azure "i- sky-blue, black and white, are .-ecu in the
-ami- mas- distinctly in successive layers, or blended
90 as to form cv rv -h.cle aid l:u ■ of which they are
PETRA 45
PETRARCH
capable — as brilliant and as soft as they ever appear in flowers, or in the plumage of birds, or in the sky when illuminated by the most glorious sunset. The red perpetually shades into pale, or deep rose or flesh color, and again approaches the hue of the lilac or vio- let. The white, which is often as pure as snow, is oc- casionally just dashed with blue or red. The blue is usually the pale azure of the clear sky or of the ocean, but sometimes has the deep and peculiar shade of the clouds in summer when agitated by a tempest. Yel- low is an epithet often applied to sand and sandstone. The yellow of the rocks of Petra is as bright as that of saffron. It is more easy to imagine than to describe the effect of tall, graceful columns exhibiting these exquisite colors in their succession of regular horizon- tal strata. They are displayed to still greater advan- tage in the walls and ceilings of some of the excava- tions where there is a slight dip in the strata.
See Irby and Mangles, Travels, ch. viii; Robinson, Bib!. Research, ii, 512 sq. ; Laborde, Voyage (Par. 1830- 33), p. 55 sq. (this work is chiefly valued for its engrav- ings) ; Bartlett, Forty Days in the Desert, p. 126 sq. ; Roberts, Sketches (Lond. 1842-48), vol. iii ; Olin, Trav- els, ii, 1 sq. ; Palmer, Desert of the Ex< dns, p. 366 sq. ; Ridgaway, The Lord's Land, p. 139 sq. ; Porter, in Hur- ray's Handbook for Sinai and Pal. p. 81 sq. ; Biidecker, Palastina und Syrien, p. 304 sq. See Idum.ea.
Petra, Vicenzo, an Italian cardinal, was born at Naples Nov. 13, 1662. He occupied at the court of Rome several considerable positions, and was created cardinal in 1724, then bishop of Prasneste. He enjoyed great influence with popes Innocent XII and Benedict XIII, who often consulted him upon grave affairs. He died at Rome March 24, 1747. He published De sacra Pcenitentiara Apostolica (Kome, 1712, 4to), and Com- mentaria ad Const it utiones Apostolicas (Yen. 1729, 4 vols. fol.). See Nomini illustri del Regno di Napoli. — Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generate, xxxix, 730.
Petrarch (Ital. Peirarca), Francesco, one of the most celebrated of Italian writers of prose and poetry, deserves a place here because he was for many years a devout and consistent ecclesiastic, and exerted a far- reaching influence on the classical culture of Italy in the later mediaeval period known as the Renaissance (q. v.). Petrarch was born at Arezzo, in Tuscany, in 1304. His father, a Florentine notary, had been exiled two years before, in the same disturbance which drove out the poet Dante ; and he soon left Italy for Avignon, where the papal court then resided. The son was ed- ucated in this French city washed by the Rhone, and at Montpellier, and then sent to study law at Bologna. Though Petrarch certainly loved the iEneid more than the Pandects, and copied ancient manuscripts more will- ingly than law papers, yet the subsequent course of his public life proves that he did not neglect professional pursuits, and that he prepared himself for being a use- ful man of business. Returning to Avignon soon after he became of age, he found himself in possession of a small inheritance, and indulged for some years in an al- ternation of classical studies and political composition. with such gayety (sombre, perhaps, but not the more pure on that account) as the clerical court offered. In the year 1327 he conceived an attachment to an Avig- nonese lady, young but already married. Some slight obscurity still hangs over his relation to this lady, but it is almost certain that she was no less a paragon of virtue than of loveliness. He met her on April 6, 1327, in the church of St. Clara in Avignon, and at once and forever fell deeply in love with her. The lady was ] then nineteen, and had been married for two years to a gentleman of Avignon, named Hugues de Sade. For ten years Petrarch lived near her in the papal city, and frequently met her at church, in society, at festivities, etc. He sang her beauty and his love, under the name of his " Laura," in those sonnets whose mellifluous con- ceits ravished the ears of his contemporaries, and have