In three dialogues Petrarch imagines himself examined by St Augustine, with Truth as silent witness. The saint presses him on his restlessness and melancholy, on his love for Laura and on his longing for glory, and the poet defends himself with a frankness that makes the Secretum his most personal work. William Draper’s 1911 translation was the first in English.
A remarkable self-portrait of the first Renaissance humanist, wrestling with faith and ambition. Download the free EPUB.