BOOK: Francesco Petrarca, "My Secret Book"

Francesco Petrarca: My Secret Book. Edited and translated by Nicholas Mann. The I Tatti Renaissance Library, Vol. 72. Harvard University Press, 2016. 9780674003460. xvii + 283 pp.

I guess this is the fourteenth-century equivalent of psychotherapy. The book is framed as a three-day conversation between Petrarch and St. Augustine, with a female personification of Truth watching them but otherwise not really getting involved. As the title suggests, Petrarch didn't really write it for publication (pp. vii–viii), and perhaps this is why he doesn't provide as much context as I would have liked. Between that and my overall lack of life experience and ineptness at matters psychological, I can't say that I had any real idea of what exactly it is that ails Petrarch. Some sort of depression perhaps, with a touch of midlife crisis? It is clear that he is unhappy, but less clear (to me, that is) why.

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In book I, Augustine lays into Petrarch pretty sternly right from the start, and Petrarch struck me as something of a masochist, the type that enjoys being told how bad he is. Augustine seems to buy heavily into the sort of nonsense that one usually associates with Stoic philosophy: one cannot “become or be unhappy against one's will” (1.2.4) because “virtue alone makes the mind happy” (1.3.1). “[S]omeone who does not wish to be unhappy neither is nor can become so” (1.4.3), etc. I find this attitude very annoying: if you didn't manage to effect some change in your behaviour or your life, some people are very quick to conclude that this can only be because at some level you didn't really want to change. They utterly reject the obvious and much more reasonable explanation that it is perfectly possible to want to do something and yet fail at it — they reject this, no doubt, for the simple reason that by doing so they can then say that your failure is all your own fault and they don't need to feel sorry for you, and can in fact feel smugly superior to you now that you turned out to be such a failure.

Anyway, it isn't clear to me that Augustine is really giving Petrarch any sort of actionable advice at this point, except for vague admonitions to “meditate” (1.1.1) upon the fact that he is mortal and will eventually, perhaps sooner rather than later (1.9, 1.13.1–3), have to face god's judgement (1.11.9). I'm not sure what exactly Petrarch is supposed to have done that would incur god's displeasure anyway. Is being unhappy and depressed a sin now? (Perhaps? I honestly have no idea.) Augustine tries to strengthen Petrarch's fear of death by a bizarre and vivid description of the physical aspects of dying (1.11.1–6).

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In book II, Augustine goes through the various cardinal sins and points out which ones Petrarch is or isn't guilty of. I've always been of the opinion that this whole idea of sins, especially cardinal ones, is nothing else than a big scam; they are defined broadly enough that every normal person can easily be found guilty of some of them. Petrarch makes a half-hearted attempt at defense here or there, but sooner or later invariably caves in under Augustine's pressure. First they discuss pride (2.2–4), where I didn't really have the impression that Petrarch is guilty of anything particularly heinous; no sane person would say that there's anything wrong with Petrarch for having a moderate and reasonable amount of pride in his literary talents, his learning, and even his looks (2.3.1), but then of course one wouldn't expect someone like Augustine to be sane about these things, and in his eyes Petrarch is super guilty.

Next Augustine briefly mentions envy and agrees that Petrarch is not guilty of that (2.5.1), then moves on to greed and ambition (2.5.2–2.10). Again Petrarch doesn't seem to have been guilty of anything worse than trying to make reasonable provisions so he wouldn't end up destitute in his old age, but in Augustine's eyes he could have been satisfied with less (2.7.3–5) and thus can already be labeled as greedy. On the subject of ambition, Augustine accuses him of “hanging around the corridors of power, flattering, deceiving, promising, lying, pretending and dissimulating” (2.9.3) etc.; I don't know enough about Petrarch's life to comment on that but he seems to be content to plead guilty (“Farewell to high honors then, if these are the skills that acquire them”, 2.9.4). Next they discuss lust (2.11–12) and both readily agree that Petrarch is guilty of it; and again my impression was that Petrarch wasn't actually guilty of anything other than normal human desires, and it just shows what a monstrous thing christian morality is for trying to portray such desires as somehow wrong.

But perhaps worst of all, Petrarch is then found guilty of accidia (2.13), which seems to be another term for the sin often translated as sloth, but the way Petrarch and Augustine discuss it here it seems more like a kind of mental affliction. The translator's introduction describes it as “perhaps as near as we can come to the medieval perception of depression” (p. ix). A couple of illustrative passages from the dialogue: “ ‘Tell me now: what do you think is the greatest of your troubles?’ — ‘Everything I see around me, everything I hear, everything I touch.’ ” (2.13.9) “ ‘Everything about your life upsets you.’ — ‘And everything about other people's lives too.’ ” (2.13.10)

Augustine points out that some other people have it even worse — at least Petrarch isn't starving etc. (2.14), surely so manifestly useless a consolation that I don't see how anyone can seriously imagine that it will calm anyone's feelings of anguish. Petrarch goes on to list various other minor complaints, e.g. the crowded and smelly city he lives in (2.15.6). They discuss the idea of turning to books such as those of Cicero and Seneca (2.15.9) for advice and consolation; Petrarch has already read them, but they don't seem to have any lasting effect after he puts the book down. Augustine suggests that he should make notes of useful things he reads so he would remember them better (2.16.3) — which sounds like good advice and is more or less the same reason why I write these blog posts.

