ISABELLA BERTOLETTI
PETRARCH'S RERUM VULGARIUM FRAGMENTA:
MOURNING LAURA
Petrarch
is
now
chiefly celebrated as the author
of
Italian poetry,
of the
Rerum vulgarium fragmenta. While he was still living, however, he wrote
in Latin as a way of safeguarding his name with posterity.
With his unfinished epic poem in Latin, Africa, on the theme of the secmost copiously
ond Punic
war, he earned the
ny held
Rome
in
crown of poet
laureate in a
erate horrified Petrarch,
solemn ceremo-
power
to oblit-
both personally and professionally. At a
difficult
in 1341. Time's inexorable ticking
and
its
juncture in the history of the Italian vernacular, while Italy was not politically or linguistically unified, the
his Italian
poems
poet was troubled by the susceptibility of
to being distorted
by
common
readers.
swore indifference toward the vernacular compositions.
ever, the
last
poems
He
repeatedly
In private,
how-
secretly received Petrarch's continuing attention until his
days; in fact, he
poems of the
1
was
collection
Significantly, there
sive Latin writings
still
in the process
when he
is
very
of renumbering the
last thirty
died.
little
mention of Laura
and no mention of her
in Petrarch's exten-
in the oration delivered
by the
poet on the occasion of his highest professional achievement, his coronation as poet laureate in
ical
a
Rome, where he
alluded, instead, to the mytholog-
story of Apollo's consecration of the laurels as a result of his pursuit of
nymph who
assumes arboreal form in a metamorphosis effected to escape
his possession, as the
paradigm of the
poet's pursuit
of his
His
laurels.
Fragmenta, seemingly composed out of compulsion to redress his most
immediate longings
ing exclusively
on an
for Laura,
elusive
tell
a multi-faceted story rather that focus-
woman. With them
Petrarch exposes the
most
intimate nuances of his illegitimate passion for her (and of his moral
sis),
include in the collection multiple
itics
cri-
insisting on the uniqueness of his predicament, yet he was prudent to
and
poems on entirely different subjects (polpoems which would illustrate how the
friendships, for instance),
vernacular functions in the real world and not just in matters of the heart.
In sonnet 90 Petrarch describes his beloved in flight: her blond hair
scattered
and knotted by the wind: "Erano
Quaderni
d'italianistica,
i
capei d'oro a l'aura sparsi
Volume XXIII, No.
2,
2002, 25
/
is
che
Isabella Bertoletti
'n mille dolci
which turned
nodi
it
gli
in a
escape. 3 This vision,
was loosed
more than any
and the ephemeral
stand
and
still
inspires
it.
lyrical
project in
times knotted by
Laura's hair, at times flowing in the wind, at
extent,
seem
words
Lauras
immoder-
This image, further-
the link between the defining themes of the text and
some
arrest
other, crystallizes the poet's
woman who
more, suggests the paradox of Petrarch's
Petrarch's Fragmenta, to
to the breeze,
1-2]) 2 Fleetingly,
thousand sweet knots." [(90.
unimaginable: they make time
attain the
ate love
avolgea." ("Her golden hair
/
its
entirety.
it,
provides
formal
its
logic.
to be the spontanous expression
of an unbridled passion, yet they are meticulously collected and ordered.
As soon
as the
Fragmenta allow Petrarch to enjoy momentary
from
release
renew the emotions that they should
his relentless obsession, they also
redress.
Laura's
image throughout the Fragmenta
is
that of a different order of
Her
being, a flickering apparition with attributes rather than features.
shimmering
figure
comes
in
and out of focus and her
full
description, the
poet would have us believe, transcends his rhetorical competence ("manca
l'ingegno et l'arte"
l'ardir,
[309. 14]).
Thus
—
"there
my
fails
of formalized discrete physical attributes that he
attributes
which never come together into
body throughout
the fragments of Laura's
focal points:
her "bella ignuda
my
daring,
wit,
and
my
mano"
reiterates hypnotically,
a portrait. 4 Petrarch sprinkles
his scattered
("beautiful
rhymes
as radiant
naked hand" [200.1]),
"bel giovenil petto" ("lovely youthful breast" [37.102]), "begli occhi"
"bel guardo sereno" ("beautiful eyes"
83]), "piedi" ("feet" [292. 2]) and,
gold"
[159. 6]). 5
art"
on the enumeration of a limited number
Petrarch relies
and "lovely
clear gaze" [37.
and
74
&
of course, "chiome d'or" ("locks of fine
Her ephemeral presence can be surmised,
obliquely,
through faint traces like the imprint of her foot ("et del bel piede alcun vestigio serbe"
— "and keep some
print of her lovely foot," [162. 4]) or an
abandoned glove ("candido leggiadretto
et caro
guanto,"
— "White,
light,
and dear glove" [199. 9]). 6 It is equally impossible to pin down Laura's personality given the narrow range of expression granted her by the poet. She
laughs ("dolce ride"
"sweetly laughs" [159. 14]), sometimes she sings like
—
a siren ("quel celeste cantare che
so melts
lare"
—
me" [220.
10]).
7
mi
Petrarch
disface"-"that heavenly singing
tells
"sweet speech," [205. 3] and "l'accorte parole"
[37. 86]), that her
words
innamoramento ("fanno
command
altrui
It is
the poet
—
"skilful
words,"
reverence and were instrumental in his
tremar di meraviglia"
— "make one tremble
we have negligible access to
who recollects her words ("voi
with wonder" [200. 12]), but
her utterances.
which
us that she speaks (her "dolce par-
— 26 —
the content of
diceste allora"-
.
Mourning Laura
"you said then" [87.
9]),
a
Madonna
avrei
ben
52]). Paradoxically,
letto"
meant
or imagines what she
— seemed
— "on my
brow
encountered her ("parea dir"
to say
to say" [33. 13]; "ne
"she
lady's
I
("in
fronte
la
might have read" [331
Laura grows increasingly available
she appears in the poet's dreams
when he
when
after she dies,
sonno" [250.
