CONTENTS
| PAGE | ||
| Introduction | [IX] | |
| I. | Letter to M. T. Cicero | [1] |
| Notes to Letter I | [5] | |
| II. | Letter to M. T. Cicero | [21] |
| Notes to Letter II | [29] | |
| III. | Letter to Annaeus Seneca | [43] |
| Notes to Letter III | [55] | |
| IV. | Letter to Marcus Varro | [69] |
| Notes to Letter IV | [76] | |
| V. | Letter to Quintilian | [84] |
| Notes to Letter V | [90] | |
| VI. | Letter to Titus Livy | [100] |
| Notes to Letter VI | [104] | |
| VII. | Letter to Asinius Pollio | [112] |
| Notes to Letter VII | [118] | |
| VIII. | Letter to Horatius Flaccus | [125] |
| Notes to Letter VIII | [132] | |
| IX. | Letter to Publius Vergilius Maro | [136] |
| Notes to Letter IX | [141] | |
| X. | Letter to Homer | [148] |
| Notes to Letter X | [172] | |
| A Selected Bibliography | [205] | |
INTRODUCTION
It is hardly necessary to dwell upon Petrarch’s extensive correspondence. He was the leader of the learned men of his age; and it is common knowledge that all his prominent contemporaries—whether in the political world, or in the religious world, or in the scholarly world—were numbered among his friends.
Corresponding so incessantly with all men and on all topics, Petrarch’s letters soon grew into an unmanageable mass. One day in 1359 (Frac., Note to Fam., XXIV, 13) Petrarch, with a sigh, consigned to the flames a thousand or more papers, consisting of short poems and of letters, merely to avoid the irksome task of sifting and of correcting them. He then noticed a few papers lying in a corner, which (after some hesitation) he spared because they had already been recopied and arranged by his secretary (Praefatio ad Socratem, I, p. 15). Petrarch divided these “few” letters into two groups, dedicating the twenty-four books of prose epistles to Socrates (Praefatio, loc. cit., and Fam., XXIV, 13), and the three books of poetic epistles to Marco Barbato (Praefatio, loc. cit., pp. 15, 16, and Fam., XXII, 3).
Farther on in his prefatory letter to Socrates, Petrarch points out the vigor and the courage to be seen in his earlier letters, and advances extenuating circumstances for the laments which begin to crop out in the later ones. He excuses these by arguing that they were occasioned by the misfortunes which befell his friends, and not by those which he had suffered in his own person. At this point Petrarch does not lose the opportunity for comparing himself with Cicero. The passage gives so completely the information needed by the reader that it is hereby translated in full (Praefatio, I, p. 25):
Cicero, however, exhibits such weakness in his adversity that, although I am delighted with his style, I am oftentimes equally offended by his actions. Add to this his quarrelsome letters—the altercations and the reproachful language which he employs against the most illustrious men whom he has but recently been praising. It all reveals a remarkable fickleness of disposition. On reading these letters, I was soothed and ruffled at the same time. I could not restrain myself, and, indignation prompting me, I wrote to him as to a friend of my own years and time, regardless of the ages which separated us. Indeed, I wrote with a familiarity acquired through an intimate knowledge of the works of his genius, and I pointed out to him what it was that offended me in his writings. This letter served as a precedent. Years later, on re-reading the tragedy entitled Octavia, the memory of the letter which I had addressed to Cicero prompted me to write to Seneca also. Thereafter, and as occasion offered, I addressed letters to Varro, Vergil, and others. Some of these I have placed at the end of this work, and I hereby forewarn the reader of this fact, lest he should be perplexed at coming upon them unawares. The rest perished in that general holocaust of which I have told you above.
In the last letter of the collection De rebus familiaribus (XXIV, 13, likewise addressed to Socrates, and dated 1361), Petrarch refers again to the grouping together of the letters to the classical authors. He says (III, pp. 305, 306):