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it is certainly an astonishing production, and deserves immortality, both for the strength and freedom of the arguments. Pope John the TwentySecond had it publicly burnt twenty years after the death of Dante. The last production to be mentioned is his work "De Vulgari Eloquentia," in which he examines the nature of language in general, and next that of the Italian in particular: he intended to have written four books on the subject, but lived to complete only two; and the treatise having been translated into Italian about two centuries after, a violent controversy was raised as to its authenticity.

The Life of Petrarch.

Petrarch.

THE subject of the present memoir, like that of the preceding, was the descendant of an ancient Florentine family.* His father, Pietro Petracco, or Petraccolo, was a respectable notary, but having taken part in the factions which agitated Florence he was expelled at the same time that Dante suffered sentence of condemnation, and retired with his wife, Eletta Canigiani, to Arezzo. Here he shared in the counsels and resolutions of the other partisans of the Neri, and when the descent was made upon Florence on the twentieth of July, 1304, he bore arms in the little troop which

* Baldelli. Abbé de Sade. Manetti.

marched to attempt the recovery of their rights. On the very night that this useless expedition was undertaken, Eletta gave birth to Francesco, but not without danger of losing her life, which her attendants for some time considered terminated.

The sentence passed on Petracco not being extended to his wife, she was permitted to take up her residence on an estate belonging to her husband at Ancisa, in the valley of the Arno, about fifteen miles distant from the capital. Francesco, when his mother retired to this place, was about seven months old, and in their journey narrowly escaped drowning, the man who carried him, as they crossed the river, being nearly precipitated into the stream by the fall of his horse. During the seven years which Eletta passed at Ancisa her husband continued to visit her for short periods, but with the utmost secrecy and caution, the rest of his time being spent in travelling from place to place, with the hope of discovering some retreat in which he might exercise his profession with security. At length, finding that no change was likely to occur in the affairs of the Republic, he resolved to remove with his wife and little family,

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