MONTPELHIÈR, FROM JAUME I TO FRANCESCO PETRARCA

Joseph de De Ca'th Lon, Claire Fontaine and The Grandma are visiting Montpelhièr, the beautiful Occitan city where Jaume I was born. 

For The Grandma, visiting Montpelhièr is very special because of all the memories she has of living there while studying the Occitan poets for her Literature degree. In addition to learning Occitan, a very important language also in Catalunya where it is an official language, The Grandma shared wonderful moments with her Occitan colleagues and friends and visiting them again is always something very special and emotional.

Montpelhièr is a city in Occitània near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region, is the prefecture of the department of Hérault. Montpelhièr is the third-largest city near the Mediterranean coast, behind Marselha and Nice, and the seventh-largest city of France overall.

In the Middle Ages, Montpelhièr was an important city of the Crown of Aragon (and was the birthplace of Jaume I), and then of Mallorca, before its sale to France in 1349. Established in 1220, the University of Montpelhièr is one of the oldest universities in the world and has the oldest medical school still in operation, with notable alumni such as Francesco Petrarca, Nostradamus and François Rabelais. Above the medieval city, the ancient citadel of Montpelhièr is a stronghold built in the seventeenth century by Louis XIII.

Since the 1990s, Montpelhièr has experienced one of the strongest economic and demographic growths in the country. Its living environment, with one of Europe's largest pedestrian areas, along with its rich cultural life and Mediterranean climate, explains the enthusiasm for the city, which is nicknamed the Gifted. It is ranked as a Sufficiency city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network.

In the Early Middle Ages, the nearby episcopal town of Maguelone was the major settlement in the area but raids by pirates encouraged settlement a little farther inland. In 737, Charles Martel destroyed Maguelone.

Montpelhièr, first mentioned in a document of 985, was founded under a local feudal dynasty, the Guilhem, who combined two hamlets and built a castle and walls around the united settlement. The name is from medieval Latin mons pisleri, Woad Mountain referring to the woad (Latin pastellus, pestellus) used for dyeing locally. There is no real mountain in the area, with the mons referring to a pile of stones.

In 986, the Lords of Montpelhièr begin with William I of Montpelhièr. In the 10th century the town consisted of two portions, Montpelhièr and Montpelliéret.

In 1160, the law school was active.

The two surviving towers of the city walls, the Tour des Pins and the Tour de la Babotte, were built later, around the year 1200. Montpelhièr came to prominence in the 12th century -as a trading centre, with trading links across the Mediterranean world, and a rich Jewish cultural life that flourished within traditions of tolerance of Muslims, Jews and Cathars- and later of its Protestants. William VIII of Montpelhièr gave freedom for all to teach medicine in Montpelhièr in 1180. The city's faculties of law and medicine were established in 1220 by Cardinal Conrad of Urach, legate of Pope Honorius III; the medical faculty has, over the centuries, been one of the major centres for the teaching of medicine in Europe. This era marked the high point of Montpelhièr's prominence. The city became a possession of the Kings of Aragon in 1204 by the marriage of Pere II of Aragon with Marie of Montpelhièr, who was given the city and its dependencies as part of her dowry.

Montpelhièr gained a charter in 1204 when Pere and Marie confirmed the city's traditional freedoms and granted the city the right to choose twelve governing consuls annually. Under the Kings of Aragon, Montpelhièr became a very important city, a major economic centre and the primary centre for the spice trade in the Kingdom of France. It was the second or third most important city of France at that time, with some 40,000 inhabitants before the Black Death. Montpelhièr remained a possession of the crown of Aragon until it passed to James III of Mallorca, who sold the city to the French king Philip VI in 1349, to raise funds for his ongoing struggle with Pere IV of Aragon.

From the middle of the 14th century until the French Revolution (1789), Montpelhièr was part of the province of Languedoc.

In the 14th century, Pope Urban VIII gave Montpelhièr a new monastery dedicated to Saint Peter, noteworthy for the very unusual porch of its chapel, supported by two high, somewhat rocket-like towers. With its importance steadily increasing, the city finally gained a bishop, who moved from Maguelone in 1536, and the huge monastery chapel became a cathedral.

