Laura was distinguished, then, by her rank and fortune, but more by her loveliness, her sweetness, and the untainted purity of her life and manners in the midst of a society noted for its licentiousness. Now she is known as the subject of Petrarch's verses, as the woman who inspired an immortal passion, and, kindling into living fire the dormant sensibility of the poet, gave origin to the most beautiful and refined, the most passionate, and yet the most delicate amatory poetry that exists in the world.
Petrarch was twenty-three years of age when he first felt the power of a violent and inextinguishable passion. At six in the morning on the sixth of April, A. D. 1327, (he often fondly records the exact year, day and hour,) on the occasion of the festival of Easter, he visited the church of Saint Claire at Avignon, and beheld, for the first time, Laura de Sade. She was just twenty years of age, and in the bloom of beauty—a beauty so touching and heavenly, so irradiated by purity and smiling innocence, and so adorned by gentleness and modesty, that the first sight stamped the image in the poet's heart, never thereafter to be erased.
Petrarch beheld the loveliness and sweetness of the young beauty, and was transfixed. He sought acquaintance with her, and while the manners of the times prevented his entering her house, he enjoyed many opportunities of meeting her in society, and of conversing with her. He would have declared his love, but her reserve enforced silence. "She opened my breast and took my heart into her hand, saying 'speak no word of this,'" he writes. Yet the reverence inspired by her modesty and dignity was not always sufficient to restrain her lover. Being alone with her on one occasion, and she appearing more gracious than usual, Petrarch tremblingly and fearfully confessed his passion; but she, with altered looks, replied, "I am not the person you take me for!" Her displeasure froze the very heart of the poet, so that he fled from her presence in grief and dismay.
No attentions on his part could make any impression on her steady and virtuous mind. While love and youth drove him on, she remained impregnable and firm; and when she found that he still rushed wildly forward, she preferred forsaking to following him to the precipice down which he would have hurried her. Meanwhile, as he gazed on her angelic countenance, and saw purity painted on it, his love grew spotless as herself. Love transforms the true lover into a resemblance of the object of his passion. In a town, which was the asylum of vice, calumny never breathed a taint upon Laura's name: her actions, her words, the very expression of her countenance, and her slightest gestures were replete with a modest reserve combined with sweetness, and won the applause of all.
Francesco Petrarch was of Florentine extraction, and the son of a notary, who, being held in great esteem by his fellow-citizens, had filled several public offices.
When the Ghibelines were banished Florence, in 1302, Petraccolo was included in the number of exiles; his property was confiscated, and he retired with his wife, Eletta Canigiani, whom he had lately married, to the town of Arrezzo, in Tuscany. And here on the night of the 20th of July, 1304, Petrarch first saw the light. When the child was seven months old his mother was permitted to return from banishment, and she established herself at a country house belonging to her husband near Ancisa, a small town fifteen miles from Florence. The infant who, at his birth, it was supposed would not survive, was exposed to imminent peril during this journey. In fording a rapid stream, the man who had charge of him carried him, wrapped in swaddling clothes, at the end of a stick; he fell from his horse, and the babe slipped from the fastenings into the water; but he was saved, for how could Petrarch die until he had seen his Laura?
The youth of Petrarch was obscure in point of fortune, but it was attended by all the happiness that springs from family concord, and the excellent character of his parents. At the age of fifteen he was sent to study in the university of Montpellier, then frequented by a vast concourse of students. His father intended his son to pursue the study of the law, as the profession best suited to ensure his reputation and fortune; but to this pursuit Francesco was invincibly repugnant. He was soon after sent to Bologna, where, as at Montpellier, he continued to display great taste for literature, much to his father's dissatisfaction.
At Bologna, Petrarch made considerable progress in the study of the law, moved thereto, doubtless, by the entreaties of his excellent parent.
After three years spent at Bologna, Petrarch was recalled to France by the death of his father. Soon after his mother died also, and he and his brother were left entirely to their own guidance, with very slender means, and those diminished by the dishonesty of those whom his father named as trustees to their fortune. Under these circumstances Petrarch entirely abandoned the profession of the law, as it occurred to both him and his brother that the clerical profession was their best resource in a city where the priesthood reigned supreme. They resided at Avignon, and became the favorites and companions of the ecclesiastical and lay nobles who formed the papal court. His talents and accomplishments were of course the cause of this distinction; besides that his personal advantages were such as to prepossess every one in his favor. He was so handsome as frequently to attract observation when he passed along the streets. When, to the utmost simplicity and singleness of mind, were added splendid talents, the charm of poetry, so highly valued in the country of the Troubadours, an affectionate and generous disposition, vivacious and pleasing manners, an engaging and attractive exterior; we cannot wonder that Petrarch was the darling of his age, the associate of its greatest men, and the man whom princes delighted to honor.
The passion of Petrarch for Laura was purified and exalted at the same time. She filled him with noble aspirations, and divided him from the common herd. He felt that her influence made him superior to vulgar ambition, and rendered him wise, true, and great. She saved him in the dangerous period of youth, and gave a worthy aim to all his endeavors. The manners of his age permitted one solace; a Platonic attachment was the fashion of the day. The Troubadours had each a lady to adore, to wait upon, and to celebrate in song; without its being supposed that she made him any return beyond a gracious acceptance of his devoirs, and allowing him to make her the heroine of his verses. Petrarch endeavored to merge the living passion of his soul into this airy and unsubstantial devotion. Laura permitted the homage: she perceived his merit and was proud of his admiration; she felt the truth of his affection, and indulged the wish of preserving it and her own honor at the same time. Without her inflexibility, this had been a dangerous experiment: but she always kept her lover distant from her; rewarding his reserve with smiles, and repressing by frowns all the overflowings of his heart.