Laura taunts
1]).*
Petrarch with the frustration of empty embraces ("Beato in sogno, e di languir contento,/ d'abbracciar l'ombre e seguir l'aura estiva,"
sleep
and
summer
satisfied to languish, to
"blessed in
to pursue the
breeze," [212, 1-2]); 9 her physical unavailability drives Petrarch
into a state of emotional paralysis,
tion of a poetic corpus
which
among generations of readers.
The key question to address
rather
embrace shadows,/ and
—
and
yet she
him
will earn
is
the indispensable motiva-
is
the laurel
and
circulation
not what the Rime sparse are about, but
what position they individually adopt on the fluidity of perception
much virtuosity. At the outset of the Fragmenta the
that they depict with so
reader
is
faced with the identity of a poetic compilation that announces
the collection bears a Latin
itself as split:
ta)
{Rerum vulgarium fragmen-
title
and a vernacular body (presumably the contrast between a classical and
a new and impermanent one would underscore
unchanging language and
the fragmentation of the following poems). 10
The opening sonnet confirms
the complicated nature of Petrarch's project. In spite of
capacity,
it
its
introductory
does not firmly situate the poet:
Voi ch'ascoltate in rime sparse
di quei sospiri ond'io nudriva
in sul
mio primo
il
il
suono
core
giovenile errore,
quand'era in parte altr'uom da quel
ch'i'
sono:
(1. 1-4)
You who hear in scattered rhymes the sound of those sighs
with which I nourished my heart during my first youthful
when I was in part another man from what I am now.
Sonnet
1
introduces a subject whose attitude of repentance
is
error,
incom-
self, besieged by an inner conflict who swings between
and emotion, encapsulated in the utterances "piango" and
"ragiono." These are emotions at odds with one another that require the
poet to admit to his psychic disintegration and rhetorical meltdown ("di
plete,
an incoherent
lucidity
me medesmo meco mi
vergogno"
yet, seemingly, Petrarch
—
"I
am ashamed of myself within"). And
inaugurated his
lyrical
sequence with
this
sonnet
in order to suggest that identity should be undivided, static and finished.
Petrarch teases the reader with the
phantom of a conversion which would
give a strong sense of direction to his text
— 27 —
and structure
its
content in a
Isabella Bertoletti
manner comparable to the use of a vanishing point for organizing spatial perspective. By postponing his conversion, the signifying horizon of his lyrical
collection vanishes giving way to its multiplicity and points of dispersal.
In
an
move
palinodie
unpersuasive
the
poet,
Guido da
like
Montefeltro in Dante's Inferno, xx entertains the fallacious position of
recanting a crime (yet undisclosed) and looking for absolution before sinning.
It is,
"errore,"
only in sonnet 2 that Petrarch confesses his offense, his
in fact,
and then proceeds
mood
to reiterate
throughout the scattered rhymes.
it
The
recantatory
cally
both the element of renunciation and repetition),
of sonnet
{recantare indeed comprises etymologi-
1
literalized
is
sion of his innamoramento in sonnets 2
Per fare
un
celatamente
come uom
Era
ben mille
dì
Amor
ivi
quando
1
offese,
l'arco riprese,
ch'a nocer luogo e
mia vertute
la
e
ne
gli
al
tempo
aspetta.
cor ristretta
occhi sue difese,
colpo mortai
là
giù discese,
ove solea spuntarsi ogni saetta;
To
3:
una leggiadra sua vendetta
e punire
per far
and
by the
double ver-
reiteration of the "giovenile errore." Petrarch presents a curious
(2. 1-8)
take a graceful revenge and to punish in one day a thousand
offenses,
Love took up
waits for the time
My vital
and
in
his
bow
and place
again secretly, like a
power was concentrated
my eyes
in
when
his defense,
man who
to hurt.
my
heart, to
the fatal blow
make
fell
there
where
every previous arrow had been blunted;
Era
il
per
la pietà del
giorno ch'ai
quando
che
i
i'
sol si scoloraro
suo fattore
be' vostr' occhi,
Tempo non mi
parea da far riparo
d'Amor; però m'andai
contr'a' colpi
secur, senza sospetto;
nel
It
commune
It
onde
i
miei guai
dolor s'incominciaro.
was the day when the
Maker when
for
rai
i
non me ne guardai,
Donna, mi legaro.
fui preso, et
I
your lovely
sun's rays
was taken, and
eyes, Lady,
did not seem to
blows; therefore
I
me
I
(3. 1-8)
turned pale with grief for his
did not defend myself against
bound me.
a time for being
on guard
went confident and without
against Love's
fear,
so
misfortunes began in the midst of the universal woe.
— 28 —
my
it,
MoL'RNiNc; Laura
and
Literal
fact that
other.
2
is
syntactical echoes ("Era [...]quando") call attention to the
one poem reproduces (though
The
presentation of the
accommodated
reflected
to a Christian setting
(Good Friday)
drama of the Fall
by a distorting mirror) the
Ovidian scene of wounding
initial
when sonnet 3 uncovers
that rendered the poet
brings the
to bear
on
sonnet
the litur-
unarmed and thereby
amorous experience. 12 In this
gical occasion
way
in
his
Petrarch brings forth to bear two major, though eclectic, intertexts:
profane and sacred, Ovid and the Bible; he sacrilegiously intersects incom-
By evoking
the figure of the Passion
his private suffering against the
redemptive suffering of
patible versions of the
and examining
same
events. 13
wounds
Christ, he implicitly
compares
wounds of Christ on
the cross. Suffering
his
is
as
an unrequited lover to the
advanced
condition for
as the
writing and his poetry, pouring out of a torn subject, seems almost to
hem-
orrhage from his wounds. 14
As the sequence unfolds, the
poet's world,
brought about by Christ's passion in sonnet
by the
woman who
is
born
in
sonnet
4,
3,
is
dimmed by
the eclipse
illuminated and enlivened
who becomes
new, personal
his
human
sun, yet one connected to Christ by the irreverent comparison of
birth to the mystery of the incarnation (4. 9-14). 15 This initial sequence
hardly equips the reader with enough elements to construct a romantic
plot.
