If the _Assumption of the Virgin_ is the noblest print in the Broad Manner, the _Triumphs of Petrarch_--a set of six prints--may be said to possess the greatest charm, not less by its subject than by its treatment. Petrarch first saw Laura on April 6, 1327, in the Church of Santa Clara at Avignon, and “in the same city, on the same 6th day of the same month of April, in the year 1348, the bright light of her life was taken away from the light of this earth.” The poet’s aim in composing these _Trionfi_ is the same which he proposed to himself in the _Canzoniere_: namely, “to return in thought, from time to time, now to the beginning, now to the progress, and now to the end of his passion, taking by the way frequent opportunities of rendering praise and honor to the single and exalted object of his love. To reach this aim he devised a description of man in his various conditions of life, wherein he might naturally find occasion to speak of himself and of his Laura. “Man in his first stage of youth is the slave of appetites, which may all be included under the generic name of LOVE, or Self-Love. But as he gains understanding, he sees the impropriety of such a condition, so that he strives advisedly against those appetites and overcomes them by means of CHASTITY, that is, by denying himself the opportunity of satisfying them. Amid these struggles and victories DEATH overtakes him and makes victors and vanquished equal by taking them all out of the world. Nevertheless, it has no power to destroy the memory of a man, who by illustrious and honorable deeds seeks to survive his own death. Such a man truly lives through a long course of ages by means of his FAME. But TIME at length obliterates all memory of him, and he finds, in the last resort, that his only sure hope of living forever is by joy in God and by partaking with God in his blessed ETERNITY. “Thus LOVE triumphs over man, CHASTITY over LOVE, and DEATH over both alike; FAME triumphs over DEATH, TIME over FAME, and ETERNITY over TIME.”[5] [5] Le Rime di Francesco Petrarca con l’interpretazione di Giacomo Leopardi ... e gli argomenti di A. Marsand. Florence. 1839. p. 866. Translation in, Petrarch: His Life and Times. By H. C. Hollway-Calthrop. London. 1907. pp. 41-42. With the exception of the first plate, _The Triumph of Love_, none of these engravings illustrates, in any strict sense of the word, the text of Petrarch’s poem. It is the spirit which the engraver has interpreted. Who may have been the designer we know not, but they show certain affinities to the work of Pesellino and Baldovinetti. [Illustration: ANONYMOUS FLORENTINE, XV CENTURY. TRIUMPH OF CHASTITY. FROM THE TRIUMPHS OF PETRARCH Size of the original engraving, 10 × 6⅜ inches In the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University] [Illustration: ANONYMOUS FLORENTINE, XV CENTURY. LIBYAN SIBYL Size of the original engraving, 7 × 4¼ inches In the British Museum]