Strict and simple conventions favor the useful expression of ideas
On Friday, April 6, 1327, during Easter mass in the Church of St. Claire in Avignon, Francesco Petrarca beheld the woman he would commemorate as Laura, and irrevocably fell in love. Petrarch was 23 years old. If literary tradition is correct in identifying the object of his coup de foudre as Laura de Noves, she was 17.
Petrarch probably never met Laura; she refused to see him because she was already married. But by the time he died in 1374, he had composed hundreds poems extolling her beauty, bemoaning his misfortune, and mourning her early death at the age of 38, a respectable mother of 11.
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