In 1432, Jacques Cœur established himself in the city and it became an important economic centre, until 1481 when Marseilles overshadowed it in this role.

At the time of the Reformation in the 16th century, many of the inhabitants of Montpelhièr became Protestants (or Huguenots as they were known in France) and the city became a stronghold of Protestant resistance to the Catholic French crown. Montpelhièr was among the most important of the 66 villes de sûreté ('cities of protection' or 'protected cities') that the Edict of Nantes granted to the Huguenots. The city's political institutions and the university were all handed over to the Huguenots.

Increasing tension with Paris led to King Louis XIII besieging the city in 1622. The city surrendered after a two-month siege. Peace terms called for the dismantling of the city's fortifications and the building of the royal Citadel of Montpelhièr to secure the city for the government. The university and consulate were taken over by the Catholic party. Even before the Edict of Alès in 1629, Protestant rule was dead and the ville de sûreté was no more.

Louis XIV made Montpelhièr capital of Bas Languedoc, and the town started to embellish itself, by building the Promenade du Peyrou, the Esplanade and a large number of houses in the historic centre.

After the French Revolution, the city became the capital of the much smaller Department of Hérault.

During the 19th century the city thrived on the wine culture that it was able to produce due to the abundance of sun throughout the year. The wine consumption in France allowed Montpelhièr's citizens to become very wealthy until in the 1890s the phylloxera induced fungal disease had spread amongst the vineyards and the people were no longer able to grow the grapes needed for wine.

During the repression of January and February 1894, the police conducted raids targeting the anarchists living there, without much success.

After this the city grew because it welcomed French repatriates from Algeria and other parts of northern Africa after Algeria's independence from France. In the 21st century Montpelhièr is between France's number seventh and eighth largest city. The city had another influx in population more recently, largely due to the student population, who make up about one-fourth of Montpelhièr's population. The school of medicine kickstarted the city's thriving university culture, though many other universities have been well established there. The coastal city also benefited in the past 40 years from major construction programs such as Antigone, Port Marianne and Odysseum districts.

More information: Montpellier Tourism

A mièja-votz
cal parlar de l'amor.
A bramals de la tèrra raubada,
a ponhs sarrats amb nòstre pòple,
a dents copadas, a contra-jorn,
de la lutz que de còps endevinhi.

In a half-voice
we need to talk about love.
To cries of the robbed land,
hand in hand with our people,
to teeth cut, to counter-day,
of the light I sometimes guess.

Ives Roqueta

FRANCESCO PETRARCA, LAURA & 'IL CANZIONERE'

Francesco Petrarca

Today, Jordi Santanyí and his friends are still in Arezzo. They want to visit the Francesco Petrarca's house, where this genius, father of Renaissance, was born and where the artistic and literary heritage of the Petrarchan Academy is kept in. Nowadays, this building is owned by the Accademia Petrarca di Lettere Arti e Scienze di Arezzo, established in 1623. It dates back to the XVI century and was built on top of a previous building of the XIII-XIV centuries.

The library has got about 20.000 books and incunabula, some of which date back to the XVI, XVII, XVIII and XIX centuries. Among them there are valuable editions of some Petrarchan works and some antique books, including some works by F. Redi, a doctor, literary man and naturalist from Arezzo, who lived in the XVII century (1626-1697).

All the books dating back to the XV-XVIII centuries were collected by F.Redi himself and his successors until 1820 when they were inherited by the Petrachan Academy.

As well as the Redi Library, the Academy owns important collections of books including G. L. Passerini’s Dante’s Library and  valuable collection of letters, about 8000, belonging to the most well-known literary representatives of the Italian culture of the first three decades of the XX century.

Jordi and The Grandma love Literature and visiting Petrarca's home is an unforgettable experience for them. Jordi wants to know more things about Petrarca's life and The Grandma is interested in the mysterious figure of Laura, the secret love of the Tuscan writer.

Francesco Petrarca (July 20, 1304-July 18/19, 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch was a scholar and poet of Renaissance who was one of the earliest humanists. His rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited with inventing the 14th-century Renaissance.

