No More Learning

Nevertheless, I wish that I were with you in that house of yours,
inaccessible to the pestilent air of the infamous city. I regard it as
an elysium in the midst of Avernus. "

At this time, Petrarch received a diploma that was sent to him by John,
Bishop of Olmutz, Chancellor of the Empire, in which diploma the Emperor
created him a count palatine, and conferred upon him the rights and
privileges attached to this dignity. These, according to the French
abridger of the History of Germany, consisted in creating doctors and
notaries, in legitimatizing the bastards of citizens, in crowning poets,
in giving dispensations with respect to age, and in other things. To
this diploma sent to Petrarch was attached a bull, or capsule of gold.
On one side was the impression of the Emperor, seated on his throne,
with an eagle and lion beside him; on the other was the city of Rome,
with its temples and walls. The Emperor had added to this dignity
privileges which he granted to very few, and the Chancellor, in his
communication, used very flattering terms. Petrarch says, in his letter
of thanks, "I am exceedingly grateful for the signal distinction which
the Emperor has graciously vouchsafed to me, and for the obliging terms
with which you have seasoned the communication. I have never sought in
vain for anything from his Imperial Majesty and yourself. But I wish not
for your gold. "

In the summer of 1357, Petrarch, wishing to screen himself from the
excessive heat, took up his abode for a time on the banks of the Adda at
Garignano, a village three miles distant from Milan, of which he gives a
charming description. "The village," he says, "stands on a slight
elevation in the midst of a plain, surrounded on all sides by springs
and streams, not rapid and noisy like those of Vaucluse, but clear and
modest. They wind in such a manner, that you know not either whither
they are going, or whence they have come. As if to imitate the dances of
the nymphs, they approach, they retire, they unite, and they separate
alternately. At last, after having formed a kind of labyrinth, they all
meet, and pour themselves into the same reservoir.
" John Visconti had
chosen this situation whereon to build a Carthusian monastery. This was
what tempted Petrarch to found here a little establishment. He wished at
first to live within the walls of the monastery, and the Carthusians
made him welcome to do so; but he could not dispense with servants and
horses, and he feared that the drunkenness of the former might trouble
the silence of the sacred retreat. He therefore hired a house in the
neighbourhood of the holy brothers, to whom he repaired at all hours of
the day. He called this house his Linterno, in memory of Scipio
Africanus, whose country-house bore that name. The peasants, hearing him
call the domicile _Linterno_, corrupted the word into _Inferno_, and,
from this mispronunciation, the place was often jocularly called by that
name.

Petrarch was scarcely settled in this agreeable solitude, when he
received a letter from his friend Settimo, asking him for an exact and
circumstantial detail of his circumstances and mode of living, of his
plans and occupations, of his son John, &c. His answer was prompt, and
is not uninteresting. "The course of my life," he says, "has always been
uniform ever since the frost of age has quenched the ardour of my youth,
and particularly that fatal flame which so long tormented me. But what
do I say? " he continues; "it is a celestial dew which has produced this
extinction. Though I have often changed my place of abode, I have always
led nearly the same kind of life. What it is, none knows better than
yourself. I once lived beside you for two years. Call to mind how I was
then occupied, and you will know my present occupations. You understand
me so well that you ought to be able to guess, not only what I am doing,
but what I am dreaming.