Description
Petrarch's House in Arquà is the house in the Euganean Hills, in Arquà Petrarca, where the poet lived from 1369 until his death in 1374. He himself described it as a "small house, decorous and noble"; since 1875 it has been a museum of the city of Padua.
In the 16th century the rooms were frescoed with scenes inspired by the Canzoniere and the poem Africa: the poet's metamorphoses, the death of Laura, Venus and Vulcan above the fireplace. In the study, where Petrarch died on the night of July 18 to 19, 1374, his bookcase and chair remain.
By tradition, the embalmed remains of the poet's cat were kept above a door: an invention, it seems, of a 17th-century owner. Since 1787 visitors have signed a register, introduced so that pilgrims would stop carving their names into the walls.
In front of the house is a small garden, part of the plots with fruit trees and aromatic herbs that Petrarch had planted.
In the 16th century the rooms were frescoed with scenes inspired by the Canzoniere and the poem Africa: the poet's metamorphoses, the death of Laura, Venus and Vulcan above the fireplace. In the study, where Petrarch died on the night of July 18 to 19, 1374, his bookcase and chair remain.
By tradition, the embalmed remains of the poet's cat were kept above a door: an invention, it seems, of a 17th-century owner. Since 1787 visitors have signed a register, introduced so that pilgrims would stop carving their names into the walls.
In front of the house is a small garden, part of the plots with fruit trees and aromatic herbs that Petrarch had planted.