Laura
The woman Petrarch celebrated in his poems. He first saw her in a church at Avignon on April 6 and recorded that she died on the same day and hour, twenty-one years later, in 1348.
d. 1348
Laura, in the Margins of His Virgil
Petrarch, note in his manuscript of Virgil, as transcribed by Pierre de Nolhac, Pétrarque et l’humanisme (1907) · 1348 or soon after
Laurea, propriis uirtutibus illustris et meis longum celebrata carminibus, primum oculis meis apparuit sub primum adolescentie mee tempus, anno Domini m° iijc xxviij die vj° mensis Aprilis in ecclesia sancte Clare Auin. hora matutina; et in eadem ciuitate eodem mense Aprili eodem die sexto eadem hora prima, anno autem m° iijc xlviij° ab hac luce lux illa subtracta est, cum ego forte tunc Verone essem, heu! fati mei nescius.
Laura, famous for her own virtues and long celebrated in my poems, first appeared to my eyes in the early days of my youth, on April 6 in the year of our Lord 1327, in the church of Saint Clare at Avignon, in the morning. And in the same city, in the same month of April, on the same sixth day, at the same first hour, but in the year 1348, that light was taken from this light of day. I happened to be at Verona then, alas, unaware of what had befallen me.