No More Learning

There he found his friends still alarmed about
the accident which had befallen him in his journey to Rome, the news of
which he had communicated to Boccaccio.

Petrarch went on to Padua. On approaching it, he perceived a universal
mourning. He soon learned the foul catastrophe which had deprived the
city of one of its best masters.

Jacopo di Carrara had received into his house his cousin Guglielmo.
Though the latter was known to be an evil-disposed person, he was
treated with kindness by Jacopo, and ate at his table. On the 21st of
December, whilst Jacopo was sitting at supper, in the midst of his
friends, his people and his guards, the monster Guglielmo plunged a
dagger into his breast with such celerity, that even those who were
nearest could not ward off the blow. Horror-struck, they lifted him up,
whilst others put the assassin to instant death.

The fate of Jacopo Carrara gave Petrarch a dislike for Padua, and his
recollections of Vaucluse bent his unsettled mind to return to its
solitude; but he tarried at Padua during the winter. Here he spent a
great deal of his time with Ildebrando Conti, bishop of that city, a man
of rank and merit. One day, as he was dining at the Bishop's palace, two
Carthusian monks were announced: they were well received by the Bishop,
as he was partial to their order. He asked them what brought them to
Padua. "We are going," they said, "to Treviso, by the direction of our
general, there to remain and establish a monastery. " Ildebrando asked
if they knew Father Gherardo, Petrarch's brother. The two monks, who did
not know the poet, gave the most pleasing accounts of his brother.
The plague, they said, having got into the convent of Montrieux, the
prior, a pious but timorous man, told his monks that flight was the only
course which they could take: Gherardo answered with courage, "Go
whither you please! As for myself I will remain in the situation in
which Heaven has placed me. " The prior fled to his own country, where
death soon overtook him. Gherardo remained in the convent, where the
plague spared him, and left him alone, after having destroyed, within a
few days, thirty-four of the brethren who had continued with him. He
paid them every service, received their last sighs, and buried them when
death had taken off those to whom that office belonged. With only a dog
left for his companion, Gherardo watched at night to guard the house,
and took his repose by day. When the summer was over, he went to a
neighbouring monastery of the Carthusians, who enabled him to restore
his convent.

While the Carthusians were making this honourable mention of Father
Gherardo, the prelate cast his eyes from time to time upon Petrarch. "I
know not," says the poet, "whether my eyes were filled with tears, but
my heart was tenderly touched. " The Carthusians, at last discovering who
Petrarch was, saluted him with congratulations. Petrarch gives an
account of this interview in a letter to his brother himself.

Padua was too near to Venice for Petrarch not to visit now and then that
city which he called the wonder of the world. He there made acquaintance
with Andrea Dandolo, who was made Doge in 1343, though he was only
thirty-six years of age, an extraordinary elevation for so young a man;
but he possessed extraordinary merit. His mind was cultivated; he loved
literature, and easily became, as far as mutual demonstrations went, the
personal friend of Petrarch; though the Doge, as we shall see, excluded
this personal friendship from all influence on his political conduct.

The commerce of the Venetians made great progress under the Dogeship of
Andrea Dandolo. It was then that they began to trade with Egypt and
Syria, whence they brought silk, pearls, the spices, and other products
of the East.