With
allusions to physical death (in sonnets 2
its
and
3),
however,
Petrarch reminds his readers that beginnings and epilogues tend to be one
and the same
of conversion. In
in habitual narratives
poem
5 the
sequence
culminates with the simultaneous naming and scattering of the
(who has thus remained
"Taci" (5. 7);
"LAUdare
unidentified):
"LAUdando"
et Reverire" (5. 9);
clearly not vulnerable to the arrows
(5. 3);
"morTAl"
of love (she
is
not
woman
"Real"
(5. 14).
(5. 5);
"Laureta"
is
wounded by them),
she invades every facet of the poet's universe but in the form of graphic
signs, a
pure signifier composed and decomposed
final syllable
last
of her name,
breath and her death
in the
poem's
("il fin").
The
at the poet's will.
final line, coincides
poet,
who now
The
with the poet's
chooses to identify
with Apollo (the Sun), secularizes the spectacle of Christ's crucifixion
(when the sun was reverently concealed) and
of his professional endeavour.
tion,
who
Petrarch
displaces
it
with the audacity
Laura, not the mystery of the incarna-
exceeds his grasp and requires stronger shoulders (the "omeri,"
which reverently allude
The
It is
poet's
to Petrarch's ideal mentor,
mental image of Laura
is
Homer).
the sensual basis of a love that
unable to sublimate into a symbolic occasion for elevation.
is
Intermittently penitent, Petrarch recognizes the danger of a desire that has
caused his
own
spiritual
directly personal
degeneration into a fragmented being. In his most
work, the scathingly introspective
— 29 —
De
secretu confiictu
Isabella Bertoletti
curarum mearum, xb Petrarch undertakes a prolonged attempt
healing.
During
mentor,
St.
a three-day dialogue
between himself and
at spiritual
his spiritual
Augustine, he searches his soul and portrays his secular and
spiritual aspirations
competing
conflict rather then
ending in conversion. In the Fragmenta, analogously,
in a struggle that endures into a lingering
he correlates his long and painful pursuit of Laura to a continuous struggle
which
fails
to
produce a definitive
religious epiphany. Against the lofty
background of Augustinian orthodoxy
it is
Laura
who
merits the applause
of the Saint, while Petrarch can bring himself only to confess his
failure in
commitments to a view of agency (and authorship) as resolved, coherent and self continuous. Laura's unwavering virtue
"She
("Contra autem ilia propositi tenax et semper una permansit"
always held firm and true to herself" [p. 222] ), 17 draws attention to the
spiritual fragmentation of the poet and reminds us of his shortcomings.
The implacably personal tale of Petrarch's amorous afflictions (suggesrelation to his simultaneous
—
tively designated
[p.
by Augustinus
in the Secretum as a plague,
"tuam
pestis"
224]), unfolds against the background of a real epidemic breakout, the
Black Death, which swept through Europe twice during Petrarch's
1348 and again
survivors an
overwhelming reminder of the uncertainty of
Familiares, V) an
immense
into his vernacular
life. 18
epistolary corpus addressed to real
and
recipients that Petrarch organized
went
life (in
with devastating consequences and was for
in 1361)
poems,
is
Petrarch's
and imagined
revised with zeal equal to that
replete with instances
all
which
where he confess-
es his vulnerability to the
emotional horrors of the catastrophic event and
The
dedicatory letter brings his response to the
admits his despair.
tragedies of epidemic loss to the forefront
tive writing
within a
Ecce, iam fere
aiunt,
annus
I
omnia tentavimus,
inter digitos
sepulte
sunt.
est,
effluxerunt;
Millesimus
at
locates his introspec-
nusquam
trecentesimus
is
hopes are buried with
and
In Petrarch's
said, slipped
my
friends.
cum
fecit.
(Familiares, 1.1)
I
through
The
amicis
quadragesimus octavus
have attempted almost everything and
it
reques... Tempora, ut
spes nostre veteres
qui nos solos atque inopes
nowhere... Time,
have found peace
my
fingers;
year 1348 has
left
my
me
old
alone
in despair.
Rime the death of Laura occurs during an outbreak of the
great epidemic of 1348. 20
mento, in
and thus
large, historical perspective:
fact, are
The death of Laura and
Petrarch's
innamora-
the two single events of the Fragmenta presented with
chronological certainty. This
is
a striking deviation from the habitual ambi-
guity of the temporal framework of the Fragmenta:
— 30 —
Mourning Laura
Mille trecento ventisette, a punto
su l'ora prima,
dì sesto d'aprile,
il
nel laberinto intrai, né veggio ond'esca.
One
thousand three hundred twenty-seven, exactly
hour of the
see
(211. 12-14)
where
I
day of April,
sixth
may
get out of
at the first
entered the labyrinth, nor do
I
I
it.
"Sai che n mille trecento quarantotto,
il
dì sesto d'aprile, in l'ora
del
prima
corpo uscio quell'anima beata." (336. 12-14)
"You know that
in 1348,,
that blessed soul
left
blossoms
Petrarch's love
on the
day of April,
sixth
at the first hour,
the body."
at a specific
point in his
life
and
is
(and prematurely) affected by the woman's death, which strikes
unique moment.
haunted by
this
Petrarch's lyrical collection
is
condemned
suddenly
another
at
to exist in time,
stunning, almost insolent coincidence: Laura's death
occurs on an anniversary of the day in which the poet
metry blatantly advertised by
first
saw
Petrarch's identical presentation
dates in the final terzine of sonnets 211
and 336.
