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Petrarch's Accidia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2019

Siegfried Wenzel
Siegfried Wenzel*
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina
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Extract

Whenever Petrarch's significance for the history of European thought and sentiment is assessed, a great deal of attention is given to his ‘melancholy'. Apart from his poetry it is the Secretum which presents most clearly this aspect of Petrarch's inner life. In this work Petrarch analyzed his sentiment under the name of accidia. Literary critics since Sainte-Beuve have seen behind this concept the same psychic malady that beset Werther or René and, more recently, Baudelaire. Scholars, on the other hand, have tried to locate Petrarch's accidia in a more or less linear development from acedia, the medieval sin of spiritual negligence, to modern melancholy, Weltschmerz, or ennui.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in the Renaissance , Volume 8 , 1961 , pp. 36 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1961

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References

1 In medieval Latin acedia and accidia are spelling variants of the same term. In this study I use acedia consistently for the deadly sin and accidia for Petrarch's sentiment, except of course in direct quotations.

2 Geiger, Ludwig, Renaissance und Humanismus in Italien und Deutschland (Berlin, 1882), p. 26 Google Scholar.

3 Zöckler, Otto, Die Tugendlehre des Christentums geschichtlich dargestellt in der Entwicklung ihrer Lehrjormen (Gütersloh, 1904), p. 279 Google Scholar.

4 Dilthey, Wilhelm, ‘Auffassung und Analyse des Menschen im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert’, Gesammelte Schriften (2d ed., Leipzig, 1921), II, 23 Google Scholar.

5 Friedrich, Hugo, Die Rechtsmetaphysik der Güttlichen Komüdie (Frankfurt, 1942), p. 174.Google Scholar

6 Nachod, Hans and Stern, Paul, Briefe des Francesco Petrarca (Berlin, 1931), p. 386 Google Scholar.

7 Voigt, Georg, Die Wiederbelebung des dassischen Alterthums oder das erste Jahrhundert des Humanismus (3d ed., Berlin, 1893), I, 140 Google Scholar.

8 Tatham, Edward H. R., Francesco Petrarca, the First Modern Man of Letters (London, 1926), II, 263–264 Google Scholar.

9 Heitmann, Klaus, Fortuna und Virtus. Fine Studie zu Petrarcas Lebensweisheit (Köln, 1958, Studi Italiani, I)Google Scholar.

10 Ed. Carrara, Enrico, in Francesco Petrarca, Prose, ed. Martellotti, G. et al. (Milan, 1955)Google Scholar. My page references are to this edition.

11 For the history of acedia see: Du|Cange, Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae latinitatis, new ed. (Paris, 1733), I, 90–91 Google Scholar; Cochin, Henry, Le Frère de Pétrarque et le livre ‘Du repos des religieux’ (Paris, 1903), pp. 205–221 Google Scholar; Paget, Francis, The Spirit of Discipline, fourth ed. (London, 1892), pp. 1–50 Google Scholar; Bardy, G., ‘Acedia’, Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique, doctrine et histoire, 1 (Paris, 1937), 166–169 Google Scholar; E. Vansteenberghe, ‘Paresse’, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, XI, part 2 (Paris, 1932), 2023-2030; Alphandéry, P., ‘De quelques documents médievaux relatifs à des états psychasthéniques’, Journal de Psychologic Normale et Pathologique XXVI (1929), 763–787 Google Scholar.

12 Previous studies of the concept have not shown the importance of Evagrius in the history of acedia. This may be due to the fact that the establishment of a corpus Evagrianum is of only very recent date; cf. J. Muyldermans, Evagriana Syriaca (Louvain, 1952, Bibl. du Muséon, vol. 31).

13 For the history of the scheme of capital sins see Morton W. Bloomfield, The Seven Deadly Sins ([East Lansing], 1952).

14 Moralia in Job, XXXI, 45 (PL LXXVI, 621).

15 Cf. Dom Robert Gillet in his introduction to Gregory's Morales surjob, ed. Dom André de Gaudemaris (Paris, 1952, Sources Chrétiennes I), p. 91.

