Petrarch's Letters to Classical Authors

It is hardly necessary to dwell upon Petrarch’s extensive correspondence. He was the leader of the learned men of his age, and it is common knowledge that all his prominent contemporaries—whether in the political world, or in the religious world, ... Read more

It is hardly necessary to dwell upon Petrarch’s extensive correspondence. He was the leader of the learned men of his age, and it is common knowledge that all his prominent contemporaries—whether in the political world, or in the religious world, or in the scholarly world—were numbered among his friends. Corresponding so incessantly with all men and on all topics, Petrarch’s letters soon grew into an unmanageable mass. One day in 1359 Petrarch, with a sigh, consigned to the flames a thousand or more papers, consisting of short poems and of letters, merely to avoid the irksome task of sifting and of correcting them. He then noticed a few papers lying in a corner, which (after some hesitation) he spared because they had already been recopied and arranged by his secretary. Petrarch divided these “few” letters into two groups, dedicating the twenty-four books of prose epistles to Socrates, and the three books of poetic epistles to Marco Barbato. Farther on in his prefatory letter to Socrates, Petrarch points out the vigor and the courage to be seen in his earlier letters and advances extenuating circumstances for the laments which begin to crop out in the later ones. He excuses these by arguing that they were occasioned by the misfortunes which befell his friends and not by those which he had suffered in his own person. At this point Petrarch does not lose the opportunity for comparing himself with Cicero. Less