The luxury and corruption which reigned in the Roman court at Avignon are fully displayed in some letters of Petrarch’s, without either date or address.  The partizans of that court, it is true, accuse him of prejudice and exaggeration.  He painted, as they allege, the popes and cardinals in the gloomiest colouring.  His letters contain the blackest catalogue of crimes that ever disgraced humanity.

Petrarch was twenty-two years of age when he settled at Avignon, a scene of licentiousness and profligacy.  The luxury of the cardinals, and the pomp and riches of the papal court, were displayed in an extravagant profusion of feasts and ceremonies, which attracted to Avignon women of all ranks, among whom intrigue and gallantry were generally countenanced.  Petrarch was by nature of a warm temperament, with vivid and susceptible passions, and strongly attached to the fair sex.  We must not therefore be surprised if, with these dispositions, and in such a dissolute city, he was betrayed into some excesses.  But these were the result of his complexion, and not of deliberate profligacy.  He alludes to this subject in his Epistle to Posterity, with every appearance of truth and candour.

From his own confession, Petrarch seems to have been somewhat vain of his personal appearance during his youth, a venial foible, from which neither the handsome nor the homely, nor the wise nor the foolish, are exempt.  It is amusing to find our own Milton betraying this weakness, in spite of all the surrounding strength of his character.  In answering one of his slanderers, who had called him pale and cadaverous, the author of Paradise Lost appeals to all who knew him whether his complexion was not so fresh and blooming as to make him appear ten years younger than he really was.

Petrarch, when young, was so strikingly handsome, that he was frequently pointed at and admired as he passed along, for his features were manly, well-formed, and expressive, and his carriage was graceful and distinguished.  He was sprightly in conversation, and his voice was uncommonly musical.  His complexion was between brown and fair, and his eyes were bright and animated.  His countenance was a faithful index of his heart.

He endeavoured to temper the warmth of his constitution by the regularity of his living and the plainness of his diet.  He indulged little in either wine or sleep, and fed chiefly on fruits and vegetables.

In his early days he was nice and neat in his dress, even to a degree of affectation, which, in later life, he ridiculed when writing to his brother Gherardo.  “Do you remember,” he says, “how much care we employed in the lure of dressing our persons; when we traversed the streets, with what attention did we not avoid every breath of wind which might discompose our hair; and with what caution did we not prevent the least speck of dirt from soiling our garments!”

This vanity, however, lasted only during his youthful days.  And even then neither attention to his personal appearance, nor his attachment to the fair sex, nor his attendance upon the great, could induce Petrarch to neglect his own mental improvement, for, amidst all these occupations, he found leisure for application, and devoted himself to the cultivation of his favourite pursuits of literature.