PETRARCH RECEIVES THE LAUREL UPON ROME’S CAPITOL

ROME, 1341-04-08. — ROME, 8 April.—Francesco Petrarch has this day received the poet’s laurel upon the Capitol, with the authority of the Roman Senate behind an honour deliberately fashioned after the usages of antiquity. The Tuscan scholar comes to this distinction with the approval of Robert, King of Naples, who examined his learning before his journey hither. At thirty-six, Petrarch now possesses a public dignity that neither the circulation of verses nor the favour of a private patron could alone confer. His coronation places poetry before the city as an undertaking deserving civic recognition, and makes Rome the seat of a judgment already supported by a king.

The ceremony is the conclusion of a choice between two distinguished seats of learning and authority. Petrarch received invitations from Paris and Rome and preferred the Roman offer, after seeking counsel. Paris could furnish the standing of its university; Rome offered the Capitol and the memory of the ancient writers whose works occupy so much of his study. His choice gives the present solemnity a significance beyond personal advancement. The poet has sought not merely approval from learned men, but recognition in the city whose language, histories and public honours supply the examples to which his own literary ambitions continually return.

Before accepting the crown, Petrarch submitted himself to King Robert at Naples. The king’s examination extended over three days, providing the proposed honour with an express trial of the recipient’s attainments. Robert is no stranger to letters, and his part in the proceedings supplies an answer to the objection that a crown may be bestowed through friendship rather than merit. Petrarch’s Latin epic, Africa, belongs to this connection with the Neapolitan court and is dedicated to the king. Royal approval and senatorial ceremony have thus been brought together: Naples has furnished the examiner, while Rome has furnished the place and public authority of coronation.

In his address, Petrarch took his text from Virgil’s Georgics: “But sweet love carries me away over the steep, solitary places of Parnassus.” The ancient poet’s words, rendered here from the Latin, suit an occasion concerned as much with the difficulty of the ascent as with the honour at its summit. Parnassus signifies the calling of poetry, not an easy road to favour. By beginning with Virgil, Petrarch placed his own claim beneath an acknowledged master. The speech presents the pursuit of letters as arduous and exacting, requiring sustained labour rather than the mere facility of making agreeable verses.

The work upon which much of his present ambition rests looks to Roman history. Africa treats the deeds of Scipio Africanus and the struggle against Carthage, drawing its great subject from the contest that established Rome’s ascendancy in the western Mediterranean. The poem remains unfinished. Today’s distinction therefore recognises a writer whose principal undertaking is still in progress, rather than marking the publication of a completed epic. Petrarch is also occupied with the lives of illustrious men. In both enterprises, the recovery of ancient examples is central: the historian’s record and the poet’s art are made to serve a common investigation of courage, conduct and fame.

Petrarch’s own circumstances have carried him far from the city of his family. Born at Arezzo to a Florentine exile, he has spent much of his life beyond the Alps, in the country about Avignon, where the papal court now resides. He studied law before giving himself more fully to letters, and his association with the Colonna family has supplied important patronage. His present standing has consequently been formed through several kinds of connection: ecclesiastical society, aristocratic households, learned correspondence and the study of manuscripts. The Capitol now adds a conspicuous public sanction to a reputation cultivated across these separate circles.

There is a political meaning in the place, though the crown confers no government upon its wearer. Rome remains without the resident papal court, and its ancient monuments stand amid the unsettled affairs of a living city. By honouring a poet upon the Capitol, the Senate asserts that Rome can still distribute distinctions sought by men from beyond its walls. King Robert’s participation likewise displays a sovereign’s capacity to judge and protect learning. These are the visible public responses to Petrarch’s work. No alteration in taxation, trade or municipal administration attends the occasion; its immediate consequence is an increase in the standing of the poet and of the authorities acknowledging him.

Nor is the revival of the poetic laurel without a recent Italian precedent. At Padua in 1315, Albertino Mussato received a crown for literary achievement associated especially with his Latin tragedy Ecerinis. That work drew upon the tyranny of Ezzelino da Romano and gave ancient dramatic form a subject taken from the history of an Italian city. Petrarch’s coronation should therefore not be mistaken for the first such honour in living memory. Its particular force lies in the union of the Roman Capitol, a king’s examination and a writer whose chosen epic subject reaches back to the republic’s struggle with Carthage.

The distinction also raises the question of what language and kind of writing can secure a poet’s highest reputation. Petrarch writes verses in the vernacular as well as Latin, but today’s ceremony is framed by classical learning and the example of the ancient poets. Dante, who died twenty years ago, called his Comedy “the sacred poem to which both heaven and earth have set their hand,” and expressed the hope that it might bring him home to Florence to receive a poet’s crown at his baptismal font. His words show how closely literary honour may be joined to civic belonging. Petrarch has obtained his recognition elsewhere, in Rome.

Following the Capitol ceremony, Petrarch went to St Peter’s and placed his laurel at the Apostle’s tomb, bringing the day’s antique forms into a Christian setting. The gesture closes the solemnity without closing the labour for which it was bestowed. Africa still requires completion, and the crown supplies neither its remaining verses nor a final judgment upon them. What has been accomplished is nevertheless substantial: a poet has passed a royal examination and received Rome’s public acknowledgement. Whether the finished writings will answer the expectations gathered about this day remains a matter for the work itself. The laurel has been given; the undertaking continues.