page_title: Petrarch
section_title: Later years
hierarchical_section_title: Petrarch / Biography / Later years
caption_attribution_description: English: A view of the rear entrance of St Mary´s church in Arquà
context_page_description: Francesco Petrarca, commonly anglicized as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar and poet during the early Italian Renaissance, and one of the earliest humanists.
  Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited with initiating the 14th-century Italian Renaissance and the founding of Renaissance humanism. In the 16th century, Pietro Bembo created the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch's works, as well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio, and, to a lesser extent, Dante Alighieri. Petrarch would be later endorsed as a model for Italian style by the Accademia della Crusca.
  Petrarch's sonnets were admired and imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model for lyrical poetry. He is also known for being the first to develop the concept of the "Dark Ages."
context_section_description: Petrarch spent the later part of his life journeying through northern Italy as an international scholar and poet-diplomat. His career in the Church did not allow him to marry, but he is believed to have fathered two children by a woman or women unknown to posterity. A son, Giovanni, was born in 1337, and a daughter, Francesca, was born in 1343. He later legitimized both.
  Giovanni died of the plague in 1361. In the same year Petrarch was named canon in Monselice near Padua. Francesca married Francescuolo da Brossano (who was later named executor of Petrarch's will) that same year. In 1362, shortly after the birth of a daughter, Eletta (the same name as Petrarch's mother), they joined Petrarch in Venice to flee the plague then ravaging parts of Europe. A second grandchild, Francesco, was born in 1366, but died before his second birthday. Francesca and her family lived with Petrarch in Venice for five years from 1362 to 1367 at Palazzo Molina; although Petrarch continued to travel in those years. Between 1361 and 1369 the younger Boccaccio paid the older Petrarch two visits. The first was in Venice, the second was in Padua.
  About 1368 Petrarch and his daughter Francesca (with her family) moved to the small town of Arquà in the Euganean Hills near Padua, where he passed his remaining years in religious contemplation. He died in his house in Arquà early on July 20, 1374—his seventieth birthday. The house hosts now a permanent exhibition of Petrarchian works and curiosities; inside is the famous tomb of Petrarch's beloved cat who was embalmed, among other objects. On the marble slab there is a Latin inscription written by Antonio Quarenghi:
  Etruscus gemino vates ardebat amore:
  
  Maximus ignis ego; Laura secundus erat.
  
  Quid rides? divinæ illam si gratia formæ,
  
  Me dignam eximio fecit amante fides.
  
  Si numeros geniumque sacris dedit illa libellis
  
  Causa ego ne sævis muribus esca forent.
  
  Arcebam sacro vivens a limine mures,
  
  Ne domini exitio scripta diserta forent;
  
  Incutio trepidis eadem defuncta pavorem,
  
  Et viget exanimi in corpore prisca fides.
  Petrarch's will (dated April 4, 1370) leaves 50 florins to Boccaccio "to buy a warm winter dressing gown"; various legacies (a horse, a silver cup, a lute, a Madonna) to his brother and his friends; his house in Vaucluse to its caretaker;  for his soul, and for the poor; and the bulk of his estate to his son-in-law, Francescuolo da Brossano, who is to give half of it to "the person to whom, as he knows, I wish it to go"; presumably his daughter, Francesca, Brossano's wife.  The will mentions neither the property in Arquà nor his library; Petrarch's library of notable manuscripts was already promised to Venice, in exchange for the Palazzo Molina.  This arrangement was probably cancelled when he moved to Padua, the enemy of Venice, in 1368.  The library was seized by the lords of Padua, and his books and manuscripts are now widely scattered over Europe. Nevertheless, the Biblioteca Marciana traditionally claimed this bequest as its founding, although it was in fact founded by Cardinal Bessarion in 1468.
caption: Petrarch's Arquà house near Padua where he retired to spend his last years
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