No More Learning

The
conditions were hard and humiliating to the chief of Padua. The third
article ordained that he should come in person, or send his son, to ask
pardon of the Venetian Republic for the insults he had offered her, and
swear inviolable fidelity to her. The Carrara sent his son Francesco
Novello, and requested Petrarch to accompany him. Our poet had no great
wish to do so, and had too good an excuse in the state of his health,
which was still very fluctuating, but the Prince importuned him, and he
thought that he could not refuse a favour to such a friend.

Francesco Novello, accompanied by Petrarch, and by a great suite of
Paduan gentlemen, arrived at Venice on the 27th of September, where they
were well received, especially the poet. On the following day the chiefs
of the maiden city gave him a public audience. But, whether the majesty
of the Venetian Senate affected Petrarch, or his illness returned by
accident, so it was that he could not deliver the speech which he had
prepared, for his memory failed him. But the universal desire to hear
him induced the Senators to postpone their sitting to the following day.
He then spoke with energy, and was extremely applauded. