from The Renaissance Philosophy of Man, ed. Ernst Cassirer, Paul Oskar Kristeller and John Herman Randall.

For educational use only.

A SELF-PORTRAIT
by Francesco Petrarca

From a letter to Francesco Bruni, papal secretary in Avignon [Milan], October 25, I362. (Sen., I, 6 [5], in Opera [Basel, 1554],p. 824; [1581], p. 745)

YOU make an orator of me, a historian, philosopher, and
poet, and finally even a theologian. You would certainly
not do so if you were not persuaded by one whom it is hard to disbelieve: I mean Love. Perhaps you might be excused if you did not extol me with titles so overwhelmingly great: I do not deserve to have them heaped on me. But let me tell you, my friend, how far I fall short of your estimation. It is not my opinion only; it is a fact: I am nothing of what you attribute to me. What am I then? I am a fellow who never quits school,(1) and not even that, but a backwoodsman who is roaming around through the lofty beech trees all alone, humming to himself some silly little tune, and--the very peak of presumption and assurance--dipping his shaky pen into his inkstand while sitting under a bitter laurel tree. I am not so fortunate in what I achieve as passionate in my work, being much more a lover of learning than a man who has got much of it. I am not so very eager to belong to a definite school of thought; I am striving for truth. Truth is difficult to discover, and, being the most humble and feeble of all those who try to find it, I lose confidence in myself often enough. So much do I fear to become entangled in errors that I throw myself into the embrace of doubt instead of truth. Thus I have gradually become a proselyte of the Academy(2) as

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1. [In the word scholasticus so many meanings are united (school student, scholar), that it cannot well be endered by a single word in a modern language.]

2. [On the skeptical outcome of the New Academy, Petrarca got information from Cicero's philosophical writings, especially from

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one of the big crowed as thc very last of this humble flock: I do not believe in my faculties, do not affirm anything, and doubt every single thing, with the single exception of what I believe is a sacrilege to doubt.
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Academica posteriora. There he found Cicero saying (i. 12. 46) that in Plato's books nothing is finely stated and much discussed "in both directions" (in utramque partem).]
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