Noves, Laure de (1308–1348)
Noves, Laure de (1308–1348)
Beloved of Petrarch. Name variations: Laure de Noves; Laura de Novalis; Laura de Noyes; Madame de Sale. Born in 1308; died of the plague in Avignon, France, on April 6, 1348; daughter of Audibert de Noves of Avignon; married Hugues de Sale of Avignon; children: eleven.
Laura, a French woman beloved by Petrarch and celebrated in his poems, was in reality Laure de Noves who was later Madame de Sale. When Petrarch first beheld her on April 6, 1327, she was in the church of Avignon. By the time she died of the plague on April 6, 1348, she had given birth to 11 children. Petrarch detailed in over 300 sonnets and canzoni all the minuscule incidents of his attachment. They were, wrote Sismondi in his Literature of South of Europe, "those precious favors which, after an acquaintance of fifteen or twenty years, consisted at most of a kind word, a glance not altogether severe, a momentary expression of regret or tenderness at his departure, or a deeper paleness at the idea of losing her beloved and constant friend."