It is
her, a
sym-
of the two
no accident
that the
date of the poet's entry into the labyrinth of love (his spiritual death) and
Laura's physical death are coordinated. NX/hat
love
on Good Friday
is
more, the poet has
fallen in
(the feria sexta aprilis), thus his personal tribulations
shape up against the larger framework of Christ's crucifixion. 21 Petrarch
relies
on the loaded symbolic
potential implicit in the feria sexta aprilis to
construct the moral fabric that underlies the whole collection of the
Fragmenta. Since the collection
memorating
his first
is
punctuated with
encounter with Laura (which
death, 30, 50, 62, 79, 101, 107,
1
18, 122, 145,
poet's perception
of time
Even when she
is
is
alive,
life.
is
Whether Laura
a reminder of Laura's
is
dead or
dangerously scanned in relation to
the
alive,
her.
however, Laura seems dead, and mourning the
essential ingredient to formulate a poetics
the stimulus behind
poems com-
converges with her
212, 221, 266, 271, 278,
364, ranging from 1334 to 1358), each anniversary
enduring hold over Petrarch's
fifteen
later
human
endeavours.
which
When
identifies in
human
frailty
Petrarch depicts Laura at
her most glorious, as in the frozen erotic tableaux presented in sonnet 90,
he has to concede to the unyielding beat of time, aptly rendered by the
eration of the
stingy of
now"
it"
word
"or" ("ch'or ne son
scarsi"
—
— "which
are
now
so
"and if she were not such
non fosse or tale"
shimmering golden hair, scattered and knotted by
[90. 4]; "et se
[90. 13]). Laura's
sì
reit-
the wind, her luminous eyes, her bearing, her voice, belong to a previous
— 31 —
.
Isabella Bertoletti
time and
state
linked to
its
way
of being in the same
past
fragmented
Petrarch's
self
and imagined through metaphors of loss and
always
is
desire.
In a letter addressed to Phillip, Bishop of Cavaillon (Familiares 24. 1)
Petrarch expressly equates writing (and reading) with death:
Continue morimur, ego
dumque non
audient
tu moreris
dum
dum leges, alii dum
dum hec leges morirar,
hec scribo, tu
quoque
audient; ego
dum hec scribo, ambo morimur, omnes morimur,
numquam vivimus dum his sumus... (p. 1245)
sem-
per morimur,
We
am
you
are
reading, others while they are listening (or not listening) to me.
As
you
am
die continuously: myself while
be reading this
will
letter,
I
will
I
writing, you, while
be dying, you are dying while
we
writing to you, the two of us are dying,
always dying,
we
we
are never living while
are
all
are here.
we
dying,
I
are
.
In the Fragmenta Petrarch uses metaphors reminiscent of Laura every
time he describes the inescapable ticking of time, since his days
swifter than a deer ("I dì miei più leggier che nessuno cervo/fuggir
ombra"
time
— "My days
flies
inganni
i
swifter that
ciechi et miseri mortali"
—
have fled
deer,
"see
how
("et sì
time
backs. "[128. 98-99]).
The
— "O
O
like a
shadow" [319.
1]),
ciel
volubil che fuggendo/
O
revolving heavens that
time,
and wretched mortals." [355.1-2]), death
fleeing deceive us blind/
around the corner
spalle."
any
and beguiles him ("O tempo,
move
come
come
flies
la
and
Morte
vita/fugge et la
life
flees,
and how Death
transitory nature of time
is
is
n'è sovra le
/is
at
our
punctuated by the
dizzying rate of metamorphoses in canzone 23. This composition
is
companion poem, 323, as the end of the collection
approaches, which depicts the demise of things known to be immortal and
erects a poignantly enduring monument to impermanence. Death looms
reassessed
by
large over the
its
Fragmenta, casting
a
propels the narrative forward towards
huge shadow which introduces and
its
fulfillment,
marking the
passage from frailty to silence, eternity, and disintegration in
In a desperate attempt to relieve the anxiety provoked
orable
and unrepeatable events with which
brought Laura and
of oblivion
—
life is
will invariably usher the
saturated
—
relentless
poem
366.
by the inexit
has already
poet (and his work) to a state
Petrarch looks for solutions to contain his dispersion and
steady his course. Augustinus admonishes him, in the Secretum, that he
renounce earthly (thus impermanent) pursuits. The Saint, thus, discredits
the secular, courtly rationalizations adopted by Franciscus to justify himself,
when he maintains
that his love for Laura should
become
a path to sal-
vation. Augustinus clearly spells out the incompatibility of the poet's infat-
— 32 —
Moi RM\(, Laura
uation for Laura (the creature) and his claims of devotion towards the
amore celestium elongavit animum
Creator: "Ab
ram desiderium indinavir"
and substituted your love
216).
The
—
for a creature for
poet, at times,
"A
la
dolce
your love
for the Creator." (p.
must take
painfully conscious of the action he
is
envoy of
in order to correct his mistakes. In the
sestina
Creatore ad creatu-
et a
"[She] strayed your soul from heavenly love
ombra de
le
a
powerfully penitential
belle frondi" (142),
echoing the idolatrous
"Giovane donna sotto un verde lauro" (30) with palinodie intentions, he
out his path to redemption from the idolatrous desires
explicitly lays
explored in the former poem:
Akramor,
altre frondi, et altro
lume,
altro salir al ciel per altri poggi
cerco (che n'è ben tempo) et
Another
altri
and another
love, other leaves,
another climbing to Heaven by other
seek (for
I
The
in
where the
114). Petrarch
is
—
"I
became transformed
in
moments
intermittently penitential
"cosa bella e mortal passa e
"altri
non dura"
—
his
double
rami" of the tree/cross of Christ.
Rime
reiterate this view:
"this beautiful
mortal thing passes
in the
and does not endure" (248.8); "Che mortal cosa amar con tanta
quanta a Dio
brama."
—"For
sol
per debito convensi,/più
the
more one
si
more one
to/love a mortal thing with the faith that belongs to
fact,
fede/
disdice a chi più pregio
desires honor, the
101 ). 22 Throughout the Fragmenta, in
in
sum
another Augustine,"
aware of his moral obligation to replace
object of desire Laura/lauro with the
The
reminds us of Augustine's words
"altro"
saint describes his conversion: "transformatus
alterum Augustinum,"
(p.
light,
hills
indeed time), and other branches.
on the word
insistence
the Secretum,
it is
(142. 37-39)
rami.
God
is
forbidden
alone."(264.99-
Petrarch displays a keen aware-
ness of his moral situation. This knowledge, however, does not inspire a
radical
and permanent change. Petrarch candidly confesses
the concluding line of a
poem
his
peggior m'appiglio."
