Today—and for the last several centuries—Petrarch is famous almost exclusively for a series of more than 300 sonnets. In fact, he is specifically famous for the construction of the sonnet which bears his name as opposed to a similar yet slightly different construction referred to variously as the British or Shakespearean sonnet. Petrarch himself considered these love poems to be among the lower end of the voluminous literary output that he felt live on after he was gone. After all, Petrarch was literally there at both the place and time that gave birth to the Italian Renaissance. The poet is every bit as much a definitive figure of that remarkable era as Dante and Boccaccio. Or, for that matter, Da Vinci or Donatello.
Petrarch’s Letter to Posterity stands as one of the rare examples of autobiography written between Augustine’s Confessions and the 19th century. On His Own Ignorance and That of Others is a genuinely creative work of research that provides analysis of the works and ideas of Aristotle, Cicero, and Seneca while simultaneously imitating each of their distinctive styles. Perhaps because he was so well-acquainted with the works of past masters ranging from Augustine to Vergil—and doubtlessly due to partly to a life lived mostly in the seclusion that fostered his prodigious output—Petrarch was actually keenly aware of the significance of writing with future readers in mind. Part of his overall concept of the literary life was directed specifically toward devoting his energies to the kind of writing would outlive him.
Which makes the fact that he is today know almost exclusively for his sonnets all that more ironic. He did not even invent the sonnet form on which his fame rests. That honor typically goes to Giacomo da Lentino, a fellow Italian poet writing in the previous century. While he may not have invented the sonnet, Petrarch is unquestionably the writer who made it a popular. In fact, he made it so popular that despite his low opinion of its place among his own canon, he published more than 300 sonnets in a collection retitled Canzoniere after his death. The original title that the author gave his collection of sonnets translates into English as “Fragments of Common Things.”
Perhaps the single most interesting aspect of this collection for non-academics is that the poetry which made Petrarch famous and lent his name to a poetic form that has never gone out of style is one single woman. A real, actual living woman named Laura; most likely Laura de Noves whom he saw one day in church and in a moment inspiration that would result in her becoming his muse, but not his lover. She was married and that circumstance disallowed any actual romantic connection. Instead, Petrarch sublimated his doubtlessly frustrated sexual desire into an artistic pursuit that became an aesthetic revolution.
The “Laura” of those hundreds of poems becomes more than merely mortal flesh and blood while also never losing her essential quality of humanity. This retention of humanity not only allows her to escape the dead-end trajectory of becoming an idealized fantasy, but it also responsible for her ever lapsing into the imaginary. The sheer emotional power of the sonnets eradicate all attempts to argue that Laura belongs to that category of imaginary muse like the infamous Julia who lives only in the many poems Robert Herrick wrote about her. Laura was unquestionably flesh and blood and Petrarch unquestionably was obsessed with her from that day he spotted her in church. After all, many of sonnets were written in loving memory of her following her death.
It is a testament to the power of emotion over intellect that literature can create in some readers that it is the sonnets for which Petrarch remains famous rather than his extensive collection of what might objectively be termed superior works of literature. While admiring a writer’s ability to sound like Aristotle while analyzing Aristotle’s works is one thing, it is something else entirely to feel as though you know a woman who existed half a millennia ago. The power of Petrarch’s sonnets belongs only partly to the poet. Laura is every bit as responsible for giving those poems the timeless quality Petrarch wanted so much.
