part did not contain the details he wanted concerning the descent

of Ulysses into Hades and his voyage along the Italian shores. Even this incomplete copy, though sent off in 1365 by Boccaccio, was a long time in reaching him. On January 27, 1366, he had not yet received it.[481] But at last it arrived, and Petrarch wrote to thank Boccaccio for it.[482] This letter, however, is not dated, and its contents do not help us to decide exactly when it was written. At any rate, it was after January, 1366, that Petrarch received the precious work. He promised to return this MS. to Boccaccio when he had had it copied; but he seems to have found it difficult to get a capable person to do this; and when he had found him we see him travelling about with him, that the work might be done under his constant supervision.[483]

It is this MS., which M. de Nohlac discusses and describes, that is now in Paris (Bib. Nat., 7880, 1). In it we are able to judge of the extent of Pilatus's knowledge. That he knew Greek seems incontrovertible, but that he knew the Homeric idiom very imperfectly is not less certain; he seems too to have had a poor knowledge of Latin. His translation is full of obscurity, platitude, and mistranslations--in fact, crammed with all the errors of a schoolboy: when he does not know a word, and has to confess it, he writes the Greek word in Latin characters; what we see in fact is not a faithful but a blind translation. And it was for this that Petrarch had waited so patiently! "Penelope," he says, "had not more ardently longed for Ulysses."[484] He studied it with passion, often deceived, no doubt, but never discouraged. The notes with which he covered page after page show us the growing feebleness of his hand, but never of his spirit. He died while he was annotating the _Odyssey_.

Boccaccio, on the other hand, with a charming and naive sincerity, owns that he did not understand much, but adds that the little he did understand seemed to him beautiful. He was very proud of his victory, and rightly; for by its means the Renaissance was able to give Homer his rightful place in its culture.

FOOTNOTES:

[447] PETRARCH, _Fam._, XVIII, 3 and 4.

[448] But see LO PARCO, _Petrarca e Barlaam da nuove ricerche e documenti inediti e rari_ (Reggio, Calabria, 1905).

[449] See DE NOHLAC, _Les Scholies inédites de Pétrarque sur Homère_ in _Revue de Philologie, de Littérature et d'Histoire anciennes_, Vol. XI (Paris, 1887), p. 97 _et seq._; and IDEM, _Pétrarque e Barlaam_ in _Revue des Études grecques_ (Paris, 1892).

[450] PETRARCH, _Fam._, XVIII (Fracassetti, 2nd ed., Vol. II, p. 474).

[451] He says of it: "Libellus, ille vulgo qui tuus fertur, et si cuius sit non constet, tibi excerptus tibique inscriptus tuus utique non est."--_Fam._, XXIV, 12 (Fracassetti, Vol. III, p. 293). Cf. also _Fam._, X (Fracassetti, Vol. II, p. 89), and the critical edition of F. PLESSIS, _Italici Ilias Latina_ (Paris 1885).

[452] _Fam._, XVIII, 2.

[453] See the letter to Boccaccio, to be quoted later. _Var._, XXV.

[454] Cf. PETRARCH, _Fam._, XX, 6, 7 (To Francesco Nelli, III, Id. Ap.). This visit of Boccaccio's to Petrarch has been long known to have taken place in the spring of 1359; but the date is fixed for us by a MS. in Petrarch's hand found by De Nohlac in his Apuleius (Vatican MS. 2193, fol. 156). Cf. DE NOHLAC, _Pétrarque et son jardin_ in _Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana_, Vol. XI (1887), p. 404 _et seq._ I give below that part of the MS. which refers to 1359:--

"Anno 1359, sabato, hora quasi nona martie die xvj^o retentare huiusce rei fortunam libuit. Itaque et lauros Cumo [? Como] transmissas per Tadeum nostrum profundis itidem scrobibus seuimus in orto Sancte Valerie Mediolani, luna decrescente; et fuerunt due tenere, tres duriores. Aliquot post dies nubila fuerunt et pars anni melior quam in superioribus (imo et pluviosi mirum in modum crebris et immensis imbribus quotidie, ut sepe de orto quasi lacus fieret; denique usque ad kalendas apriles non appariut sol). Inter cetera multum prodesse deberet et profectum sacrarum arbuscularum, quod insignis vir. d. Io. Boccaccii de Certaldo, ipsis amicissimus et mihi, casu in has horas tunc aduectus satimi intrefuit. Videbimus eventum. Omnibus radices fuerunt, quibusdam quoque telluris patrie aliquantulum, et præterea diligentissime obuolute non radices modo sed truncos aduecte sunt, et recentes valde. Denique præter soli naturam, nihil videtur adversum, attenta qualitate æris et quod non diu ante montes nivium adamantinaque glacies omnia tegebant vixque dum penitus abiere.

"Jam nunc circa medium aprilem due majores crescent; alie vero non letos successus spondent. Credo firmiter terram hanc hinc arbori inimicam."

Cf. also COCHIN, _Un Amico del Petrarca. Le Lettere di Nelli al Petrarcha_ (Bib. Petrarchesca), Firenze, 1901.

[455] In planting the laurel Petrarch expressed the hope that the presence of Boccaccio might prove "fortunate" to "these little sacred laurels." Boccaccio had protested to Petrarch that he was not worthy of the name of poet. Petrarch insisted that he was. "It is a strange thing," he says, "that you should have aimed at being a poet only to shrink from the name." This affair of the laurel may refer to that incident. "The laurel," says Boccaccio in the _Vita di Dante_, "which is never struck by lightning, crowns poets...."

[456] He was back in Florence certainly by May. Cf. HORTIS, _Studi_, etc., p. 22 note. Petrarch in his letter to Nelli says that Boccaccio's visit was brief.

