The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy

by Jacob Burckhardt

[685] Besides the description of Baiæ in the Fiammetta, of the grove in the Ameto, etc., a passage in the De genealogia deorum, xiv. 11, is of importance, where he enumerates a number of rural beauties—trees, meadows, brooks, flocks and herds, cottages, etc.—and adds that these things ‘animum mulcent;’ their effect is ‘mentem in se colligere.’

[686] Flavio Biondo, Italia Illustrata (ed. Basil), p. 352 sqq. Comp. Epist. Var. ed. Fracass. (lat.) iii. 476. On Petrarch’s plan of writing a great geographical work, see the proofs given by Attilio Hortis, Accenni alle Scienze Naturali nelle Opere di G. Boccacci, Trieste, 1877, p. 45 sqq.

[687] Although he is fond of referring to them: e.g. De vita solitaria (Opera, ed. Basil, 1581), esp. p. 241, where he quotes the description of a vine-arbour from St. Augustine.

[688] Epist. famil. vii. 4. ‘Interea utinam scire posses, quanta, cum voluptate solivagus et liber, inter montes et nemora, inter fontes et flumina, inter libros et maximorum hominum ingenia respiro, quamque me in ea, quae ante sunt, cum Apostolo extendens et praeterita oblivisci nitor et praesentia non videre.’ Comp. vi. 3, o. c. 316 sqq. esp. 334 sqq. Comp. L. Geiger: Petrarca, p. 75, note 5, and p. 269.

[689] ‘Jacuit sine carmine sacro.’ Comp. Itinerar. Syriacum, Opp. p. 558.

[690] He distinguishes in the Itinerar. Syr. p. 357, on the Riviera di Levante: ‘colles asperitate gratissima et mira fertilitate conspicuos.’ On the port of Gaeta, see his De remediis utriusque fortunae, i. 54.

[691] Letter to Posterity: ‘Subito loco specie percussus.’ Descriptions of great natural events: A Storm at Naples, 1343: Epp. fam. i. 263 sqq.; An Earthquake at Basel, 1355, Epp. seniles, lib. x. 2, and De rem. utr. fort. ii. 91.

[692] Epist. fam. ed. Fracassetti, i. 193 sqq.

[693] Il Dittamondo, iii. cap. 9.

[694] Dittamondo, iii. cap. 21, iv. cap. 4. Papencordt, Gesch. der Stadt Rom, says that the Emperor Charles IV. had a strong taste for beautiful scenery, and quotes on this point Pelzel, Carl IV. p. 456. (The two other passages, which he quotes, do not say the same.) It is possible that the Emperor took this fancy from intercourse with the humanists (see above, pp. 141-2). For the interest taken by Charles in natural science see H. Friedjung, op. cit. p. 224, note 1.