[18] The word Humanism has a German sound, and is in fact modern. Yet the generic phrase umanità for humanistic culture, and the name umanista for a professor of humane studies, are both pure Italian. Ariosto, in his seventh satire, line 25, writes—
'Senza quel vizio son pochi umanisti.'
[19] See the interesting letter to Luca di Penna, De Libris Ciceronis, p. 946, and compare De Ignorantiâ sui ipsius, &c. p. 1044. These references, as well as those which follow under the general sign Ibid., are made to the edition of Petrarch's collected works, Basle, 1581.
[20] Ibid. p. 948. Cf. the fine letter on the duty of collecting and preserving codices (Fam. Epist. lib. iii. 18, p. 619). 'Aurum, argentum, gemmæ, purpurea vestis, marmorea domus, cultus ager, pictæ tabulæ, phaleratus sonipes, cæteraque id genus mutam habent et superficiariam voluptatem: libri medullitus delectant, colloquuntur, consulunt, et vivâ quâdam nobis atque argutâ familiaritate junguntur.'
[21] De Libris Ciceronis, p. 949. Cf. his Epistle to Varro for an account of a lost MS. of that author. Ibid. p. 708.
[22] Ibid. p. 948. Cf. De Ignorantiâ, pp. 1053, 1054. See, too, the letter to Nicolaus Syocerus of Constantinople, Epist. Var. xx. p. 998, thanking him for the Homer and the Plato, in which Petrarch gives an account of his slender Greek studies. 'Homerus tuus apud me mutus, immo vero ego apud illum surdus sum. Gaudeo tamen vel aspectu solo, et sæpe illum amplexus et suspirans dico.... Plato philosophorum princeps ... nunc tandem tuo munere Philosophorum principi Poetarum princeps asserit. Quis tantis non gaudeat et glorietur hospitibus?... Græcos spectare, et si nihil aliud, certe juvat.' The letter urging Boccaccio to translate Homer—'an tuo studio, meâ impensâ fieri possit, ut Homerus integer bibliothecæ huic, ubi pridem Græcus habitat, tandem Latinus accedat'—will be found Ep. Rer. Sen. lib. iii. 5, p. 775. In another letter, Ep. Rer. Sen. lib. vi. 2, p. 807, he thanks Boccaccio for the Latin version.
[23] De Remediis utriusque Fortunæ, p. 43. A plea for public as against private collections of useful books. 'Multos in vinculis tenes,' &c.
[24] See the four books of Invectives, Contra Medicum quendam, and the treatise De sui ipsius et aliorum Ignorantiâ. Page 1038 of the last dissertation contains a curious list of frivolous questions discussed by the Averrhoists. Cf. the letter on the decadence of true learning, Ep. Var. 31, p. 1020; the letter to a friend exhorting him to combat Averrhoism, Epist. sine titulo, 18, p. 731; two letters on physicians, Epist. Rerum Senilium, lib. xii. 1 and 2, pp. 897-914; a letter to Francesco Bruno on the lies of the astrologers, Epist. Rer. Sen. lib. i. 6, p. 747; a letter to Boccaccio on the same theme, Epist. Rer. Sen. lib. iii. 1, p. 765; another on physicians to Boccaccio, Epist. Rer. Sen. lib. v. 4, p. 796. Cf. the Critique of Alchemy, De Remediis utriusque Fortunæ, p. 93.
[25] In comparing the orator and the poet, Petrarch gives the palm to the former. He thought the perfect rhetorician, capable of expressing sound philosophy with clearness, was rarer than the poet. See De Remediis utriusque Fortunæ, lib. ii. dial. 102, p. 192.
[26] See, among other passages, Inv. contra Medicum, lib. i. p. 1092. 'Poetæ studium est veritatem veram pulchris velaminibus adornare.' Cf. p. 905, the paragraph beginning 'Officium est ejus fingere,' &c.