Grieved by a certain indifference which his friend exhibited towards Dante, Boccaccio, soon after his return from a visit to Petrarch, sent him a copy of the Divine Comedy.[12] Accompanying the volume was a Latin poem, in which he requested that Petrarch read the work of his distinguished fellow-citizen and place it among his other books.[13]
The letter that Petrarch wrote in acknowledgment of the gift is one of the most important in his correspondence. Strangely enough, there are but two in all the vast collection of prose letters in which he makes any allusions to Dante, and then never by name. In one of his lesser works he narrates one or two anecdotes of Dante's brusqueness towards the despots whose hospitality he enjoyed.[14] It is nevertheless probably unfair to accuse Petrarch of jealousy. In the first place, the assumption that he had never read the Divine Comedy is hardly justifiable. It is true that he did not possess a copy of the work, and that Boccaccio urged him to read and cherish it. But he must assuredly have been acquainted with the writings of an author whom he declared to be without question the greatest master of the vernacular. The reader can, however, reach his own conclusions, as all the data which we have are given below. He should remember that Petrarch was placed in a trying position. It is impossible to appear wholly unconstrained and natural when one is meeting the charge of jealousy towards a popular contemporary. Then, a scholar or an author may not be completely or enthusiastically in sympathy with some of his fellow-workers to whom he would nevertheless accord a very high rank. We may safely infer that Petrarch was not drawn towards Dante, although he frankly acknowledged his greatness. The two men had much in common, their Christian humanism for example,[15] but Dante's devotion to mediæval theology and science must have repelled the younger poet, whose studies were exclusively literary, including perhaps moral philosophy and history, but utterly foreign to the lucubrations of Peter Lombard or Thomas Aquinas. An able Italian critic[16] has suggested that we may find an analogy between Petrarch's attitude toward Dante, and that of Erasmus toward Luther, or Voltaire's toward Rousseau. Once, when but eight years old, he had seen the dark, emaciated poet of the Ghibellines. The harsh manner and the haughty profile of the man may, as Carducci says, have impressed the rosy youngster with fear and created a feeling of dislike which he did not entirely outgrow.
The second letter to Boccaccio upon the Italian poets was written some five years after the one of which we have been speaking, and a difference in the tone of the references to Dante is perhaps perceptible. The Trionfi, the latest of Petrarch's Italian poems, somewhat resemble in style the Divine Comedy, and were perhaps written partly with the aim of showing that he could rise to the same high strain.
Petrarch entertained much less regard for the vulgar tongue than Dante and Boccaccio, because more completely engrossed by the strength of the Latin. To him "prose and verse," as we shall see, meant compositions in Latin, which was alone adapted to the highest purposes of expression. From his scornful treatment of the Italian language the reader will naturally turn to the first book of Dante's Convito,[17] or to his little treatise, The Vernacular (De Vulgari Eloquio), where the advantages and weaknesses of the mother tongue are sympathetically discussed.
Petrarch Disclaims all Jealousy of Dante
To Boccaccio[18]
There are many things in your letter which do not require any answer; those, for example, which we have lately settled face to face. Two points there were, however, which it seemed to me should not be passed over in silence, and I will briefly write down such reflections concerning them as may occur to me. In the first place, you excuse yourself with some heat for seeming to praise unduly a certain poet, a fellow-citizen of ours, who in point of style is very popular, and who has certainly chosen a noble theme. You beg my pardon for this, as if I regarded anything said in his, or anyone else's praise, as detracting from my own. You assert, for instance, that if I will only look closely at what you say of him, I shall find that it all reflects glory upon me. You take pains to explain, in extenuation of your favourable attitude towards him, that he was your first light and guide in your early studies. Your praise is certainly only a just and dutiful acknowledgment of his services, an expression of what I may call filial piety. If we owe all to those who begot and brought us forth, and much to those who are the authors of our fortunes, what shall we say of our debt to the parents and fashioners of our minds? How much more, indeed, is due to those who refine the mind than to those who tend the body, he will perceive who assigns to each its just value; for the one, it will be seen, is an immortal gift, the other, corruptible and destined to pass away.
Continue, then, not by my sufferance simply, but with my approbation, to extol and cherish this poet, the guiding star of your intellect, who has afforded you courage and light in the arduous way by which you are pressing stoutly on towards a most glorious goal. He has long been buffeted and wearied by the windy plaudits of the multitude. Honour him now and exalt him by sincere praise worthy alike of you and of him, and, you may be sure, not unpleasing to me. He is worthy of such a herald, while you, as you say, are the natural one to assume the office. I therefore accept your song of praise with all my heart, and join with you in extolling the poet you celebrate therein.[19]