Petrarca: To Socrates
(Preface to the First Collection of Letters, c. 1348)
...Now that letters sent off years ago to the most distant regions are brought together at once in a single place, it is easy to perceive deformities in the whole body which were not apparent in the separate parts... I recollect that Seneca laughed at Cicero for including trivial matters in his letters, and yet I am much more prone in my epistles to follow Cicero's example than Seneca's. Seneca, indeed, gathered into his letters pretty much all the moral reflections which he had published in his various books: Cicero, on the other hand, treats philosophical subjects in his books, but fills his letters with miscellaneous news and the gossip of the day. Let Seneca think as he likes about this; as for me, I must confess that I find Cicero's letters very agreeable reading. They relax the tension produced by weighty maters, which if long continued strains the mind, though if occasionally interrrupted it becomes a source of pleasure. ...To [Cicero], therefore, let us look, placing him before us as our model...