4. PETRARCH (= PLUTARCH?) and the “RENAISSANCE of ANTIQUITY” 4.1. How Petrarch Created the Legend of the Glory of Italian Ro

410 | history: fiction or science? chron 1 4. ([927]). The actual persona of Petrarch is nowadays PETRARCH (= PLUTARCH?) AND perceived as mysterious, vague and largely unclear, THE “RENAISSANCE OF ANTIQUITY” and reality often becomes rather obfuscated. But we are talking about the events of the XIV century here! 4.1. How Petrarch created the legend of the The true dating of the texts ascribed to Petrarch often glory of Italian Rome out of nothing remains thoroughly unclear. Already an eminent poet, Petrarch entered the sec- According to our reconstruction, the “Classical ond period of his life – the period of wandering. In Age” is merely another name applied in the Scaliger- the alleged year of 1333 he travelled around France, ian chronology to the mediaeval epoch of the XI-XV Flanders and Germany. “During his European trav- century a.d. As we have already mentioned, the Italian els, Petrarch became directly acquainted with scien- Rome had apparently been founded as a capital as late tists, searching the libraries of various monasteries as the XIV century of the new era, and not in the VIII trying to find forgotten ancient manuscripts and study- century b.c. as the Scaligerian chronology tells us. It ing the monuments to the past glory of Rome” ([644], would thus be most interesting to regard the history page 59). Nowadays it is assumed that Petrarch be- of the mediaeval Rome from the point of view of this came one of the first and most vehement advocates reconstruction. Nowadays we are told that the Italian of the “ancient” authors who, as we are beginning to Rome had entered “the age of decline” ([196]) in the understand, were either his contemporaries, or pre- epoch of the XIII-XIV century. Our take is that there ceded him by 100-200 years at the most. is really a very simple explanation. Before the XIV In 1337 he visited the Italian Rome for the first time century a.d.,Rome, if it had existed at all, had been ([644], page 59). What did he see there? Petrarch writes a rather small town; this is why the mediaeval docu- (if these are indeed his real letters, and not the result ments that have reached our age fail to see anything of subsequent editing),“Rome seemed even greater to worthy of mentioning. The historians of a later age, me than I could have imagined – especially the great- raised on the Scaligerian chronology, began to inter- ness of her ruins”([644]). Rome in particular and XIV pret this mutism as evidence of “the utter decline of century Italy in general had met Petrarch with an utter the Roman capital and all of its past splendour.” chaos of legends, from which the poet had selected the According to our reconstruction, in the early XIV ones he considered to fit his a priori opinion of “the century the small Italian town of Rome was officially greatness of Italian Rome.” Apparently, Petrarch had decreed (on paper!) to be the capital of “the Great been among those who initiated the legend of “the Ancient Rome.”To this end, the events which had re- great ancient Italian Rome” without any solid basis. A ally occurred in a completely different Rome – the significant amount of real mediaeval evidence of the Rome on Bosporus, the City of the Czars, Constan- correct history of Italy in the Middle Ages was rejected tinople, a truly great city of the Middle Ages – were as “erroneous.” It would be of the utmost interest to transferred to the Italian Rome (again, only formally, study these “mediaeval anachronisms”considered pre- on paper). A large part of Constantinople’s history posterous nowadays, if only briefly. was severed and attributed to the Italian Rome. In- According to mediaeval legends, “Anthenor’s terestingly enough, we are in a position to give a more sepulchre” was located in Padua ([644]). In Milan, the or less precise assessment of when this “surgical trans- statue of Hercules was worshipped. The inhabitants plantation of history” really took place. Let us turn of Pisa claimed their town to have been founded by to the XIV century history. Pelopsus. The Venetians claimed Venice to have been In 1974 the world celebrated 600 years since the built of the stones of the destroyed Troy! Achilles was death of Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374), the first supposed to have ruled in Abruzza, Diomedes in prominent writer of the Middle Ages who, according Apulia, Agamemnon in Sicily, Euandres in Piemont, to Leonardo Bruni, “had been the first who… could Hercules in Calabria. Apollo was rumoured to have understand and bring into light the ancient elegance been an astrologer, the devil, and