Читать книгу The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 469, January 1, 1831 - Various - Страница 1

Petrarch and Arquà; Ariosto, Tasso, and Ferrara;—how delightfully are these names and sites linked in the fervour of Italian poetry. Lord Byron halted at these consecrated spots, in his "Pilgrimage" through the land of song:—

The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom.1

The noble bard, not content with perpetuating Arquà in these soul-breathing stanzas, has appended to them the following note:—

Petrarch retired to Arquà immediately on his return from the unsuccessful attempt to visit Urban V. at Rome, in the year 1370, and, with the exception of his celebrated visit to Venice in company with Francesco Novello da Carrara, he appears to have passed the four last years of his life between that charming solitude and Padua. For four months previous to his death he was in a state of continual languor, and in the morning of July the 19th, in the year 1374, was found dead in his library chair with his head resting upon a book. The chair is still shown amongst the precious relics of Arquà, which, from the uninterrupted veneration that has been attached to every thing relative to this great man from the moment of his death to the present hour, have, it may be hoped, a better chance of authenticity than the Shaksperian memorials of Stratford-upon-Avon.

Arquà (for the last syllable is accented in pronunciation, although the analogy of the English language has been observed in the verse) is twelve miles from Padua, and about three miles on the right of the high road to Rovigo, in the bosom of the Euganean Hills. After a walk of twenty minutes across a flat, well-wooded meadow, you come to a little blue lake, clear, but fathomless, and to the foot of a succession of acclivities and hills, clothed with vineyards and orchards, rich with fir and pomegranate trees, and every sunny fruit shrub. From the banks of the lake the road winds into the hills, and the church of Arquà is soon seen between a cleft where two ridges slope towards each other, and nearly inclose the village. The houses are scattered at intervals on the steep sides of these summits; and that of the poet is on the edge of a little knoll overlooking two descents, and commanding a view not only of the glowing gardens in the dales immediately beneath, but of the wide plains, above whose low woods of mulberry and willow thickened into a dark mass by festoons of vines, tall single cypresses, and the spires of towns are seen in the distance, which stretches to the mouths of the Po and the shores of the Adriatic. The climate of these volcanic hills is warmer, and the vintage begins a week sooner than in the plains of Padua. Petrarch is laid, for he cannot be said to be buried, in a sarcophagus of red marble, raised on four pilasters on an elevated base, and preserved from an association with meaner tombs. It stands conspicuously alone, but will be soon overshadowed by four lately planted laurels. Petrarch's fountain, for here every thing is Petrarch's, springs and expands itself beneath an artificial arch, a little below the church, and abounds plentifully, in the driest season, with that soft water which was the ancient wealth of the Euganean Hills. It would be more attractive, were it not, in some seasons, beset with hornets and wasps. No other coincidence could assimilate the tombs of Petrarch and Archilochus. The revolutions of centuries have spared these sequestered valleys, and the only violence which has been offered to the ashes of Petrarch was prompted, not by hate, but veneration. An attempt was made to rob the sarcophagus of its treasure, and one of the arms was stolen by a Florentine through a rent which is still visible. The injury is not forgotten, but has served to identify the poet with the country, where he was born, but where he would not live. A peasant boy of Arquà being asked who Petrarch was, replied, "that the people of the parsonage knew all about him, but that he only knew that he was a Florentine."

Every footstep of Laura's lover has been anxiously traced and recorded. The house in which he lodged is shown in Venice. The inhabitants of Arezzo, in order to decide the ancient controversy between their city and the neighbouring Ancisa, where Petrarch was carried when seven months old, and remained until his seventh year, have designated by a long inscription the spot where their great fellow citizen was born. A tablet has been raised to him at Parma, in the chapel of St. Agatha, at the cathedral, because he was archdeacon of that society, and was only snatched from his intended sepulture in their church by a foreign death. Another tablet with a bust has been erected to him at Pavia, on account of his having passed the autumn of 1368 in that city, with his son-in-law Brossano. The political condition which has for ages precluded the Italians from the criticism of the living, has concentrated their attention to the illustration of the dead.

Byron's visit was in 1818. Of this we may quote more on the appearance of Mr. Moore's second volume of the Poet's Life. Meanwhile, let us add the following graceful paper from the Athenæum, June 12, 1830: the subject harmonizes most happily with the classic title of that journal. It will be perceived that the tourist is familiar with Mr. Prout's drawing, or the original of our Engraving.

