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CHAPTER IV.
ITALY--THE AGE OF PETRARCH.
The enlightenment of an age of ignorance cannot be attributed to any
single person; yet it has been said with some justice, that as the
mediaeval darkness lifted, one figure was seen standing in advance, and
that Petrarch was rightly hailed as 'the harbinger of day.' His fame
rests not so much on his poems as upon his incessant labours in the task
of educating his countrymen. Petrarch was devoted to books from his
boyhood. His youth was passed near Avignon, 'on the banks of the windy
Rhone.' After receiving the ordinary instruction in grammar and rhetoric,
he passed four years at Montpellier, and proceeded to study law at
Bologna. 'I kept my terms in Civil Law,' he said, 'and made some
progress; but I gave up the subject on becoming my own master, not
because I disliked the Law, which no doubt is full of the Roman learning,
but because it is so often perverted by evil-minded men.' He seems to
have worked for a time under his friend Cino of Pistoia, and to have
attended the lectures of the jurist Andrea, whose daughter Novella is
said to have sometimes taken the class 'with a little curtain in front of
her beautiful face.' While studying at Bologna, Petrarch made his first
collection of books instead of devoting himself to the Law. His old
father once paid him a visit and began burning the parchments on a
funeral pile: the boy's supplications and promises saved the poor
remainder. He tried hard to follow his father's practical advice, but
always in vain; 'Nature called him in another direction, and it is idle
to struggle against her.
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