I
see the better but
(264.136). Petrarch's lack of resolution
played in the organization of his
poems
after
invoking the
"altri
be what I/have been,
is
lyrical
I
lay hold
shall live as
I
fui,
sequence.
meglio, et
al
on the worse."
In fact, merely three
poem
that con-
vivrò com'io son visso"
have lived" (145.13).
— 33 —
'1
underscored by the strategy dis-
rami," he places a sinful
cludes with the statement: "sarò quai
shall
in
that echoes the Secretum and, just like the
prose dialogue, closes with a failed conversion: "et veggio
—"and
weakness
—
"still
I
Isabella Bertoletti
Petrarch thus remains transfixed by Laura's beauty and attempts to
steady his course by disguising his transformation into a stone (and a questionable fulfillment of his family
name)
as a type
of conversion. Under
("'1
volto di Medusa,/che
Laura's Medusa-like ability he turns into stone
facea
marmo
diventar
la
gente."
—
Medusa, which made peo-
"the face of
cor fanno
become marble." [179.10-11]; "et que belli occhi che
"and those lovely eyes that turn hearts into stone" [213.9]). 23
smalti,"
ple
He
i
—
otherwise attempts to secure the evanescent goal of his desires by solid-
ifying Laura into an object of religious worship. In either case, unwilling,
or unable, to give up his investment in a mortal object, he accommodates
his sinful
predicament to a monumentalization of his passion. His
marily,
not that of having strayed from religion for a worldly passion, but
is
that of having
The
try
made
the Veronica in
at the
his love into a religion. 24
poet openly admits to his propensity to
by comparing
his adoration
St. Peter's
—
Petrarch's presentation
his poetry,
to be crucified. (16.9-14) 25
raises crucial
simultaneous belief in the truth of an incarnate
is
questions on Petrarch's
which conveys them,
moral perversion. The significance of the cloth
His visage
the sin of idola-
the cloth carrying the imprint of Christ's image
of the Veronica
and opens
commit
of Laura to an old pilgrim's veneration of
time when he was walking on Golgotha
spiritual claims
sin, pri-
is
to charges
predicated
God and
upon
of
the
in the belief that
reproduced, perfectly, upon the cloth. Petrarch daringly
employs the reliquary
for poetic effect
by inverting
its
legitimate claims:
Christ figures as mere metaphor or image ("sembianza") while Laura has
become
a type of Christ ("forma vera"). 26 Petrarch's desire to experience
and
enjoy the visible (Laura), furthermore, supersedes his duty to extrapolate
the narrative of the crucifixion from the Veronica, in a fashion that
iniscent of the
Rimes gathering of scattered fragments, on the
rem-
is
requisite
of
organizing scattered stains into a plot that bespeaks a dramatic event.
Laura, momentarily collected into visions of static monumentality and
transcendental perfection, often becomes an ornate reliquary: "vedi quant'arte
dora e mperla e mostra/ l'abito eletto e mai non visto altrove," ("see
how much
skill
has gilded and impearled and incarnadined/ that noble
body never seen elsewhere,"
[192.5-7]),
"Muri eran d'alabastro
d'oro,/ d'avorio uscio, et fenestre di zaffiro"
e
'1
tetto
("The walls were of alabaster
and the roof of gold, the entrance/ of ivory and the windows of sapphire,"
[325.16-17]). She
ch'a
es
i
is
also
rami di diamante
transformed into a jewelled
et d'or le
chiome." ("harsh
cross:
"duro lauro/
laurel/ that has
branch-
of diamond and golden locks." [30.23-24]), decorated with "topacii"
("topaz" [30. 37] ), 27 revered
cosa santa"
("I
adore
it
by the poet
and bow
to
it
as a shrine "l'adoro e
as to a/
— 34 —
'nchino
holy thing," [228.14]).
come
MOI'RNINC;
This language
is
powerfully reminiscent of an astonishing
Giovanni Colonna {Familiares
implicating
the
Charlemagne
is
l.Al'RA
[1.4])
where Petrarch
emperor Charlemagne
of necrophilia.
woman. He
shamelessly over-
a
much
looks both his imperial and his private duties, so
image
is
woman
ruined and his
own
an anecdote
case
in
hopelessly infatuated with a
relates
letter to
so that his public
spiritual salvation jeopardized.
When
the
suddenly dies everybody celebrates the emperor's deliverance from
disgrace.
The emperor, however,
secretly refuses to accept the inevitable
and embalms the woman. He then
body which
carries
on ghastly
described with a language that
is
trysts
metamorphoses. Charlemagne clads
Laura's idolatrous
with her dead
openly reminiscent of
is
his defunct lover
with purple cloths and covers her with jewels:
cuius nee morte lenitus furor, sed ipsum
exangue translatus
honustum gemmis
est,
et
quam cupido
erabili
quod balsamo
obscenum cadaver
et
aromatibus conditum,
et
velatum purpura diebus ac noctibus tam mis-
fovebat amplexu.
(p.
261)
whose obsession did not diminish with her death,
it
intensified over
the dirty and bloodless corpse; after having had
it
embalmed and
covered in gems and dressed in purple, he would embrace
and day
in abject
and passionate
fits
it
night
of passion.
Petrarch extrapolates from this episode a general illustration about the
enslaving power of love (certainly one suitable to his
enamored condition).
In the Rime, though, he acknowledges his inability to disassociate himself
from the mundane force of love and concedes that
ing,
and
constant,
all
consuming even
remains silent about his
own
after
his
devotion
Laura's death.
is
endur-
While he
longings to possess a dead female body,
absolutely passive, fixed and available, he openly identifies with Orpheus,
the poet/musician,
Or
on
a loving quest for his
avess'io
un
sì
pietoso
dead wife Euridyce:
stile
che Laura mia potesse torre a Morte
come
Euridice
ch'i' vivrei
Would
that
as
I
I
Orpheo sua senza
anchor più che mai
had so sorrowful a
could win
my
rime,
lieto! 28
(332.49-52)
style
Laura back from Death
Orpheus won his Euridyce without rhymes,
I would live more glad than ever!
for then
This unusual tribute to the power of poetry
Petrarch
is
engaged
in a
is
understandable, since
prolonged (and unsuccessful) campaign to sway an
— 35 —
Isabella Bertoletti
unresponsive
woman. Furthermore,
sequence
sympathetic audience (the term "pietà" reverberates through-
as a
his readers are invited into his lyrical
out the collection). Most urgently, Petrarch
is
invested in gaining mastery
over the disordering force of death.
