Against the False Humanists: Petrarch Speaks Out
- sofiapbaker
- Jan 1, 2021
- 2 min read
In this disturbing year of 2020, I find that I have to be careful what I read before going to bed. To get a good night's sleep, I have to avoid reading anything about current affairs that might agitate the mind. Otherwise, I wake up at 3 am, my mind churning obsessively with anxiety about what has gone wrong in the civilisation of the West. I find that the best way to pacify myself for sleep is to read history – something remote, like China in the Tang Dynasty – or poetry. So it was that the other night I was reading the love poetry of Petrarch's Canzoniere while waiting for sleep to come. (At my age, fortunately, love poetry is no longer a stimulant.)
As I read the famous canzone 128, 'Italia mia', I found myself suddenly heaving with emotion and tears. As often happens after such moments, I fell into a light sleep, still sitting in my chair. In my dream, I found myself wafted up through the heavens to a great city, standing just beyond a wall of stars. Outside the gate, sitting on benches, was a crowd of spirits waiting for the gates to open. A little apart was a figure pacing up and down, talking to himself energetically, pounding his fists. From the portrait of him by Giusto de' Menabuoi in Padua, I recognized the man (and in my dream this was somehow not a surprise) as Francesco Petrarca – Petrarch as we say in English. As in the portrait, he was tall, handsome and severe, with the charismatic gravity of a man used to being admired…