Petrarch is often considered the founder of Humanism. In the 16th century, Pietro Bembo created the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch's works, as well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio, and, to a lesser extent, Dante Alighieri.

Jordi visits La Casa di Petrarca, Arezzo

Petrarch would be later endorsed as a model for Italian style by the Accademia della Crusca.

Petrarch's sonnets were admired and imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model for lyrical poetry. He is also known for being the first to develop the concept of the Dark Ages.

Petrarch was born in the Tuscan city of Arezzo in 1304. He was the son of Ser Petracco and his wife Eletta Canigiani. His given name was Francesco Petracco. The name was Latinized to Petrarca. Petrarch's younger brother was born in Incisa in Val d'Arno in 1307. Dante was a friend of his father.

Petrarch spent his early childhood in the village of Incisa, near Florence. He spent much of his early life at Avignon and nearby Carpentras, where his family moved to follow Pope Clement V who moved there in 1309 to begin the Avignon Papacy. He studied law at the University of Montpellier (1316–20) and Bologna (1320–23) with a lifelong friend and schoolmate called Guido Sette. Because his father was in the legal profession, a notary, he insisted that Petrarch and his brother study law also.

More information: Ibelcasentino

Petrarch however, was primarily interested in writing and Latin literature and considered these seven years wasted. Additionally, he proclaimed that through legal manipulation his guardians robbed him of his small property inheritance in Florence, which only reinforced his dislike for the legal system. He protested, I couldn't face making a merchandise of my mind, as he viewed the legal system as the art of selling justice.

Petrarch was a prolific letter writer and counted Boccaccio among his notable friends to whom he wrote often. After the death of their parents, Petrarch and his brother Gherardo went back to Avignon in 1326, where he worked in numerous clerical offices. This work gave him much time to devote to his writing. With his first large-scale work, Africa, an epic in Latin about the great Roman general Scipio Africanus, Petrarch emerged as a European celebrity.

On April 8, 1341, he became the second poet laureate since antiquity and was crowned by Roman Senatori Giordano Orsini and Orso dell'Anguillara on the holy grounds of Rome's Capitol.

The Grandma & Claire inside La Casa di Petrarca

He traveled widely in Europe, served as an ambassador, and has been called the first tourist because he traveled just for pleasure, and the reason he climbed Mont Ventoux. During his travels, he collected crumbling Latin manuscripts and was a prime mover in the recovery of knowledge from writers of Rome and Greece.

Disdaining what he believed to be the ignorance of the centuries preceding the era in which he lived, Petrarch is credited or charged with creating the concept of a historical Dark Ages.

Petrarch spent the later part of his life journeying through northern Italy as an international scholar and poet-diplomat. His career in 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.

About 1368 Petrarch moved to the small town of Arquà in the Euganean Hills near Padua, where he passed his remaining years in religious contemplation. He died in his house in Arquà early on July 20, 1374 -his seventieth birthday. The house hosts now a permanent exhibition of Petrarchian works and curiosities; among others you find the famous tomb of Petrarch's beloved cat who was embalmed.

More information: The New York Times

Petrarch is best known for his Italian poetry, notably the Canzoniere and the Trionfi. However, Petrarch was an enthusiastic Latin scholar and did most of his writing in this language. His Latin writings include scholarly works, introspective essays, letters, and more poetry.

Among them are Secretum Meum, an intensely personal, guilt-ridden imaginary dialogue with Augustine of Hippo; De Viris Illustribus, a series of moral biographies; Rerum Memorandarum Libri, an incomplete treatise on the cardinal virtues; De Otio Religiosorum and De Vita Solitaria, which praise the contemplative life; De Remediis Utriusque Fortunae, a self-help book which remained popular for hundreds of years; Itinerarium; invectives against opponents such as doctors, scholastics, and the French; the Carmen Bucolicum, a collection of 12 pastoral poems; and the unfinished epic Africa. He translated seven psalms, a collection known as the Penitential Psalms.

