The new race of poet-scholars which arose soon after Dante quickly made themselves masters of this fresh tendency.They did so in a double sense, being themselves the most acknowledged celebrities of Italy, and at the same time, as poets and historians, consciously disposing of the reputation of others.An outward symbol of this sort of fame was the coronation of the poets, of which we shall speak later on.
A contemporary of Dante, Albertinus Musattus or Mussatus, crowned poet at Padua by the bishop and rector, enjoyed a fame which fell little short of deification.Every Christmas Day the doctors and students of both colleges at the University came in solemn procession before his house with trumpets and, it seems, with burning tapers, to salute him and bring him presents.His reputation lasted till, in 1318, he fell into disgrace with the ruling tyrant of the House of Carrara.
This new incense, which once was offered only to saints and heroes, was given in clouds to Petrarch, who persuaded himself in his later years that it was but a foolish and troublesome thing.His letter 'To Posterity' is the confession of an old and famous man, who is forced to gratify the public curiosity.He admits that he wishes for fame in the times to come, but would rather be without it in his own day.In his dialogue on fortune and misfortune, the interlocutor, who maintains the futility of glory, has the best of the contest.But, at the same time, Petrarch is pleased that the autocrat of Byzantium knows him as well by his writings as Charles IV knows him.And in fact, even in his lifetime, his fame extended far beyond Italy.And the emotion which he felt was natural when his friends, on the occasion of a visit to his native Arezzo (1350), took him to the house where he was born, and told him how the city had provided that no change should be made in it.In former times the dwellings of certain great saints were preserved and revered in this way, like the cell of St.Thomas Aquinas in the Dominican convent at Naples, and the Portincula of St.Francis near Assisi; and one or two great jurists so enjoyed the half-mythical reputation which led to this honour.Towards the close of the fourteenth century the people at Bagnolo, near Florence, called an old building the 'Studio of Accursius' (died in 1260), but, nevertheless, suffered it to be destroyed.It is probable that the great incomes and the political influence which some jurists obtained as consulting lawyers made a lasting impression on the popular imagination.