At Monselice we took another carriage, and dashed off to the Euganean Hills, to visit Arquà, the last dwelling and the burial-place of Petrarch. The road, in the feeling of M'Adam, is antediluvian, or rather post-diluvian, for it is little better than a water-course; but it passes through a country where I first saw olive-trees in abundance, vines in the luxuriance of nature, and pomegranates growing in hedges. The situation of the little village is perfectly delightful—of Petrarch's villa, beautiful. The apartments he occupied command the finest view, and are so detached from the noise and annoyances of the farm dwelling, though connected under one roof, that I think it not impossible he made the addition. There are four or five rooms altogether, if two little closets of not more than six feet by three may be called rooms; yet one of these is believed to have been his study; and in his study, and at his literary enjoyments, he died. Every thing is preserved with a reverential care that does honour to the people; and his chair, like less holy and less credible relics, is inclosed in a wire-frame, to prevent the dilapidations of the curious. I believe these things to be genuine. I believe in the local traditions that point out his study, and his kitchen, and his dying chamber.—Petrarch was all but idolized in his own time, and his fame has known no diminution; therefore these affectionate recollections of him have always been treasured there for the gratification of his pilgrims, and with a becoming reverence themselves, the people naturally set apart as sacred all that belonged to him. I have noticed the compactness of his few rooms, and their separation from the larger apartments—they have also a separate communication by a small elegant flight of steps into the garden, as you may see in Prout's drawing. If the rooms were not an addition, and it did not suggest itself at the moment to look attentively, I believe these little architectural and ornamental steps to have been; and as we know he did meddle with brick and mortar, by building a small chapel here, the conjecture is not improbable;—it is but a conjecture, and remains for others to confirm or disprove.

A little wild, irregular walk runs, serpent like, all round the garden, which, situated at the head of the valley, is shut in by the hills—itself a wilderness of luxuriance and beauty. It was a glorious evening, and every thing in agreement with our quiet feeling. I am not an enthusiast, and to you I need not affect to be other than I am; but I have felt this day sensibly, and shall remember it for ever. Petrarch's fame is worth the noise and nothing of all the men-slayers since Cain! It is fame indeed, holy and lovely, when the name and reputation of a man, remembered only for wisdom and virtue, shall have extended into remote and foreign kingdoms with such a sound and echo, that centuries after a stranger turns aside into these mountains to visit his humble dwelling. It is the verification of the prediction of Boccaccio—"This village, hardly known even at Padua, will become famous through the world." I do not presume to offer a eulogy on Petrarch as a writer, but as a man. In all the relations of son, brother, father, he is deserving all honour; and I know not another instance of such long-continued, sincere, and graceful friendships, through all varieties of fortune, from the Cardinal of Cabassole, to the poor fisherman at Vaucluse, as his life offers; including literary friendships, which, after so many years, passed without one discordant feeling of rivalry or jealousy, ended so generously and beautifully, with his bequest to poor Boccaccio of "five hundred florins of the gold of Florence, to buy him a winter habit for his evening studies," and this noble testimony of his ability in addition—"I am ashamed to leave so small a sum to so great a man."

Petrarch, in my opinion, was one of the most amiable men that ever lived;—I know nothing about Laura, or her ten children; I agree with those who believe the whole was a dream or an allegory; and, I half suspect that Shakspeare thought so too, and following a fashion, addressed his own sonnets to some like persons; at any rate, no one knows about either much more than I do;—certainly Petrarch's real love had more real consequences. Petrarch was a sincere Christian, without intolerance—a sound patriot, without austerity; who neither wasted his feelings in the idle generalities of philosophy, nor restricted them to the narrow limits of a party or faction;—he was just, generous, affectionate, and gentle. All his sonnets together do not shed a lustre on him equal to the sincere, single-hearted, mild, yet uncompromising spirit that breathes throughout the letters of advice and remonstrance, which, not idly or obstrusively, but under the sanction and authority of his great name, and the affectionate regard professed for him, he addressed to all whom he believed influential either for good or ill; from Popes and Emperors, to the well meaning insane tribune of Rome.

We went after this to see his tomb, which is honourable without being ostentatious: a plain stone sarcophagus, resting on four pillars, and surmounted by a bust; suited to the quiet of his life, his home, and his resting-place. I passed altogether a day that will shine a bright star in memory; and we wandered about there, unwilling to leave it, until long after the ave-maria bell had tolled, and were obliged in consequence to get a guide, and return by another road through the marshes, where I first saw those fairy insects the fire-flies, and thousands of them. For this we are detained the night at Monselice, and must rise the earlier, for we have written to –, fixing the day of our arrival at Florence.