TRAVELS
Ulysseos errores erroribus meis confer: profecto si nominis et rerum claritas una foret, nec diutius erravit ille, nec latius.—Præfatio.
The Italians were probably the first among modern peoples to discover the outer world to be something beautiful in itself. "Would that you could know," Petrarch writes to a friend, "with what delight I wander, free and alone, among the mountains, forests, and streams." He spent many years, as we have seen, in his simple rustic home at Vaucluse, and throughout his life he was in the habit of retiring now and then to the seclusion of the country. In no way did his tastes more nearly approach our modern predilections than in his love of nature and his passion for travel.
He was once invited to accompany a friend upon a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but he discreetly refused the invitation; not that he feared the perils of the deep, but he could not overcome his horror of sea-sickness, which he had several times experienced upon the Mediterranean. Instead of joining his friend, he prepared a little guide-book[1] for him, which might serve to call his attention to the noteworthy objects upon the long journey from Genoa to Jerusalem. It is significant that Petrarch deals principally in his little manual not with the half-legendary attractions of the Orient, but with the familiar beauties of their own Italy. He does not forget, at the very opening of the journey, the lovely valleys of the Riviera, with their tumbling brooks, and the pleasing contrast of wildness and verdure on the hills to the east of Genoa. But, like a true lover of nature, he felt himself powerless adequately to describe the scene, and contented himself with commending to his friend's admiration the beauties which no mortal pen could depict.[2] The four letters which follow have been chosen with the aim of illustrating Petrarch's attitude toward the world about him.
[1] Itinerarium Syriacum, Opera, pp. 556 sqq.
[2] "Quæ multo facilius tibi sit mirari quam cuiquam hominum stylo amplecti." Itinerarium Syriacum, Opera, p. 557.