16 Cf. Rhabanus Maurus: ‘Sancti Patres Aegypti et Palestini orientaliumque regionum … acediam vero unum ex octo principalibus vitiis esse affirmaverunt, ob hoc videlicet quod monachis ac solitariis magis experta est haec passio, et in eremo conversantibus infestior hostis ac frequens’ (De vitiis et virtutibus, III, 54; PL CXII, 1377-1378).

17 Gregory's tristitia is a new creation and not, as has been often believed, the mere continuation of Cassian's tristitia (whereby acedia would have been simply dropped) nor the simple addition of tristitia and acedia.

18 It is dealt with in Summa theol., II-II, qu. 3 5, and De malo, qu. 11.

19 Cassian: ‘De acedia [nascuntur] otiositas, somnolentia, inportunitas, inquietudo, peruagatio, instabilitas mentis et corporis, uerbositas, curiositas’ (Collationes, v, 16; ed. M. Petschenig, Corpus scriptorum ecdesiasticomm Latinorum, XIII, Vienna, 1886). Gregory the Great: ‘De tristitia, malitia, rancor, pusillanimitas, desperatio, torpor circa praecepta, vagatio mentis erga illicita nascitur’ (Moral., XXXI, 45; PL LXXVI, 621).

20 The model for the progenies in such handbooks was Peraldus’ Summa virtutum et vitiorum, with sixteen species of acedia. Its treatment of the seven deadly sins was used by Frère Lorens in his Somme le Roi (1279), where the offspring of acedia is arranged in three groups of six species each. The Somme furnished the model for many vernacular handbooks for lay instruction and confession, such as the Middle English Ayenbite of lnwyt (1340), the Book of Vices and Virtues (c. 1375), and facob's Well (fifteenth century), and the Italian Libro dei uizii e delle virtù (c. 1350). A contemporary of Petrarch, Alvarus Pelagius, also used Peraldus’ progeny in his compendium Deplanctu ecclesiae (13 3 5-13 40; cf. Nicolas lung, Alvaro Pelayo, Paris, 1931). His sixteen branches of acedia are: tepiditas, mollifies, somnolentia, otium, dilatio, tarditas, negligentia, imperseverantia, remissio, dissolutio, penuria (listed only, not treated; in Peraldus: incuria), ignavia, indevotio, tristitia, tedium vite, desperatio (ed. [Lyons,] Johannes Clein, [1517,] ff. 246 f.).

21 Three good examples are: Gregory, Moral, x, 18 (PL LXXV, 939 f.); Dial., 1, 1, Introd. (PL LXXVII, 149); Bernard, Sermo 54 in Cant., VIII (PL CLXXXIII, 1041 f.).

22 This sin is introduced as ‘rerum temporalium appetitus’ and includes ambition.

23 See Bloomfield, The Seven Deadly Sins, passim.

24 Cassian: ‘origine tamen et tempore primus [morbus]’ (Inst., XII, I; ed. M. Petschenig, Corpusscriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, XVII, Vienna, 1888); ‘omniumque peccatorum et criminum esse principium’ (Inst., XII, 6). Gregory calls superbia ‘ipsa namque vitiorum regina’ and ‘radix quippe cuncti mali’ (Moral., xxxi, 45; PL XXXI, 620-621).

25 ‘Multa te obsident, multa circumstrepunt, tuque ipse quot adhuc aut quam validis hostibus circumsidearis ignoras’ (p. 68). ‘Ubi ante oculos tuos hinc illinc prementia teque circumvallantia, mala coniecero’ (p. 70).

