He desires that all the horses he may possess at the time of his decease may be divided between his two friends, Bonzanello and Lorbardo, and acknowledges a debt to the latter of 334 gold ducats and 16 sous, which he nevertheless hopes to pay before his death.
He bequeaths to the same Lorbardo his small round goblet of silver-gilt that he may drink as much water as he likes, knowing that he prefers water to wine.
To the Sacristan, Giovanni Bocheta, he gives his large breviary, which cost him 100 livres at Venice; but desires that after the death of the Sacristan the volume may be deposited in the sacristy of the church for the use of all priests attached to that church and who will pray for him to God and the Virgin Mary.
He leaves to Giovanni di Certaldo, otherwise Boccaccio,—(verecundi admodùm tanto viro, tam modicum, says he),—200 gold florins of Florence, to purchase him a winter robe suitable for his studious vigils. The words “tanto viro” are significant of the great esteem in which he held the genius of Boccaccio.
To Tomaso Bambasia, of Ferrara, he leaves his lute, which he describes as “good”—leutum meum bonum—but for singing the praises of the Lord, and by no means pro vanitate seculi fugacis.
To Johannes de Horologio—to whom he gives the title of “physicum”—he bequeaths 50 gold ducats to buy a ring which he will wear on his finger in memory of the testator.
As for his servants, he gives first to Bartolomeo di Siena, surnamed Pancaldus, a sum of 20 ducats, but on condition that he will not gamble with it. To Litius, he gives the same, etc.
In fine, he institutes as his heir and residuary legatee, Francesco di Borsano, residing at Milan. He names “a small property he has near Vaucluse” of which he desires to make a hospital for the poor, and if this could not be done he devises it to the son of Raymond de Clermont, surnamed Moneto. There are other unimportant clauses, after which comes the date, signature, and names of witnesses; he adds to it, however, a request to his heir to write as soon as possible after his death to his brother—a Carthusian in a convent at Marseilles (in conventu de Materino)—and to propose to either pay down to him a sum of 100 gold florins or an annuity of ten, as he might please. The whole terminates with these words: Ego Franciscus Petrarca scripsi, qui testamentum aliud fecissem, si essem dives, ut vulgus insanum putat.
Curious and suggestive as is this relic, the illustrious reformer of philosophy, eloquence, poetry, and—shall we not even add—of love, has left a yet more engaging clew to his grand character, not only in his simple and almost naïf “Epistle to Posterity,” but in a third paper consisting of the private memorandum written in the fly-leaf of his Virgil, evidently the outpouring of his heart and intended for no human eye. The concluding lines are touching in the extreme. What, indeed, can be more sublime than the lifelong devotedness of such a soul as Petrarch’s to the noblest and most beautiful, because the most disinterested, of sentiments—an all-absorbing and unaltered, yet pure and passionless, affection, and though surviving its object, losing none of its intensity!
“ ... This loss,” he says, writing of the death of Laura, “always present to my memory, will continually remind me that there is no state here below worthy to be called happy, and that it is time I should renounce the world since the dearest tie that linked me to it is snapped. I hope, by the help of Heaven, this resignation may become possible. My mind, in reverting to the past, will find that the solicitudes which occupied it were vain; the hope it cherished delusive; that the plans it formed were never to be realized, and could only lead to disappointment and distress.”