No More Learning

His letter is long, zealous,
superstitious, and, as usual, a little pedantic. The Pope did not need
this epistle to spur his intentions as to replacing the holy seat at
Rome; but it so happened that he did make the removal no very long time
after Petrarch had written to him.

On the 20th of July, 1366, our poet rose, as was his custom, to his
matin devotions, and reflected that he was precisely then entering on
his sixty-third year. He wrote to Boccaccio on the subject. He repeats
the belief, at that time generally entertained, that the sixty-third
year of a man's life is its most dangerous crisis. It was a belief
connected with astrology, and a superstitious idea of the influence of
numbers; of course, if it retains any attention at present, it must
subsist on practical observation: and I have heard sensible physicians,
who had no faith in the influence of the stars, confess that they
thought that time of life, commonly called the grand climacteric, a
critical period for the human constitution.

In May, 1367, Pope Urban accomplished his determination to remove his
court from Avignon in spite of the obstinacy of his Cardinals; but he
did not arrive at Rome till the month of October. He was joyously
received by the Romans; and, in addition to other compliments, had a
long letter from Petrarch, who was then at Venice. Some days after the
date of this letter, our poet received one from Galeazzo Visconti. The
Pope, it seems, wished, at whatever price, to exterminate the Visconti.
He thundered this year against Barnabo with a terrible bull, in which he
published a crusade against him. Barnabo, to whom, with all his faults,
the praise of courage cannot be denied, brought down his troops from the
Po, in order to ravage Mantua, and to make himself master of that city.
Galeazzo, his brother, less warlike, thought of employing negotiation
for appeasing the storm; and he invited Petrarch to Pavia, whither our
poet arrived in 1368. He attempted to procure a peace for the Visconti,
but was not successful.

It was not, however, solely to treat for a peace with his enemies that
Galeazzo drew our poet to his court.
He was glad that he should be
present at the marriage of his daughter Violante with Lionel, Duke of
Clarence, son of Edward III. of England. The young English prince,
followed by many nobles of our land, passed through France, and arrived
at Milan on the 14th of May. His nuptials took place about a month
later. At the marriage-dinner Petrarch was seated at the table where
there were only princes, or nobles of the first rank. It is a curious
circumstance that Froissart, so well known as an historian of England,
came at this time to Milan, in the suite of the Duke of Clarence, and
yet formed no acquaintance with our poet. Froissart was then only about
thirty years old. It might have been hoped that the two geniuses would
have become intimate friends; but there is no trace of their having even
spoken to each other. Petrarch's neglect of Froissart may not have been
so wonderful; but it is strange that the latter should not have been
ambitious to pay his court to the greatest poet then alive. It is
imaginable, however, that Petrarch, with all his natural gentleness, was
proud in his demeanour to strangers; and if so, Froissart was excusable
for an equally-proud reserve.

In the midst of the fetes that were given for the nuptials of the
English prince, Petrarch received news of the death of his grandchild.
This little boy had died at Pavia, on the very day of the marriage of
Lionel and Violante, when only two years and four months old. Petrarch
caused a marble mausoleum to be erected over him, and twelve Latin lines
of his own composition to be engraved upon it. He was deeply touched by
the loss of his little grandson. "This child," he says, "had a singular
resemblance to me, insomuch that any one who had not seen its mother
would have taken me for its father. "

A most interesting letter from Boccaccio to our poet found Petrarch at
Pavia, whither he had retired from Milan, wearied with the marriage
fetes.