Petrarch in Fontaine-de-Vaucluse (84)

'François Pétrarque 1304–1374
poète Toscan
et père de l'humanisme
se retire à Vaucluse, au coeur
de cette vallée close, en 1337'

Petrarch stayed in Fontaine-de-Vaucluse for about fourteen years, until the early 1350s,

The plaque above celebrates the 700th anniversary of his birth, and adds a brief quotation in which he calls Vaucluse the dearest place on Earth to him.

Petrarch's original house is long gone, although this museum and library now stands almost on the same spot where it was. The ground floor is devoted to René Char, the other two floors to Petrarch.

The passageway leading to the museum entrance.

The garden.

Petrarch greatly loved the River Sorgue, and his house was on the left bank, just a few yards to the right of this photo taken from the bridge.

And a few yards to the left of the previous photo is Petrarch's column, moved to the centre of the village at the instigation of the Duchesse de Berry in 1837.