The Hindu : International : The case of Petrarch's missing skull

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Wednesday, Apr 07, 2004

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International

The case of Petrarch's missing skull

ROME, APRIL 6. Of all the world's great writers, Petrarch is the best known for losing his head. On Good Friday in 1327, the then 23-year-old writer and scholar fell madly — and forlornly — in love with a woman he saw in a church congregation.

His bad luck, to become enamoured of a woman who did not return his affections, was the rest of humanity's good fortune. For, in seeking to express his feelings for the woman he called Laura, Francesco Petrarch gave definitive form to the sonnet and established himself as the first modern, western poet. Now, it seems, he has lost his head for a second time.

Scientists who have been examining what they thought were Petrarch's remains have discovered that the skull belongs to someone else. And they suspect it could be that of a woman. Professor Vito Terrible Wiel Marin of Padua University, who is heading the investigation, said: ``This must have been robbery. It is not, frankly, a nice business.'' The suspects in a literary whodunnit spanning almost 700 years include a bibulously larcenous 17th century friar and a supposedly clumsy 19th century anatomist. Death has put both beyond the reach of indictment, but if Petrarch's skull were to be traced as a result of the latest discovery it could lead to charges of receiving stolen goods, an offence for which, under Italian law, there is no statute of limitations.

The seeds of the mystery were sown last November when a crane lifted the lid from Petrarch's pink marble tomb at Arqua Petrarca, the town where he died in 1374. It was the latest in a series of exhumations carried out in Italy on historical figures.

Prof. Terrible Wiel Marin played a key role in setting the vogue when he examined the remains of St. Anthony of Padua in 1981.

One of the main reasons for picking over Petrarch's remains was to reconstruct his face and create a definitive portrait in time for the 700th anniversary of the poet's birth on July 20.

``Since we now don't even have his skull, that is absolutely impossible,'' Prof. Terrible Wiel Marin lamented.

The bones of what was thought to be Petrarch's venerable head were in fragments when they were removed from his tomb. In 1873 it was opened by Prof. Giovanni Canestrini, also at Padua University.

``He claimed Petrarch's skull disintegrated on contact with the air,'' said Prof. Terrible Wiel Marin.

``Since none of us has ever come across an instance of this happening, we can only conclude he dropped it.''

Or might he have made up the whole story, putting back a damaged substitute and keeping for himself the head of a man revered as one of the fathers of the Renaissance?

- @ Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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