the laurel came without applying to Robert.
After some feigned hesitation Petrarch chose Rome rather than Paris. There is in reality little doubt that nothing would have induced him to give the preference to any other place than the Capitol, which exercised an unrivalled fascination over his mind. Poets had, during his time, been crowned elsewhere,—Mussato, a poet and historian, at Padua, and his old master, Convennevole, at Prato; but centuries had passed since anyone had been granted cosmopolitan recognition by having the laurel placed upon his head by a Roman senator. In imitation of the Olympian games Domitian had, toward the end of the first century, established similar periodical contests in Rome in honour of Jupiter Capitolinus. The victor's brow, according to Martial, was encircled by an oak chaplet; but in other contests held at the Emperor's villa, the laurel crown was given. The later history of the institution is obscure, but the custom doubtless perpetuated itself, and may have lasted until the destruction of the Empire. A vague tradition was current that many poets had received the laurel upon the Capitol. This Petrarch accepted, evidently assuming that the great Augustan writers, whom he so much admired, had enjoyed this distinction; and in his address upon the occasion of his coronation he refers to the numerous distinguished poets who had been crowned before him upon that spot. Statius, who died circa 96 A.D., and who must have been one of the first to gain the honour, he cites as the last person recorded to have received it.[66]
As he tells us in his Letter to Posterity, Petrarch first betook himself to Naples, where, as a preparation for his coronation, he submitted to an examination by the King. Robert was somewhat of a philistine, as we may infer from the fact that Petrarch found it necessary carefully to explain to him the nature of poetry, the function of the poet, and the significance of the laurel, and to defend his noble art against the aspersions of a theological age. However skilled in other matters, the King was but slightly versed in literature. Yet he expressed the conviction that, could he earlier have heard Petrarch's defence, he would have devoted no inconsiderable portion of his time to poetry.[67] Of the details of the coronation very little is known. Petrarch describes it in very general terms in a metrical epistle,[68] and we have besides two or three brief and inaccurate contemporary accounts.[69] The address which he made upon the Capitol has, however, recently been discovered and printed,[70] but it is, unfortunately, a very disappointing composition quite unworthy of Petrarch's powers. His text is a line or two from Virgil:
"But I am caught by ravishing desire, above the lone
Parnassian steep,"[71]
but instead of developing his subject, as does Cicero in his defence of Archias, he adopts the repellent, conventional form of the times, pedantically classifying his ideas by headings and numbers, like a scholastic theologian. He extols the laurel in a truly mediæval fashion for its magic virtues in causing its wearer to dream true dreams, and in protecting him from lightning, etc. The most significant part of the address is his defence of poetry.