Petrarch's sighting of a woman called "Laura"…

Petrarch's sighting of a woman called "Laura" in the church of Sainte-Claire d'Avignon on April 6, 1327, after he had given up his vocation as a priest, had awakened in him a lasting passion, celebrated in the Rime sparse ("Scattered rhymes").

Renaissance poets who copy Petrarch's style will name this collection of three hundred and sixty-six poems Il Canzoniere ("Song Book").

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 for the very proper reason that she was already married to another man.

He has channeled his feelings into love poems that are exclamatory rather than persuasive, and writes prose that shows his contempt for men who pursue women.

Published in 1342, his collected lyrics—chiefly sonnets, but including some canzoni, sestinas and madrigals—convey the vicissitudes of the poet's love.

Whatever the true name of the lady Petrarch encountered in the Church of Santa Clara, the name Laura is integral to the inner structure and intricate verbal music of the Canzoniere.

Too holy to be painted, Laura is an awe-inspiring goddess.

Sensuality and passion are suggested rather by the rhythm and music that shape the vague contours of the lady.

Although he revises them at least ten times, Petrarch refers to his Canzoniere as a work of little importance, calling them Rerum vulgarium fragmenta ("short pieces in the vernacular").