the god of the Sara- of the style that had been forlorn and forgotten before” cens! Plato was considered to have been a doctor, Ci- chapter 7 “dark ages” in mediaeval history | 411 Fig. 7.27 The Pyramid of Cestius in Rome. The pyramid’s height is 27 metres. It is assumed that it was erected in the XII century nowadays; we are told that the Pretor Caio Cestiu Epulon is buried here. The pyramid is presumed to be “homage to the Egyptian fashion”.Taken from [138], page 41. Petrarch, on the other hand, used to claim that the grave belonged to the “ancient” Remus. cero a knight and a troubadour,Virgil a mage who er on the Capitol and Apollo on the Palatine? Where blocked the crater of the Vesuvius, etc. is the portico of Apollo and the basilica of Caius and All of this is supposed to have taken place in the Lucius, where is the portico of Libya and the theatre XIV century or even later! This chaos of information of Marcellus? Where are the temple of Hercules and the obviously irritated Petrarch, who had come to Rome Muses built by Marius Philip, and the temple of Diana already having an a priori concept of the “antiquity” built by Lucius Cornifacius? Where is the temple of of the Italian Rome. It is noteworthy that Petrarch left the Free Arts of Avinius Pollio, where is the theatre of us no proof of the “antiquity of Rome” that he pos- Balbus, the Amphitheatre of Statilius Taurus? Where are tulates. On the contrary, his letters – if they are in- the numerous constructions erected by Agrippa, of deed his real letters, and not later edited copies – paint which only the Pantheon remains? Where are the splen- an altogether different picture. Roughly speaking, it dorous palaces of the emperors? One finds everything is as follows: Petrarch is convinced that there should in the books;when one tries to find them in the city,one be many “great buildings of ancient times” in Rome. discovers that they either disappeared [sic!] or that only He really finds none of those. He is confused and writes the vaguest of their traces remain”. ([644]) this about it: These countless inquiries of “where” this or the “Where are the thermae of Diocletian and Caracal- other object might be, especially the final phrase, are lus? Where is the Timbrium of Marius, the Septizon- amazing. They indicate clearly that Petrarch came to ium and the thermae of Severus? Where is the forum the Italian Rome with an a priori certainty that the of Augustus and the temple of Mars the Avenger? great Rome as described in the old books is the Italian Where are the holy places of Jupiter the Thunder-Bear- Rome. As we are now beginning to understand, these 412 | history: fiction or science? chron 1 books most probably were referring to the Rome on of the destroyed columns, and at the very memory of the Bosporus.However, in the early XIV century or the forgotten names” ([644]). Having wiped off the even later, it was ordered to assume that the ancient tears, Petrarch became quite industrious in what con- manuscripts referred to the Italian Rome. Petrarch cerned the creation of the “true history” of the Italian had to find “field traces” of the “great Roman past” Rome. He searched for statues, collected Roman in Italy; he searched vigorously, found nothing, and medals, and tried to recreate the topography of Rome. was nervous about this fact. Most of Petrarch’s energy was however directed at However, the letters attributed to Petrarch contain finding and commenting on the oeuvres of the “an- traces of a Roman history that differs considerably cient” authors. The list of books that he allegedly from the history we are taught nowadays. For instance, owned survived until our days, the list that he com- Petrarch insists that the pyramid that is now consid- piled himself in the alleged year of 1336 a.d.,on the ered to be “the Pyramid of Cestius” is really the sepul- last page of the Latin codex that is now kept in the chre of Remus, see fig. 7.27. Could Petrarch have been National Library of Paris. Whether or not Petrarch correct? Really, the Scaligerian history doesn’t know had been in the possession of the original works of the the location of the grave of the “ancient”Remus. Since authors, remains unknown. The following names are this pyramid was built in the alleged XII century, q.v. mentioned in the list: in [138], page 41, it would be logical to assume that Horace, Ovid, Catullus, Propercius, Tibullus, Per- the “ancient”Remus couldn’t have lived before the XII cius, Juvenal, Claudian, Ovid, the comedians Plautus century a.d. – which is a far cry from the didactic dat- and Terentius; the historians Titus Livy, Sallustius, ing of the VIII century b.c.

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