ABSTRACT
My main title is drawn from a passage in St Augustine's Confessions (X. 8. 15) as quoted by Petrarch in a famous letter addressed to Francesco Dionigi da Borgo San Sepolcro, an Augustinian professor of theology. Dated 26 April 1336, it recounts an ascent of Mont Ventoux (the ‘Windy Peak’) made that same day by Petrarch, his brother and two servants. After describing his preparations for the climb and its early stages he turns to religious matters, drawing parallels between the difficulties of the physical ascent and the process of spiritual formation. Having reached the highest summit he reflects on his recent past and then, as the sun begins to set, he looks around again in all directions:
I admired every detail, now relishing earthly enjoyment, now lifting up my mind to higher spheres after the example of my body, and I thought it fit to look Into the volume of Augustine's Confessions….Where I fixed my eyes first it was written: ‘And men go to admire the high mountains, the vast floods of the sea, the huge streams of the rivers, the circumference of the ocean, and the revolutions of the stars — and desert themselves.’ I was stunned, I confess. I bade my brother, who wanted to hear more, not to molest me, and close the book, angry with myself that I still admired earthly things. Long since I ought to have learned, even from pagan philosophers, that ‘nothing is admirable besides the mind; compared to its greatness nothing is great’ [Seneca, Epistle 8. 5]. I was completely satisfied with what I had seen of the mountain and turned my inner eye toward myself. From this hour nobody heard me say a word until we arrived at the bottom.1
