572 Philip II Augustus
back permanently to Italy, first to MILAN under the
patronage of the VISCONTIfamily, then to VENICE, and
to PADUA under Francesco il Vecchio da Carrara
(r. 1350–88). He was criticized by his republican friends
for accepting the patronage of such princes and tyrants.
He died at Arquà, near Padua, perhaps on July 18, 1374.
He was discovered then with his head resting on a
manuscript of Virgil.
OPUSPetrarch did most of his work in LATIN. Often focusing on
himself and his own situation, he wrote a huge number
of letters, which he carefully collected, and several invec-
tives in response to criticism. His major work, unfin-
ished, was the Africa(1338–39), a Latin work telling in
Virgilian hexameters the story of the second Punic War.
In it he exalted the figure of Scipio Africanus. He also
emphasized, in his more intimate and personal writings,
the value of the withdrawn solitary life. In the Secretum,a
dialogue with AUGUSTINE, he proposed remedies for the
consequences and results of both good and ill fortune
and more or less publicly confessed his faults and weak-
nesses. He created a series of biographies of famous clas-
sical characters over the course of his life and an edition
of Livy when he was still in his 20s. He developed a close
friendship and mutually supportive relationship with
BOCCACCIO.
Two of his works in the VERNACULARwere of major
importance. The first was a collection of poems consist-
ing of sonnets, songs, sestinas, ballades, and madrigals,
about his love for Laura and his inner crisis at Laura’s
death on April 6 in the PLAGUEof 1348. The second was
the Triumphs,an allegorical poem combining a vision of a
SOULwith a classical triumph heading toward fulfillment
with GOD.
See alsoAVIGNON AND THEAVIGNONESEPAPACY.
Further reading:Julia Conaway Bondanella and Mark
Musa, “Petrarch,” in European Writers: The Middle Ages
and the Renaissance.Vol. 1, Petrarch to Renaissance Short
Fiction,ed. William T. H. Jackson and George Stade (New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1983), 475–507, especially
the list of translations of works by Petrarch up to 1983 on
505–506; William J. Kennedy, Authorizing Petrarch
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994); Nicholas
Mann, Petrarch(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984);
Giuseppe Mazzotta, The Worlds of Petrarch (Durham,
N.C.: Duke University Press, 1993); E. H. Wilkins, Life of
Petrarch(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961).
Philip II Augustus(1165–1223) king of France
Born in 1165, Philip was the son of Louis VII (1137–80)
and his third wife, Adèle of Champagne (d. 1206); he suc-
ceeded his father on September 19, 1180. He was sur-
named Augustus because he enhanced his royal domain as
the Roman emperor Augustus had. He freed himself of the
influence of his advisers from about 1190, the time of the
Third CRUSADE, in which he took part with the king of
England, RICHARDI LIONHEART. Quarreling with Richard,
on his return he started to move against the English PLAN-
TAGENETfamily empire on the Continent. He had earlier
stirred up rivalries among King HENRYII and his sons,
allying with them against him in a humiliating scenario
that led to Henry’s death. Philip was later less successful
against King Richard in occupying NORMANDYand suf-
fered a defeat at Fréteval in 1194. With Richard’s death in
1199 and the failures and problems of his successor, King
JOHNLackland, Philip took control of NORMANDY, Maine,
ANJOU, Touraine, Berry, and Poitou between 1203 and- He won a great victory at the Battle of BOUVINES,
July 27, 1214, against a coalition of King John, the
emperor Otto IV (d. 1218), and the count of FLANDERS,
which further secured his earlier conquests. Philip more
peacefully gained control of other regions, including the
Valois, Amiénois, Vermandois, Alençon, and Clermont-en-
Beauvaisis, all not far from PARIS, his capital. He was now
in charge of the strongest kingdom in western Europe.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
For Philip’s government to enhance its effectiveness to
rule over his expanded domain, it had to develop new
methods of administration between 1190 and 1200.
While centralizing authority, Philip created a circle
linked to himself, including the great barons and edu-
cated clerics. Philip then devised specialized judicial ses-
sions in feudal courts to insist on royal rights, an archive
to document his rule and his rights, as well as a new
bureau of accounts to control the financial resources of
his domain. His conquest of Normandy in 1204 con-
firmed and refined these innovations. His regime
enlarged the social and political connections and basis of
the Crown, introducing into government the urban mid-
dle classes and the CLERGY. He embarked on the great
building projects in Paris at NOTRE-DAME, the palace or
fortress of the Louvre, and a food market. Philip pro-
moted the development of the city’s commercial activi-
ties, and the growth of the university, making it the
capital of his newly enlarged realm.
A wily diplomat and fine administrator, Philip also
promoted a royal ideology and the notions of royal blood
and consecration. In France, he carefully cultivated the
church, which gave him a great deal of support, espe-
cially after he supported the Crusade against the ALBI-
GENSIANSin the south. He died at Mantes enroute to an
ecclesiastical convocation in Paris on July 14, 1223.
Further reading:John W. Baldwin, The Government
of Philip Augustus: Foundations of French Royal Power in
the Middle Ages(Berkeley: University of California Press,
1986); Jim Bradbury, Philip Augustus: King of France,
1180–1223(New York: Longman, 1998); Elizabeth Hal-
lam, and Judith Everard, Capetian France, 987–1328,2d
ed. (New York: Longman, 2001).