Editing Module:Petrarch (section)

===Later years===
Petrarch spent the later part of his life journeying through northern Italy and southern France as an international scholar and poet-diplomat. His career in [[Catholicism|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.<ref>Plumb, p. 165</ref>

For a number of years in the 1340s and 1350s he lived in a small house at [[Fontaine-de-Vaucluse]] east of [[Avignon]] in France.

[[File:Arquà Petrarca Punto di vista di un'aquila.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Petrarch's [[Arquà Petrarca|Arquà]] house near [[Padua]] where he retired to spend his last years]]
Giovanni died of the [[bubonic plague|plague]] in 1361. In the same year Petrarch was named [[canon (priest)|canon]] in [[Monselice]] near [[Padua]]. Francesca married [[Francescuolo da Brossano]] (who was later named executor of Petrarch's [[Will and testament|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 Francesca (with her family) moved to the small town of [[Arquà Petrarca|Arquà]] in the [[Euganean Hills]] near Padua, where he passed his remaining years in religious contemplation. He died in his house in Arquà on 18/19 July 1374. The house now hosts a permanent exhibition of Petrarch's works and curiosities, including the famous tomb of an embalmed cat long believed to be Petrarch's (although there is no evidence Petrarch actually had a cat).<ref>{{Cite web |title=(Not?) Petrarch's Cat |url=https://blogs.bl.uk/european/2018/12/not-petrarchs-cat.html |access-date=2022-04-02 |website=blogs.bl.uk |language=en}}</ref> On the marble slab, there is a Latin inscription written by [[Antonio Quarenghi]]:
{|
! Original Latin
! English translation
|-
|valign="top"|
<poem>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.</poem>

|style="padding-left: 3em;" valign="top"|
<poem>::The Tuscan bard of deathless fame
      Nursed in his breast a double flame,
        Unequally divided;
      And when I say I had his heart,
      While Laura play'd the second part,
        I must not be derided.

      For my fidelity was such,
      It merited regard as much
        As Laura's grace and beauty;
      She first inspired the poet's lay,
      But since I drove the mice away,
        His love repaid my duty.

      Through all my exemplary life,
      So well did I in constant strife
        Employ my claws and curses,
      That even now, though I am dead,
      Those nibbling wretches dare not tread
        On one of Petrarch's verses.<ref>{{cite journal|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40773/40773-0.txt|title=The Last Lay of Petrarch's Cat|translator=J. O. B.|journal=Notes and Queries|volume=5|issue=121|page=174|date=21 February 1852|access-date=5 June 2022}} Latin text included.</ref></poem>
|}

Petrarch's will (dated 4 April 1370) leaves fifty [[Italian coin florin|florins]] to Boccaccio "to buy a warm winter dressing gown"; various legacies (a horse, a silver cup, a lute, a [[Madonna (art)|Madonna]]) to his brother and his friends; his house in Vaucluse to its caretaker; money for Masses offered for his [[Soul (spirit)|soul]], and money 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.<ref>Bishop, pp. 360, 366. Francesca and the quotes from there;{{Clarify|date=May 2009}} Bishop adds that the dressing-gown was a piece of tact: "fifty florins would have bought twenty dressing-gowns".</ref> Nevertheless, the [[Biblioteca Marciana]] traditionally claimed this bequest as its founding, although it was in fact founded by [[Cardinal Bessarion]] in 1468.<ref>{{cite EB1911 |wstitle=Libraries |display=Libraries § Italy |volume=16 |page=573 |first1=Henry Richard |last1=Tedder |first2=James Duff |last2=Brown}}</ref>