The
tainment of its devastating
central to the Fragmenta, to Petrarch's
and
poetic project,
Death,
like Laura,
an unreachable
is
no
effects
less
is
representation of death and con-
challenging than Orpheus's undertaking.
a signifier of absence that incessantly recedes towards
is
signified.
poem, 366, while professing to close wounds and tantalizing the reader with completion (the last word of the collection is "pace"),
In the
last
Petrarch recasts old themes: Christ's flesh dripping innocent blood for the
atonement of the guilty becomes the product of the old poetic oxymoron
who has blasown gap-
("virginità feconda"- "fruitful virginity" [366. 58]).
The
phemously displaced the wounds of Christ on the
cross with his
ing
into a figure for his erotic torment, 29
body and transformed Christ
woman who
forever subjected to the
desire
ended
and end ("veggendo
in yourself." [46.1 1]).
che m'ancidono a torto,"
—
has crucified
him
narcissistic
"'lovely,
lethal
arms
arms
cruel
("belle e
crude braccia/
humanity ("Quelle pietose braccia/in
aperte ancora;"-"'Those/ merciful arms in
me,"
that/ unjustly kill
[171.1-3]) have replaced the outstretched arms of Christ, sacrificed
cross to save
your
in voi finir vostro desio;"-"seeing
Her
which
I
is
("con saldi chiodi
on the mirror where her
nailed there firmly' [45. 9])
fisso"
desires begin
poet,
ch'io
trust
I
on the
mi
fido veggio
see
still
open;"
[264. 14-15]). 30
The wounded human body with
plete,
the text, with
its
orifices
remains incom-
dual beginnings, partial recantations, inconsistencies, a
furthermore, that
text,
exposed
its
impure, open to view and becomes the model for the organization of
is
traversed
by seven puzzling blank pages,
Petrarch (like an open sore) between
ingly unfinished, arrives to
its
poem 263 and
readers in
its
264.
The
pure materiality
bered corpus, entrusted with a story which can
fall
left
as a
by
seem-
text,
dismem-
apart as soon as
it is
assembled.
Staking his claim to
life
eternal, Petrarch evades the narrative replica-
tion of his earlier, spiritual death through sin, the effects of eros
identity, and, at the
al
same time, he eludes
his secular
on
undoing by the
binding and unbinding of a disseminated manuscript. In order to
his
literfulfill
an aberrant fantasy and transcend his post lapsarian sexual and mortal
body
(the sight of putrefaction, decay
and corporeal
incompleteness)
Petrarch tenders his limbs to public viewing, turning himself into a poetic
spectacle (like Christ
and Laura), and makes
has caused his agony. In the
way
in
a reliquary of the
which the
— 36 —
woman who
saintly bodies (or fragments
Mourning Laura
and har-
thereof) revered in shrines will be restored to eternal wholeness
mony
of Laura
in Paradise, the idol
is
dismembered body and the extension of
fragmented extra-
his self into a
corporeal existence (the Fragmenta) will be collected in
beyond,
as a vehicle
State University
of
his future
of New
own
the vehicle whereby the poet's
the "real" world
worldly fama and his secular salvation. 31
York, F.I. F.
NOTES
1
An
eloquent example of Petrarch's denunciations of his vernacular poetry
(designated as nugae or nugellae)
3),
where he declares that
is
in a letter addressed to
his vernacular texts
All references to Petrarch's poetry are
Petrarca.
Rime
sparse.
Robert
M. Durling
1976).
I
ed.
and
poem and
All further references to the
line
from Giovanni Ponte,
transi., Petrarch's Lyric
will refer to the lyrical collection as
1).
serious attention.
(Milano: Mursia, 1978); the source of
by Petrarch, Rerum vulgarium fragmenta) or
sonnet
Boccaccio (SenilesXNll,
do not merit
all
ed. Francesco
translations
Fragmenta (from the Latin
as
is
Poems (Cambridge: Harvard UP,
Rime
title
given
sparse (from the first verse
Rime sparse will be included
in the text
of
with
number.
'This image
is
endlessly rehearsed in the Fragmenta as the source the poet's
passionate condition. See, for instance 127, 83-85; 143, 9-1; 159, 5-6.
4 For discussions of Laura's
description in the
ics
Rime m terms of Petrarch's poet-
of fragmentation and idolatry/fetishism see Nancy Vickers "Remembering
Dante: Petrarch's 'Chiare fresche
et dolci acque'."
MLN 96
Durling "Petrarch's 'Giovane donna sotto un verde Lauro.'"
20; John Freccerò
"The Fig Tree and
(1975): 34-40; Giuseppe Mazzotta,
Self," Studies in Philology 7'5
(1981): 1-1
MLN 86
1;
the Laurel: Petrarch's Poetics," Diacritics 5
"The Canzoniere and
(1978): 271-296.
On
the
the Language of the
monumental
influence of
Petrarchismo in defining the standard of female beauty in the visual
Elizabeth Cropper
Vernacular Style.
5 For the
(especially
348. Sara
11.
"
"On
Beautiful
Robert
(1971): 1-
Women,
arts,
see
Parmigianino, Petrarchismo and the
Art Bulletin 18:3 (1976): 374-394.
most developed example of Lauras description,
49; 57-65; 77-78); for
Sturm-Maddox
good examples of Laura's
127
see canzone
features, see
291 49;
;
reviews the distinguishing elements of the physical
description of Laura as well as her confined repertoire of actions. "Petrarch's Siren:
'Dolce Parlar' and 'dolce canto' in the Rime sparse." Italian Quarterly 103 (1986):
5-19.
