Francesco Petrarca, known in English as Petrarch, was born on July 20, 1304, in Arezzo, Italy. He is renowned as a poet and scholar.
Petrarch’s considerable influence in England and, therefore, in English, began with Geoffrey Chaucer, who incorporated elements and translations of Petrarch’s work into his own.
Africa (Petrarch)
Africa is an epic poem in Latin hexameters by the 14th-century Italian poet Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca). It tells the story of the Second Punic War, in which the Carthaginian general Hannibal invaded Italy, but Roman forces were eventually victorious after an invasion of north Africa led by Scipio Africanus, the poem's hero.
Scipio Africanus
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Historical Context and Composition
In 1337 Petrarch first visited Rome. This visit had a profound impact, leaving him speechless but also inspired to take up literary pursuits equal to the grandeur he saw in the Rome that he visited. The first sections of Africa were written in the valley of Vaucluse after Petrarch's first visit to Rome in 1337.
It should come as little surprise that in the following year he began writing an epic in Latin. A draft of the poem was completed by about 1343, but Petrarch continued to revise it, and the text was not made public until 1397, three decades after his death. It was first printed, as part of Petrarch's collected works, at Venice in 1501. It was dedicated to Robert of Naples, king of Sicily.
Petrarch's Vision of Rome and the Coronation
On Easter Sunday 1341, in a ceremony that took place on Rome's Capitoline Hill, Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) was crowned with the laurel wreath. Petrarch owed this realization of a longstanding dream to a large network of friends, but also to the favor of King Robert of Naples.
The examination by King Robert as well as the legal document containing the privilegium laureationis show that the Roman ceremony was clearly modeled on medieval academic protocol. Petrarch claimed that the ceremony was reviving a classical tradition that had been forgotten and neglected for more than twelve hundred years.
Choosing this particular time and place for the coronation charged the procedures with an intense symbolism, for the renovation of culture was staged in loco ipso, in the ruins of classical Rome, hence in the midst of decay-on Resurrection Day. The reappropriation of antiquity was thus at the same time an act of secularization: Christian resurrection was converted into cultural renovation.
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Analysis and Themes
Petrarch’s Africa recounts the leadership of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (236-183 BCE) in the Second Punic War with a particular focus on the battle of Zama in 202 BCE. Petrarch’s love of the classics and humanist spirit pervades through the text in a work that combines features of Livy’s history, Cicero’s philosophical writings and Virgil’s epic poetry.
Petrarch set great store by Africa and his other classicizing works. Petrarch’s version is a cosmic battle between good and evil, the Romans obviously playing the role of the good guys. It’s also written in a high Latin style that aimed to reflect the poetic power of the great Roman poet Vergil’s Aeneid.
In a lecture, it was discussed how Petrarch used metaphors of lightness and darkness as well as played on tropes usually reserved for Muslims in Christian romance. It was focused on how he used Sophonisba to explain anxieties about race-mixing.
Petrarch’s poem is a complete a work of fiction. It doesn’t even attempt to depict the Second Punic War as it actually happened. For him, it was a way to talk about the anxieties that he and his contemporaries faced and how they can confront the people they saw as great enemies, Muslims.
Reception and Legacy
Even so, the literary quality of the Africa has been greatly criticized as dry, unpolished and second rate to other works by Petrarch and the works of those who preceded (e.g. Dante) and followed him (e.g. Renaissance writers).
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About Petrarch’s legacy, the poet J. D. McClatchy wrote: True love-or rather, the truest-is always obsessive and unrequited. No one has better dramatized how it scorches the heart and fires the imagination than Petrarch did, centuries ago.
Readers who are new to Petrarch and especially those who are new to the Africa will find helpful a chronology of the Second Punic War, a map, summary headings, explanatory notes (29 pages worth), and an index of proper names.
Key Figures in Petrarch's Africa
| Figure | Role | Historical Significance |
|---|---|---|
| Scipio Africanus | Roman General | Led Roman forces to victory in the Second Punic War |
| Hannibal | Carthaginian General | Invaded Italy during the Second Punic War |
| Sophonisba | Character in the poem | Used to explore themes of race-mixing and eroticism |
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