Renaldo W.
Petrarch in his Letter 18, written in 1358 to his friend Francesco Nelli in Florence was a strong criticism of the Avignon popes as the most wicked place on earth, harkening back to the days of ancient Babylon. Petrarch goes on to compare the Avignon papacy to the mother of all fornicators and an abomination of the earth. Petrarch’s rhetoric of Babylon was in part a a desire of Dante’s dream of a restored Roman Empire as well as being an apocalyptic expectancy of a new age, using biblical allusions as foretold in the book of Revelation 17 and 18.
Petrarch condemns the Avignon papacy by stating “The worst of all things are in Babylon situated on the banks of the fierce Rhone, the famous, rather, the infamous prostitute who fornicates with the kings of the earth! You are indeed the very one that the Evangelist saw in spirit,” (91-92). This “small Babylon” as Petrarch describes it may be small “it is true, by the circuit of your walls; but by the vices, the ambition, and infinite cupidity, by the heaping of all evils you are not only great, but the greatest, you are immense,” (92). Petrarch accuses the popes of so much lust and vice “as if all their glory was not in the cross of Christ, but in the pleasure of the table, in the orgies and in the impurities they follow in their chambers,” (94). Petrarch doesn’t believe just the popes should be vilified but also the thousands of French that have strayed from the Christ’s teachings as well.
Petrarch in his Letter 18, written in 1358 to his friend Francesco Nelli in Florence was a strong criticism of the Avignon popes as the most wicked place on earth, harkening back to the days of ancient Babylon. Petrarch goes on to compare the Avignon papacy to the mother of all fornicators and an abomination of the earth. Petrarch’s rhetoric of Babylon was in part a a desire of Dante’s dream of a restored Roman Empire as well as being an apocalyptic expectancy of a new age, using biblical allusions as foretold in the book of Revelation 17 and 18.
Petrarch condemns the Avignon papacy by stating “The worst of all things are in Babylon situated on the banks of the fierce Rhone, the famous, rather, the infamous prostitute who fornicates with the kings of the earth! You are indeed the very one that the Evangelist saw in spirit,” (91-92). This “small Babylon” as Petrarch describes it may be small “it is true, by the circuit of your walls; but by the vices, the ambition, and infinite cupidity, by the heaping of all evils you are not only great, but the greatest, you are immense,” (92). Petrarch accuses the popes of so much lust and vice “as if all their glory was not in the cross of Christ, but in the pleasure of the table, in the orgies and in the impurities they follow in their chambers,” (94). Petrarch doesn’t believe just the popes should be vilified but also the thousands of French that have strayed from the Christ’s teachings as well.