[51]The perfect accord between this record in Petrarch's handwriting, and the inscription on the coffin of Laura de Sâde, discovered in the church of the Minor Friars at Avignon, puts the identity of the lady beyond all doubt. This seems to have taken place for the very purpose of informing posterity of who she was whom the poet had celebrated, yet whose actual name he never mentioned.
[52]"The Virgil to which this note is appended is preserved in the Ambrosian library at Milan. In 1795, a part of the leaf on which it was written became detached from the cover, and the librarians perceived other writing beneath. Curiosity engaged them to take off the entire leaf, in which process, the parchment being tightly glued, the writing, nearly effaced, remained on the wood of the binding. They found beneath a note in the handwriting of Petrarch, containing the dates of the loss he had once suffered of the book itself, and its restitution. There is, in addition, a record of the dates of the death of various of his friends, mingled with exclamations of regret and sorrow, and complaints of the increasing solitude to which he finds himself reduced through these reiterated bereavements."—Ginguene.
[53]Tiraboschi.
"Morte m'ha liberato un'altra volta,
E rotto 'l nodo, e'l foco ha spento, e sparso,
Contra la qual non vai forza nè 'ngegno."
Part II, Sonnet III.
[55]The Abbé de Sâde attributes to this prince the kiss bestowed on Laura at a ball, by one of royal blood. The prince with his hand beckoned aside every other elder or more noble lady, and kissed her on her brow and eyelids. Petrarch, who was present, was filled at once with envy and triumph (Sonnet CCI.). If her beauty, and not the celebrity conferred on her by the poet, was the occasion of this compliment, it is difficult not to believe that it was bestowed before she had lost the bloom of youth, especially as it is mentioned that the prince put aside all ladies older than herself.
[56]Ugo Foscolo.
[57]Essays on Petrarch, by Ugo Foscolo.