Peter’s Pence An ecclesiastical tax, paid by English sub-
jects to the papacy (“Peter”) from the eighth century. The
financial burden was reduced during the 12th century;
subsequently, although the tax was charged on all but the
poorest houses, the money demanded was small—a mere
symbol of adherence to Rome. In 1534 HENRY VIIIabol-
ished the tax, thus demonstrating that the papacy could
no longer make demands on English monarchs or sub-
jects. A regulated collection for payment to Rome was re-
vived in the late 19th century by the restored English
Catholic hierarchy.
Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca) (1304–1374) Italian poet
and humanist
Petrarch was born in Arezzo after his father, a notary, was
exiled from Florence by the Black faction of the Guelph
party. In 1311 the family settled in Provence, soon after
the establishment of the papacy at AVIGNON. Apart from
his travels, chiefly to Italy, Petrarch lived in Provence,
mainly at his villa in Vaucluse, until 1353. Thereafter he
lived in Italy under the protection of powerful rulers: in
Milan, of the Visconti; in Venice, of the senate; and in
Padua, of Francesco da Carrara, Il Vecchio. He first stud-
ied at Carpentras under Convenevole da Prato, a Tuscan;
after reading law at Montpellier and Bologna, he returned
to Avignon in 1326 and in 1330 took minor orders, which
required a vow of celibacy but little else. Nevertheless he
had two illegitimate children: Giovanni (born 1337) and
Francesca (born 1343). The Colonna became the first of
many patrons and this support, together with the
benefices he received, enabled Petrarch to devote himself
to writing and to cultivate classical scholarship, which
was to assure him an unassailable reputation in the eyes of
humanists of the 15th century.
On April 6, 1327 Petrarch had his first glimpse of
Laura (Sonnet 211). (Historically little is known of her;
she died in the plague of 1348.) His love for her is the cen-
tral theme of 366 Italian poems collected in Canzoniere, a
work that had a momentous effect on European poetry.
Petrarch did not invent the SONNETthat bears his name or
introduce other innovations in the Canzoniere; rather, he
brought a refinement and subtlety to the tradition of
Provençal and Sicilian verse that led his successors to rank
him even above DANTEand inspired a host of “Petrarchan”
imitators, especially in the 16th century. (See also: CON-
CETTO; DOLCE STIL NUOVO; QUESTIONE DELLA LINGUA; STIL-
NOVISMO.)
Except for an unfinished allegorical poem, I trionfi
(written after 1350), Petrarch’s other works and all of his
prose were written in Latin. The epic Africa on Scipio
Africanus, which he considered his greatest poetic
achievement, and a collection of Roman biographies, De
viris illustribus, were started before his coronation but
never completed. In Rome on April 8, 1341 he was
crowned poet laureate, the first modern poet so honored,
after being examined by ROBERT OF ANJOU, King of Naples.
Secretum (1342–43) reflects a tension discernible in other
works between Petrarch’s humanistic ideals and an other-
worldly Augustinian tendency. De vita solitaria (1346) at-
tempts to strike a balance and in several invectives,
especially Contra medicum, Petrarch vigorously defended
humanistic pursuits, but the medieval and Christian view
dominates again, for example, in the later dialogues of De
remediis utriusque fortunae. His history, Rerum memoran-
dum libri (begun 1343), was left unfinished.
Petrarch continually worked to unearth and emend
classical texts. By his early twenties he was at work on
putting together a complete text of the historian LIVY, ob-
taining exemplars from as far away as Chartres cathedral.
His researches turned up texts of the poet Propertius, CI-
CERO’s Pro Archia, and Seneca’s tragedies, and the discov-
ery of Cicero’s letters to Atticus at Verona (1345) inspired
the collection of his own Epistolae familiares and seniles.
Around 45 surviving manuscripts have been identified as
having belonged to Petrarch’s personal collection; among
them is his copy of Servius’s commentary on Virgil, writ-
ten about 1325 in Avignon, to which a frontispiece by
Simone MARTINIwas later (c. 1340) added (Bibliotheca
Ambrosiana, Milan).
The republican cause of Cola di RIENZOat first at-
tracted his enthusiastic encouragement, but he took no
part in political activity after its defeat (1347), a change of
heart also probably related to the deaths of Laura and his
patron Cardinal Colonna in 1348. The final six years of
his life were spent at Arquá, near Padua, on land presented
to him by Francesco da Carrara.
The huge quantity of early modern translations and
imitations of Petrarch, particularly of poems in the
Canzionere, is an indication of the esteem in which he was
held in the Renaissance. A selection from the Canzionere
in a modern English translation by Anthony Mortimer,
with facing Italian text, has been published in the Penguin
Classics series (2003). Of Petrarch’s other works, De re-
mediis utriusque fortunae was translated into both Middle
High German and Late Middle English, the latter edited by
F. N. M. Diekstra and published with the Latin text under
the title A Dialogue between Reason and Adversity (Assen,
1968). Thomas Twyne’s version of the same work, Phisicke
against Fortune, as well Prosperous as Adverse, 1579) was
one of spate of 16th-century translations (Italian, German,
Spanish, and French). A modern translation is Petrarch’s
Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul by Conrad H. Bawski
(Bloomington, Ind., 1991). Henry Parker, Lord Morley
(1476–1556) translated I trionfi as the Tryumphes of
Fraunces Petrarcke (c. 1555).
Further reading: Leonard W. Forster, The Icy Fire:
Five Studies in European Petrarchism (Cambridge, U.K.:
Cambridge University Press, 1969); Nicholas Mann, Pe-
trarch (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1984); An-
thony Mortimer, Petrarch’s Canzoniere in the EnglishPPeettrraarrcchh 3 37711