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.

Petrarch in Avignon (84)

'Histoire de la Cité

Couvent de Sainte-Claire

––––––––––––––––––––––––

"Laure,... longtemps, célébrée dans mes vers, est apparue

pour la première fois à mes yeux, au temps de mon

adolescence, en l'an de grâce 1327, le 6 avril, en l'église

Sainte-Claire d'Avignon". C'est ainsi que le célèbre poète

et humaniste François Pétrarque immortalise le couvent

créé en 1239 par les religieuses de Sainte-Claire, un

des plus anciens de la ville. Reconstruit au XIVe

siècle, il est saccagé à la Révolution, puis vendu com-

me bien national et morcelé in plusieurs propriétés.

En 1987, sensibilisée à la dégradation

de ce lieu de mémoire, la ville fait

procéder au dégagement des ves-

iges et à la réhabilitation du

site. De l'église, il ne reste que

quelques chapelles latérales

et l'abside. Un petit jardin

marque l'emplacemenet

du cloître. L'espace

est en partie affe-

té au Théâtre

des Halles.'

'History of the City: Sainte-Claire's Convent. "Laura ... a long time ago celebrated in my verses, appeared before my eyes for the first time, during my adolescence, in the year of grace 1327, on 6 April, in the church of Sainte-Claire in Avignon". Thus the famous poet and humanist Francesco Petrarch immortalised the convent created in 1239 by the nuns of  Sainte-Claire, one of the oldest [churches] in the town. Reconstructed in the 14th century, it was pillaged during the Revolution, then sold as national property and divided into several lots. In 1987, stirred into awareness of how this important place was being neglected, the town set about preserving the remains of this site. Of the church, there only remain a few side chapels and the apse. A small garden marks the site of the cloister. The space has in part been included in the Théâtre des Halles.'

The plaque near the church door of course more or less says the same as above, only in a much shorter version.