Petrarch, in his wanderings, saw France during the fourteenth century in the hands of the enemy. He resided at Avignon, Montpellier, Bologna, Paris, Cologne, Naples, Genoa, Rome, Parma, Florence, Venice, Padua, Milan, and Prague. He was the friend of kings, the guest and correspondent of popes, and the pensioner of great nobles. He took part in various political combinations, and his reveries extended over many fields. He was more a man of letters than a devotee ; and though a canon, a bishop, and a prior, he held such broad views on religion that be was the friend of Boccaccio, whom he gently chided, however, for the tone of his writings, exhorting him to be more guarded in his expressions. When he wrote on religious subjects he, like Marcilio Ficino at a later date, referred for his facts to the philosophers and rhetoricians, and quoted Cicero and Seneca in preference to Holy Writ. He was impelled by a longing for solitude to reside at Vaucluse and Arqua ; but withal he was a man, and was moved by human ambition, and though he bore his triumphs with modesty, he was none the less eager in his pursuit of them. He was, in fact, more of a sage than a saint. He was endowed with a certain breadth of mind which prevented him from being held in bondage by the dreamy views of his age, and which kept him free from the errors of astrology and the prejudices of the time. He had no mission as a political partisan like Dante, having broader views and being less of a sectarian than the latter, and this enabled him to look down upon the human melee from the observatory to which he had ascended, and to watch the varying phases of the combat with disinterested eyes. At what he deemed the appropriate hour he wrote letters in behalf of justice to pontiffs and to emperors, speaking freely and impartially to the rulers, spiritual and temporal.

Eager for knowledge and study, he grieved that he could not read Homer in the Greek text, writing to Sygeros, "Your Homer lies dumb by my side ; I am deaf to his voice, but still the sight of him rejoices me, and I often embrace him."

It has been asked whether the Laura who held so large a place in the life of the poet was a fiction or a living reality. She has been identified by some with Laura de Noves, daughter of Audibert de Noves, and she was already married when Petrarch saw her for the first time in the church of St. Claire at Avignon. He fell in love with her at first sight, and for twenty years preserved this passion in his heart as a fruitful source of inspiration. He loved her as one loves at twenty with enthusiasm, candor, and chastity. He was three-and-twenty the day he first met her, and he had already assumed the priestly garb. As time went on his passion became more ardent, but she gave him no encouragement, and after an absence he returned to Avignon only to experience the same disappointment. Laura died of the plague in 1348, and he bewailed her loss in verses which are more profound, passionate, and truly beautiful than those in which be extols " her serene eyes, her beautiful angelic mouth, full of pearls, roses, and gentle words." Some of the early " Rime " are rather mincing, but there is the accent of deep sorrow in the "Sonnets," notably in the splendid lines .

In his despair he determined to abandon the world, and he wrote upon the fly-leaf of his Virgil the oath to fly from Babylon and to cut himself adrift from all worldly ties. But, as M. Ghebart remarks in his Origines de la Renaissance," " gifted writers like Petrarch do well not to deprive the world of their eloquence, their irony, their sagacity, and the resonant echo of their genius."

ACCIAIUOLI (NICCOLO). -(1310-1365.)

The name of this family, though it was not indigenous to Tuscany, is a very common one at Florence. One branch of it settled in that city during the fourteenth century, and on the 12th of September, 1310, Niccolo, who was destined to be the glory of his house, was born there.

His principal field of action was Naples, whither he had gone as tutor to the young Prince Louis of Tarentum, son of Catherine of Valois, the widow of Philip, Prince of Tarentum. Faithful to his employers, he shared the vicissitudes of the Court of Naples during the time of Queen Joan L, whom he accompanied to Avignon, and when Louis of Tarentum espoused her, Acciaiuoli had them crowned at Naples, and was appointed by the Queen Great Seneschal of the kingdom, this being the highest dignity to which he could aspire.

Driven from her Court by the King of Hungary, wandering from place to place, and ever in danger of some fresh disaster, the Queen was saved by Niccolo, who presented himself to the Florentines, and implored their help for the granddaughter of King Robert of Naples, who had been their faithful ally.

Endowed with great energy and matchless dexterity, he raised an army and coped with the condottieri, who thought they had an easy prey. But the resources of the Court were exhausted, and the army, being kept waiting for its pay, went over to the enemy. Acciaiuoli died in 1365, and his biography was written by Matteo Palmieri, the Apostolic Secretary.