FURTHER EVIDENCE OF THE IDENTITY OF PETRARCH'S LAURA

Abstract

It is impossible to reopen the issue of the identity of Petrarch's Laura without eventually tackling the problems arising from the case presented by the Abbé de Sade. The difficulties associated with his identification of Laura with Laure de Noves offer two broad areas of investigation: those connected with the authenticity of his pièces justificatives and those involving an assessment of the anagraphical details which identify Laura with the wife of Hugues de Sade. Of these two series of problems the historical ones appear to be the more easily resolved, because the wealth of evidence produced suggests that the historical case is anything but fictitious. It is consequently with the second set of problems that we shall mainly be dealing here, since the identification of Laura with Laure de Noves depends entirely on one or two dates and a few other factual details whose accuracy it appears nowadays virtually impossible to check. However, even when we are concentrating our attention on the problems associated with Laura's identity, we have also to acknowledge that the historical evidence suffers from one major drawback: the complete disappearance of the de Sade family archives, lost presumably (if indeed they ever existed) during the destructive phase of the French Revolution. So, unless they reappear in the future as mysteriously as they vanished towards the end of the eighteenth century, our only hope of authenticating them will be by a lateral or indirect approach. This will not only involve discovering independent confirmation of de Sade's principal arguments but also require verification of the accuracy of the minor details in the pieces justificatives. For it is unlikely that a group of conspirators (either including or excluding de Sade himself) would have had the knowledge at the time to produce an entirely precise account of living conditions during Laura's lifetime, although they knew that such details needed to be provided for the sake of verisimilitude. Accordingly, a single anachronism in the background material might undermine de Sade's case once and for all, while on the other hand the accuracy of facts unconfirmed in his day might help to guarantee its authenticity. Fortunately there is a considerable amount of material — admittedly derivative — in manuscript form in the Libraries of Carpentras and Avignon which might, if it were carefully sifted, permit us to make a complete reassessment of the validity of de Sade's work. What I have been able to examine of it has convinced me that the historical account is a genuine one, and I shall offer a few points which have hitherto been largely overlooked in support of it.