[457] PETRARCH, _Epist. Sen._, III, 6, and V, 3.

[458] BOCCACCIO, _De Geneal. Deor._, XV, 6.

[459] _Epist. Sen._, III, 6, and V, 3.

[460] Cf. HAUVETTE, _Le Professeur de Grec de Pétrarque et de Boccace_ (Chartres, 1891).

[461] Cf. DE NOHLAC, _Les scholies_, _u.s._, p. 101. He began to lecture in the end of 1359.

[462] PETRARCH, _Var._, XXV. In this year Pino de' Rossi was exiled for conspiracy against the Guelfs. Boccaccio had dedicated the _Ameto_ to him, and now wrote to console him. In that letter (CORAZZINI, _op. cit._, p. 67) Boccaccio says he has gone to Certaldo to avoid contact with these vile people (p. 96).

[463] PETRARCH, _Varie_, XXV.

[464] Because Boccaccio's love for Fiammetta was not a passion wholly or almost wholly spiritual, as we may suppose Dante's to have been for Beatrice, we are eager to deny it any permanence or strength. Why? Perhaps a passion almost wholly sensual if really profound is more persistent than any desire in which the mind alone is involved.

[465] Our source of information is Petrarch's letter, quoted below in the text (_Ep. Sen._, I, 5). The affair is recounted in the life of Beato Pietro Petroni, who died May 29, 1361, by Giovanni Columbini. This life has been conserved and enriched with notes by the Carthusian of Siena, Bartholommeo, in 1619. It is printed in the _Acta Sanctorum_, May 29 (Tom. VII, Antwerp, 1668, p. 186 _et seq._). Boccaccio's story is told at p. 228. There seems to be nothing there not gleaned from Petrarch's letter. Cf. also TRAVERSARI, _Il Beato Pietro Petroni e la conversione del B._ (Teani, 1905), and GRAF, _Fu superstizioso il B.?_ in _Miti, Leggende e Superstiz. del Medioevo_ (Torino, 1893), Vol. II, p. 167 _et seq._

[466] I quote to some extent the excellent redaction of Mr. Hollway-Calthrop, _Petrarch and his Times_ (Methuen, 1907), p. 237 _et seq._

[467] _De Geneal. Deorum_, I, 31, _De Casibus_, II, 7.

[468] _De Geneal. Deorum_, I, 10; III, 22; IX, 4. _Comento sopra Dante_ (Milanesi, Firenze, 1863), Vol. I, p. 480 _et seq._

[469] _Comento sopra Dante_, _ed. cit._, II, p. 56; i.e. he believed in the evil eye; so did Pio Nono's cardinals.

[470] _Ibid., u.s._, II, p. 156.

[471] _Ibid., u.s._, I, p. 216.

[472] _Decameron_, VI, 10. I deal with Boccaccio's treatment of monks and friars and the clergy generally in my chapter on the _Decameron_ (_see infra_).

[473] _Comento_, _ed. cit._, Vol. II, p. 19.

[474] Baldelli tells us that Pilatus left Boccaccio in 1362, but this is not so, for they went together to see Petrarch in Venice in 1363 (see _infra_). Baldelli's assertion is probably founded on the obscure and doubtful letter of Boccaccio to Francesco Nelli (CORAZZINI, p. 131), from which we learn that Boccaccio went to Naples on the invitation of Acciaiuoli, as we suppose, in 1362. This letter, which is very long, is dated, according to Corazzini, August 28, 1363. Now before September 7, 1363, Nelli was dead of the plague in Naples, as appears from Petrarch's letter (_Sen._, III, i., September 7, 1363). HORTIS (_Studi_, p. 20, n. 3) is of opinion that this letter is apocryphal. TODESCHINI (_Opinione sulla epistola del priore di S. Apostolo [sic] attribuita al Boccaccio_, Venice, 1832) convinced Hortis of this. Todeschini does not believe in this visit to Naples, and in fact the only notice we have of it is contained in the letter he discards. His arguments are as follows. Until May, 1362, Boccaccio dwelt certainly in Tuscany, where in 1361, or more probably in 1362, Ciani visited him, and whence he wrote Petrarch the letter we have lost to which Petrarch replied in the noble letter I have cited above (_Sen._, I, 5) on May 28, 1362. (Cf. FRACASSETTI'S note to this letter.) It is not possible that Boccaccio can have been in Naples between the autumn of 1361 and May, 1362, because he himself tells us that for three years he was with Pilatus, who enjoyed his hospitality and from whom he learned to understand Homer. Now it is certain that he did not know Pilatus before 1360, and was with him till 1363, when, as we shall see, they visited Petrarch together in Venice. (Cf. FRACASSETTI his note to _Fam._, XVIII, 2.)

[475] This visit must have been between March 13 and September 7, 1363, on both of which dates Petrarch wrote to him. The letter of September 7 seems to have been written immediately after his departure (_Senili_, II, 1, and III, 1). Cf. also DE NOHLAC, _op. cit._, p. 102. Cf. also Boccaccio's letter to Pietro di Monteforte, which HORTIS, _op. cit._, thinks refers to this visit. CORAZZINI, _op. cit._, p. 337.

[476] _Senili_, III, 1.

[477] _Ibid._, III, 6 (March, 1365).

[478] _Ibid._, VI, 1.

[479] _Senili_, VII, 5. Fracassetti gives this letter the wrong date of 1365 in his translation, but in a note to _Fam._, XVII, 2 (q.v. for the visit of Boccaccio), he adopts the right year.

[480] _Senili_, VII.

[481] _Ibid._, VI, 1.

[482] _Ibid._, VI, 2.

[483] DE NOHLAC, _op. cit._, p. 102.

[484] _Epist. Fam._, XXIV, 12.