"For a reading of Laura's absence, see Robert Pogue Harrison, "The Death of
and the Petrarchan alternative," in The Body ofBeatrice. (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins UP, 1988): 93-109. John Freccerò "The Fig Tree" 39 postulates that in
the void created by the lady's absence he elevates the verse to the level or love surBeatrice
rogate
when
the laurel
crown
replaces Laura's favors as the motive for poetic cre-
— 37 —
Isabella Bertoletti
The
ation.
Petrarchan
lyric,
according to Mazzotta, suffers a loss of referential
function and becomes and exercise in poetic self-objectification, "The Canzoniere
and the Language of the
285-291.
self".
"Petrarch's Siren," 5.
For instances of her post mortem
poems 279, 302, 341, 342, 226, 359. In 359 and 362, she offers
poet assurance that she is waiting for him in Paradise.
'Sturm-Maddox,
utterances, see
the
^This
to
is
embrace
(Books
a recurrent
image
mother (Book
his
in Virgil's Aeneid,
where Aeneas
attempts
fruitlessly
and the ghosts of his wife (Book
I)
2)
and
his father
See Elizabeth Belfiore, "'Tar frustra comptensa' Embraces in the
5, 6).
Aeneidr Phoenix 38:1 (March 1984): 19-30.
'"Modern
editors
Canzoniere (which
wholeness).
is
still
shy away from the original
in Italian
and adopt,
title
and endows the collection with
Gianfranco Contini's edition uses
instead,
a stronger sense
Canzoniere (Torino:
of
Einaudi,
1964); Piero Cudini's edition (Milano: Garzanti, 1976) follows the example of
Contini;
Guido Bezzola
titles
Rime (Milano:
the collection
Rizzoli,
Giovanni Ponte (Milano: Mursia, 1979), Robert Durling use Rime
more
1976),
sparse, a title
suggestive of the scattered nature of the poems.
Guido da Montefeltro's episode appears in Canto 27 of Dante's Inferno. See
"The Making of a Lyric Sequence: Time and Narrative in Petrarch's
Rerum vulgarinm fragmenta? MLN 104 (1989): 30.
1
*
T. Barolini,
12 For the parallels between 2
and 3
62
see
Marco Santagata "Connessioni
see
Strumenti
intertestuali nel Canzoniere del Petrarca,"
Dennis Dutschke "The Anniversary Poems
critici
9 (1975): 89. For 3 and
in Petrarch's
Canzoniere?
Italica
58 (1981): 88. Sara Sturm-Maddox discusses the "cosmic disturbances associated
with the death of Christ" presented in
Metamorphoses: Text and
Petrarch's
3.
Subtext in the "Rime sparse" (Columbia: U. of Missouri Press, 1985) 111.
1
-^Throughout the Fragmenta, in
fact,
association of dissimilar literary fragments.
Aeneid and the Metamorphoses
sive
demeanor
her)
He
in his portrait
strikingly evoke Virgil's
a huntress, to assist her
Petrarch cultivates the unpredictable
borrows, for instance, from the
of Laura: her flowing hair and elu-
Venus (when she
son Aeneas and departs,
materializes, disguised as
hastily, as
he
is
about to recognize
and Ovid's Daphne (narrowly escaping Apollo's rapacious attentions
becomes transformed into
a laurel).
Petrarch the Poet (London, 1988)
and
his
"The Myth of Daphne
in the
Rerum
garium fragmenta" Italian Studies 34 (1979): 36; Sara Sturm Maddox.
Renaissance
she
vul-
Petrarch's
and Subtext in the 'Rime sparse. (Columbia: U of Missouri,
Thomas M. Greene The Light in Troy: Imitation and Discovery in
Poetry. (New Haven: Yale UP, 1982) 111. The Aeneid and
Metamorphoses: Text
1985) esp. ch
as
On the Ovidian subtext see Peter Hainsworth.
'
2.;
Metamorphoses rehearse the myth of the origin of
antithetical attitudes towards
"The Orlando
Furioso
it..
On
Rome
but support diametrically
Ovid's revision of Virgil, see Daniel Javitch:
and Ovid's Revision of the Aeneid."
MLN 5
(1984): 1023-
1035.
14
The Greek term
pathos, rendered
by Cicero
— 38 —
as
perturbano animi and by
Mourning Laura
Seneca with
affectus begins, at least
merges with the meaning of passio
power
4 and VIII,
Remo
degeneration and perversion. See:
as
as passio
and
condition of subjugation to an external
as
(for instance, in Augustine's Confession IX,
viewed
Il
with Ambrose to be designated
&
5
where
10,
it is
Bodei, Ordo amoris (Bologna:
Mulino, 1991)76-77.
'Poem
4
Sequence (NY:
is
discussed by
AMS
Thomas
Press, 1989),
Peter Hainsworth, The Languages
Clarendon
Roche
Petrarch
and
the English Sonnet
ofLiterature
in Renaissance Italy
(Oxford and NY:
1988), 6.
Press,
from Francesco Petrarca Secretimi
'"All quotations are
(Milano: Mursia, 1992).
I
my own.
translations are
P.
22-25: for a discussion of the role of the sun see
will include all
page numbers
is
well
main
of biblical
Petrarch's assiduous fréquentation
the works of Augustine
Enrico Fenzi
ed.
in the
text. All
and of
texts
documented. Carlo Calcaterra Nella
selva del
Petrarca (Bologna: Editore Licinio Cappella, 1942) presents a useful discussion or
Augustine's
on Petrarch ("Sant'Agostino
influence
and argues that the influence of the
Petrarca")
saint
nelle
opere di
Dante
e
went beyond the Secretum;
Adelia Noferi L'esperienza poetica del Petrarca (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1962), 55-66;
poetry and Secretum; N.
253-284
offers a suggestive correlation
Iliescu II
Canzoniere petrarchesco e Sant'Agostino (Roma, 1962) and
frammenti dell'anima.
of the
lyrical
M.
Santagata /
Storia e racconto nel "Canzoniere" del Petrarca (Bologna:
Mulino, 1992) place the Rime at the center of the
Il
literary project that inspires dia-
logue.
l'For examples in the Fragmenta of Laura's sternness, see poems 260 where
her excellence
she
is
is
deemed
to surpass that
of all the heroines of antiquity, 261 where
,
and 263 an apotheosis of her honor.
the example of "senno, valor, cortesia,"
'"For a general depiction of the obsession of all medieval people with the brevity
of life and omnipresence of death, see Philippe Aries, Storia della morte in Occidente
dal Medioevo ai giorni nostri
94. See also
Umberto Bosco,
tr.
