Scipio Africanus
The Roman general whose soul, Seneca said, returned to heaven, where it had come from. Petrarch hoped the same of Laura.
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
Rumor autem infelix per literas Ludouici mei me Parme repperit, anno eodem mense Maio die xix° mane. Corpus illud castissimum atque pulcerrimum in loco Fratrum Minorum repositum est, ipso die mortis ad uesperam. Animam quidem eius, ut de Africano ait Seneca, in celum, unde erat, rediisse persuadeo michi.
The sad news reached me at Parma in a letter from my friend Ludovicus, on the morning of May 19 of the same year. That most chaste and beautiful body was laid to rest at the church of the Franciscans on the very evening of the day she died. Her soul, I am convinced, has returned to heaven, where it came from, as Seneca says of Africanus.