26 Tusc, III, 10, 23 ff.

27 De natura hominis, 19 (PG XL, 688). Cf. B. Domañski, Die Psychologie des Nemesius (Münster, 1900, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters III, 1). John of Damascus also adopted Nemesius’ distinction (De fide orthodoxa, II, 14; PG XCIV, 932) and transmitted it to the west.

28 Burgundio translated one of the four species of as ‘accidia’; see John Damascene, De Fide Orthodoxa. Versions of Burgundio and Cerbanus, ed. Eligius M. Buytaert (St. Bonaventure, New York, 1955, Franciscan Institute Publications, Text Series, no. 8), ch. 28.

29 ‘De tristitia vero, quam Cicero magis aegritudinem appellat, dolorem autem Vergilius… (sed ideo malui tristitiam dicere, quia aegritudo vel dolor usitatius in corporibus dicitur) … , ‘ De civ. Dei, XIV, 7 (ed. Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, vol. 48, Turnhout, 1955). Aegritudo is used ambiguously for psychic as well as bodily disease in Cassian, passim. Jerome still called the passion aegritudo, Dial. adv. Pelag., Prol. (PL XXIII, 517); see also Ep. XXII, 27 (PL XXII, 413).

30 ‘Tristitia’, pp. 106, 126, 128; ‘omnibus oppressus non mestissimus esse non valeo’, p. 108.

31 ‘Vite mee tedia’, ‘quotidianum fastidium’, p. 120.

32 ‘Humane conditionis odium atque contemptus’, p. 108.

33 ‘Tua omnia tibi displicent.—Aliena non minus’, p. 110; ‘nullam ex fortune muneribus dulcedinem capio’, p. 116.

34 ‘Semper ad desperationem via', p. 106.

35 ‘Acedia vel tristitia’ (Peter Lombard, Sent., II, 42, 8; PL CXCII, 753); cf. Hugh of St. Victor (?), Defructibus carnis et spiritus, 7 (PL CLXXVI, 1000).

36 In Peraldus’ list tristitia is the fourteenth branch; likewise in Alvarus Pelagius'.

37 ‘Horrorem loci, cellae fastidium, fratrum quoque … aspernationem gignit atque contemptum’ (Cassian, Inst., x, 2).

38 ‘Sextum nobis certamen est, quod Graeci vocant, quam nos taedium sive anxietatem cordis possumus nuncupare’ (Inst., x, 1).

39 The fifteenth in Peraldus and Alvarus.

40 De sacram., II, 13, 1 (PL CLXXVI, 526).

41 Cf. above, notes 19 and 20.

42 That weeping in sorrow is delectable and, therefore, an appropriate remedy for tristitia, was good scholastic doctrine; cf. Thomas, Summa theol., I-II, qu. 38, art. 2, resp.

43 Dr. Hans Baron has called my attention to the fact that Petrarch's discussion of die causes of accidia in the earlier version of the Secretum (1342) is more traditional than in the ‘definitive’ version on which I have based my study (early 1350s). This would strengthen my view that Petrarch's thought was firmly based on the medieval concept and only gradually transformed it and gave it more personal tones.

44 Cf. Misch, Georg, Geschichte der Autobiographie, II, part 1, second half (Frankfurt, 1955). 483 Google Scholar ff.

45 In the enlarged progeny of the Somme le Roi and its followers (eighteen species), the branch ‘tristesce’ bears features of oversensitivity; in Middle English versions it is variously called ‘heuynes', ‘anger', or ‘drerynes'. Cf. Jacob's Well: ‘[Heuynes] makyth a man to be gretly greuyd wyth all that men don to hym, or seyn, yif it plese hym nogt’ (ed. Arthur Brandeis, London, 1900, E.E.T.S.O.S. cxv, 112).

46 See, as an example, Bromyard's Summa praedicantium.

47 The framework of the long collection of stories is furnished by the scheme of the seven sins transposed into the world of courtly love. Sloth, for example, means here negligence in Frauendienst, in wooing and dreaming of one's lady.