Simona Vigezzi (Milano:
Rizzoli, 1978): esp. 44, 92,
Francesco Petrarca. (Bari: Laterza, 1968), 23-63.
^Quotations from the Familiares
are in Francesco Pertrarca Opere (Firenze:
Sansoni Editore, 1975). All translations are mine.
^Giovanni
society in his
as obsession
ic,
see
Boccaccio's descriptions of the effects of the plague
Decameron
are illuminating. For the
with death, which followed the outbreak of
Millard Meiss,
Painting in Florence
on Florentine
gloom and pessimism,
this catastrophe
and Siena
as well
epidem-
after the Black
Death
(Princeton: Princeton UP, 1951).
^Sara Sturm-Maddox
discusses the "cosmic disturbances associated with the
death of Christ" presented in 3, Petrarch's Metamorphoses: Text
and Subtext
in the
"Rime sparse" (Columbia: U. of Missouri Press, 1985), 111. lor a discussion of the
symbolic meaning of the Feria sexta
ogy
aprilis in
terms of Petrarch's personal mythol-
see B. Martinelli, "Feria sexta aprilis: la data sacra nel Canzoniere del Petrarca."
Petrarca
e
il
Ventoso (Bergamo:
Minerva
Italica,
1977),
103-148 and Carlo
Calcaterra, Nella selva del Petrarca (Bologna: Cappella, 1942), 225-228.
— 39 —
Isabella Bertoletti
220n
and
the opposition of cupidity
D.W. Robertson,
charity, see
Doctrine of Charity in Medieval Literary Gardens:
A
"The
Jr.
Topical Approach Through
Symbolism and Allegory." Speculum 26.1 (1951): 24-49.
2^See K. Foster "Beatrice or Medusa," Italian Studies Presented to E.
R. Vincent
U. Limentani. 48
ed. C.P. Brand, K. Foster
^^For a comprehensive recapitulation of the anniversary poems see Thomas
Roche, "The Calendrical Structure of Petrarch;s Canzoniere." Studies in Philology
71 (1974): 152-172. See Robert
M.
Durling's seminal discussion of sestina 30 in
MIN 86 (1971): 1-20.
Making of the Lyric
poems
in
"The
Teodolinda Barolini discusses this anniversary
vulgarium
Rerum
fragmenta." MLN
Sequence: Time and Narrative in Petrarch's
'Giovane donna sotto un verde lauro.'"
"Petrarch's
104 (1989): 20.
^Courtly
love,
A
D. W. Robertson,
according to
1962), 99
Princeton University Press,
(Princeton:
is
Preface
to
Chaucer
idolatrous in
essentially
nature.
2"For a discussion of the
real
and the
figurai
"The
exemplified by the Veronica, see Louis Marin
and the rhetoric of the body
Figurability of the Visual:
Veronica or the Question of the Portrait at Port-Royal."
(1991), 22: 281-296 and Georges
Wound (Monograph on
^For
Didi-Huberman "The Index of the Absent
a Stain) October
image
a discussion of this
29 (1984): 63-81.
see
John Freccerò, "The Fig Tree and the
The jewelled
Laurel: Petrarch's Poetics." Diacritics 5 (1975): 5.
tological significance.
Jerusalem
is
In his article
U.
P.,
cross has also escha-
on poem 30, Durling points out
that the
New
described in Apocalypse 21 as being "decorated with 12 kinds of pre-
cious stones, including topaz." See "Petrarch's 'Giovane
Robert
New
The
Literary History
M. Durling The Figure ofthe Poet in
donna"
13.
Also, see
Renaissance Epic (Cambridge: Harvard
1965) 247 for a discussion of the rhetorical figure of the adunaton, so often
employed by Petrarch
2 ^For
in his poetry, in terms
of
its
apocalyptic implications.
an exploration of the theme of necrophilia through various
ures, see E.
Bronfen, Over Her
On Ovid and Virgil's
Dead Body
literary fig-
(Manchester: Manchester UP, 1992).
treatment of Orpheus see Charles Segal, Orpheus: The Myth
of the Poet. (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins, 1989): esp 1-94.
2^Leo Steinberg, The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern
Oblivion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) offers a brilliant and
provocative reading of Renaissance representations of Christ, the centrality of the
mystery of the Incarnation and cultural repression of Christ's sexuality. For Christ
to
redeem humanity by
his
death he had to be thoroughly
thus the insistence with which
to the debates
artists
man
in every aspect,
represented his genitalia (which he connects
about his circumcision).
3^In the Incarnation
God takes on a body to save humanity he thus institutes
human body in its fragile physiology. The night before
the sacrality of the ordinary
the violent destruction of his flesh Christ designates the ontological presence of his
body
in
its
manifestation as the Eucharist.
The
— 40 —
Eucharistie
body and the
resur-
Moukninc; Laura
them
rected body, each of
incorruptible, underwrite the ontological alliance of
body and soul and the exclusion
body
of the flesh,
which
imprecisely. Petrarch, unable to disengage
priates the
terminology of Christianity for
ence's reverence
3 'For a
his
own
understood to
is
from
his earthly love
cult
fill
out the
and appro-
of Laura and for
his audi-
of the Fragmenta.
complete study of the theological debates
in Petrarch's age
about
reli-
Carolyn Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body. (NY: Columbia
UP, 1995). On the sociopolitical significance of the body and on the centrality of
quaries, see:
the
body
in the
Middle Ages, seen
as a period in
which incarnational
a
Medieval Imagination
trans.
77?^
Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago: University of Chicago
83-106, Peter Brown The Body and Society: Men,
Press, 1988):
aesthetics
purely metaphysical period) see Jacques Le Goff,
governed (thus not
Women and Sexual
Renunciation in Early Christianity. (NY: Columbia UP, 1988).
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