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Book III starts with Augustine's observation that two “chains” still prevent Petrarch from contemplating death etc. as he should (3.1): “[l]ove and desire for fame” (3.2.1). This book is almost as long as the previous two combined, and it could easily be divided into two parts, one about love and one about fame.

Petrarch, to his credit, at first reacts with horror at the idea that he should give up those two things (and indeed I despair at humankind when I consider that a religion that makes such idiotic demands of people was ever able to win any converts), but in the end he of course caves in anyway. Augustine points out that she will eventually grow old and die (3.3), which struck me as a rather ridiculous argument since everyone already knows that and yet people keep on falling in love, as they have been doing for tens of thousands of years. Petrarch argues that his beloved is so chaste and virtuous that his love for her actually had a positive effect on him: “She restrained my youthful mind from shameful action [. . .] and focused my gaze on higher things.” (3.4.7) But Augustine says that this merely detracted Petrarch from loving god properly: instead of loving her as something created by god, he loved god as someone that created her (3.5.2). Later he adds that nothing “induces neglect or contempt of Glod so much as the love of worldly things” (3.6.5), including the sort of love that Petrarch felt for Laura.

They also debate on whether Petrarch loved her mind or her body; Petrarch says the former, as demonstrated by the fact that he still loves now that she is older, but he has to admit that he would not have fallen in love with her in the first place if he had not found her pretty back then (3.5.3–4). He also admits that his religious sentiments declined once he had fallen in love with her (3.5.7–11), but I wonder if that wouldn't have happened anyway as he transitioned from childhood into young-adulthood.

Augustine describes Petrarch's symptoms in a way that makes love seem like a sickness (“you are pale and wasted, your youthful bloom is prematurely faded” etc.; 3.7.2), and even suggest a bizarre punning connection between Petrarch's love and his ambitions as a poet: “You loved the laurels or rulers and poets so passionately because they were called by her name” (3.7.5), and this was why he sought to be crowned a poet laureate, even though “the custom fell into disuse centuries ago” (3.7.7).

[If we take a moment to remember that this dialogue is fictional, and that in reality Petrarch wrote both sides of it, we cannot help imagining him as some sort of masochist who enjoys getting hit, and throbs with excitement as he arches his back in anticipation of the next blow.]

[Incidentally, later Petrarch gives another, even more ridiculous reason for his “devotion to the laurel tree”: he is afraid of thunder, and the laurel is “reputed not to be struck by lightning”; 3.11.9.]

Augustine suggests that Petrarch should try to get over his love by travelling away from places associated with her or with memories of her (3.8–9), but cautions him against “carrying one's pain around one when changing places” (3.8.8); he should “set off without any hope of return” (3.9.3), otherwise he would risk a relapse (3.9.6, 3.9.9). More specifically, Augustine suggests he should return to Italy (3.10.1–2), so I guess this work was written during a time when Petrarch lived in France.

Augustine also points out that Petrarch is growing old (3.11–12); his hair is gray although he tries to console himself by remembering various famous ancient Romans whose hair turned gray at a relatively early age (3.11.6–7). He should, Augustine says, be ashamed to be so obsessed with love at his age (3.12.4–6), and should grow serious and give it up (3.12.7, 3.12.10, 3.13.4–6) and focus on religion instead (3.13.9–10).

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Finally, book III turns to the subject of Petrarch's ambition for fame. Augustine points out how fickle fame is: “the breath of crowds” (3.14.5). It seems that Petrarch was working on two big literary projects which he hoped would bring him fame: a series of Roman biographies (On Famous Men) and an epic poem about Scipio the African (the Africa); 3.14.9–10. Both of them, as it turns out, would remain unfinished. Petrarch even says that at one point he was seriously ill and, thinking he would die soon, almost burned the manuscript of the Africa so that it would not be published in its imperfect and unfinished state (3.14.12).

Augustine says that these ambitions are distracting Petrarch from eternal and immortal things, and he shouldn't be wasting his time on literary fame since he doesn't know how long he has left to live (3.15.5–7). The translator's introduction says that the dialogue is supposed to be taking place in 1342 (p. xiv), meaning that Petrarch would have been 38 years old at the time and would live for another 32 years. I was surprised that Petrarch, at that age, thought so seriously about death as something that could come at any time, but I guess it's easy to underestimate how insecure life was before modern medicine and other technological advantages that we enjoy today.

Augustine also points out that any fame that Petrarch might achieve would be limited both geographically (3.16.2–5) and temporally (3.16.8—10), and would be followed by a “second death” when people forget him. Fame, Augustine says, is “like a mere shadow of virtue” (3.17.1), and it's better to focus on virtue directly (which might then also bring you fame, but that's not the point). And fame gained by other than virtuous means is not worth being called fame at all (3.17.4). Augustine reiterates that Petrarch should abandon his work (3.17.5) and meditate upon death (3.17.6–15). Petrarch promises to follow his advice (3.18), and I can only hope that he reneged on that promise, otherwise it would have been a really tragic waste of nearly half of his life.

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What to say at the end? I can sympathise with the mental anguish that Petrarch was obviously going through, and I hope that writing this book made him feel better, but the solutions he espouses in this book are so heavily predicated on his being religious that they are completely useless to a non-religious reader like me. The advice about contemplating one's mortality, which he emphasizes so much in this dialogue, is only useful if you believe that there is an afterlife that you can look forward to; otherwise you're merely throwing away the only life you have.