have remained obscure; or that he should have enjoyed such freedom of access to her as he evidently did. The idea, moreover, seems quite inconsistent with the tenor of the celebrated sonnet, Tranquillo porto avea mostrato Amore:
"Love had at length a tranquil port displayed
To travailed soul, long vexed by toil and teen,
In calm maturity, where naked seen
Is Vice, and Virtue in fair garb arrayed.
Bare to her eyes my heart should now be laid,
Disquieted no more their peace serene—
O Death! what harvest of long years hath been
Ruin by thee in one brief moment made!
The hour when unreproved I might invoke
Her chaste ear's favour, and disburden there
My breast of fond and ancient thought, drew nigh:
And she, perchance, considering as I spoke
Each bloomless face and either's silvered hair,
Some blessed word had uttered with a sigh."
The thought manifestly is, that if Laura had lived a short time longer their intimacy would have given no occasion for scandal. This might be true of an unmarried lady or a widow, hardly of a wife. The sonnet also proves that Petrarch and Laura were nearly of an age, refuting Vellutello's opinion on this point. Salvatore Betti, moreover, has found another Laura, fulfilling, in his estimation, all requisites as well as the Abbé de Sade's.
It must, notwithstanding, be acknowledged that there is one piece of documentary evidence almost sufficient to prove the Abbé's theory in the teeth of all objections, could we but be certain of its genuineness. This is the will of Laura de Sade, made in a condition of extreme sickness on April 3, 1348. We know on Petrarch's own authority that his Laura died on April 6, for the genuineness of the note in his Virgil where he records this fact
