Petrarch was sent by the Visconti to Prague, as envoy to the Emperor Charles IV, and afterwards in the same capacity to King John of France. He subsequently resided in Padua and Venice, and in 1370 he retired to the village of Arqua, in the Euganean mountains, where he was destined to pass the remainder of his days. He was found on the morning of the 18th of July, 1374, dead in his library, with his head resting on a book.
The host of imitators who, without a spark of Petrarch's genius, mimicked his mannerisms for centuries, produced at last the inevitable reaction, and of recent years many censors have insisted on his faults, while ignoring his beauties. But Petrarch was assuredly one of the greatest lyric poets that ever lived. The melody of his sonnets and the splendour of his odes are unrivalled in the literature of his country, nor did any Italian lyrist rise to an equal height until in the Nineteenth Century Leopardi combined inspiration no less ardent with a style more natural, simple and direct. Petrarch is one of those poets who present nothing to their readers in a sharp and graphic style, but everything involved in a rich haze of trope and metaphor. From this tendency, it cannot be denied, he becomes occasionally artificial and forced, but he is far more frequently soul-stirring and magnificent. Unlike Dante, whose chief inspirers were hatred and indignation, he is prompted by love and reverence: love for his country and for Laura, and reverence for all that is noble and heroic. His sublime ode, _Spirto gentil,_ addressed to Rienzi, rouses the spirit like a trumpet, even after the lapse of so many centuries. How noble is the invocation to the heroes of ancient Rome: "O grandi Scipioni! O fedel Bruto!" And the conclusion is superb:
"Sopra il monte Tarpeo, Canzon, vedrai, Un cavalier[1] ch' Italia tutta onora, Pensoso più d'altrui che di sè stesso. Digli: Un che non ti vide ancor da presso, Se non come per fama uom s'innamora, Dice che Roma ogni ora, Con gli occhi di dolor bagnati e molli Ti chier mercè da tutti sette i colli."
Magnificent is the Ode to Italy, _Italia Mia,_ and even superior, if possible, is the poem addressed to Giacomo Colonna in favour of another Crusade. Marvellous in their delicate beauty are the Odes addressed to Laura, _In quella parte dov' Amor mi sprona,_ and, _Di pensier in pensier, di monte in monte._ But to enumerate the poems in which extraordinary beauties are to be found would be to enumerate nearly the whole collection. The tenderness and fire, the melody and richness of his style are equalled by no poet in any language unless it be by Tennyson in his finest lyric effusions, especially in the _In Memoriam._