Joseph visits La Casa di Petrarca, Arezzo

Petrarch also published many volumes of his letters, including a few written to his long-dead friends from history such as Cicero and Virgil. Cicero, Virgil, and Seneca were his literary models. Most of his Latin writings are difficult to find today, but several of his works are available in English translations.

Petrarch collected his letters into two major sets of books called Epistolae familiares and Seniles, both of which are available in English translation. The plan for his letters was suggested to him by knowledge of Cicero's letters. These were published without names to protect the recipients, all of whom had close relationships to Petrarch. 

His Letter to Posterity gives an autobiography and a synopsis of his philosophy in life. It was originally written in Latin and was completed in 1371 or 1372 -the first such autobiography in a thousand years, since Saint Augustine.

While Petrarch's poetry was set to music frequently after his death, especially by Italian madrigal composers of the Renaissance in the 16th century, only one musical setting composed during Petrarch's lifetime survives. This is Non al suo amante by Jacopo da Bologna, written around 1350.

More information: BBC

On April 6, 1327, after Petrarch gave up his vocation as a priest, the sight of a woman called Laura in the church of Sainte-Claire d'Avignon awoke in him a lasting passion, celebrated in the Rime sparse. Later, Renaissance poets who copied Petrarch's style named this collection of 366 poems Il Canzoniere.

Laura may have been Laura de Noves, the wife of Count Hugues de Sade, an ancestor of the Marquis de Sade. There is little definite information in Petrarch's work concerning Laura, except that she is lovely to look at, fair-haired, with a modest, dignified bearing.

Laura and Petrarch had little or no personal contact. According to his Secretum, she refused him because she was already married. He channeled his feelings into love poems that were exclamatory rather than persuasive, and wrote prose that showed his contempt for men who pursue women. Upon her death in 1348, the poet found that his grief was as difficult to live with as was his former despair.

In his Letter to Posterity, Petrarch wrote: In my younger days I struggled constantly with an overwhelming but pure love affair -my only one, and I would have struggled with it longer had not premature death, bitter but salutary for me, extinguished the cooling flames. I certainly wish I could say that I have always been entirely free from desires of the flesh, but I would be lying if I did.

Francesco & Laura

While it is possible she was an idealized or pseudonymous character -particularly since the name Laura has a linguistic connection to the poetic laurels Petrarch coveted- Petrarch himself always denied it.

His frequent use of l'aura is also remarkable: for example, the line Erano i capei d'oro a l'aura sparsi may both mean her hair was all over Laura's body, and the wind l'aura blew through her hair.

There is psychological realism in the description of Laura, although Petrarch draws heavily on conventionalised descriptions of love and lovers from troubadour songs and other literature of courtly love. Her presence causes him unspeakable joy, but his unrequited love creates unendurable desires, inner conflicts between the ardent lover and the mystic Christian, making it impossible to reconcile the two.

Petrarch's quest for love leads to hopelessness and irreconcilable anguish, as he expresses in the series of paradoxes in Rima 134 Pace non trovo, et non ò da far guerra;/e temo, et spero; et ardo, et son un ghiaccio: I find no peace, and yet I make no war:/and fear, and hope: and burn, and I am ice.

More information: Poetry in Transation-The Canzoniere

Laura is unreachable -the few physical descriptions of her are vague, almost impalpable as the love he pines for, and such is perhaps the power of his verse, which lives off the melodies it evokes against the fading, diaphanous image that is no more consistent than a ghost.

In addition, some today consider Laura to be a representation of an ideal Renaissance woman, based on her nature and definitive characteristics.

Petrarch is traditionally called the father of Humanism and considered by many to be the father of the Renaissance. In his work Secretum meum he points out that secular achievements did not necessarily preclude an authentic relationship with God.

Petrarch argued instead that God had given humans their vast intellectual and creative potential to be used to their fullest. He inspired humanist philosophy which led to the intellectual flowering of the Renaissance.

He believed in the immense moral and practical value of the study of ancient history and literature -that is, the study of human thought and action. Petrarch was a devout Catholic and did not see a conflict between realizing humanity's potential and having religious faith.

More information: The Guardian

How difficult it is to save the bark of reputation 

from the rocks of ignorance.

Petrarch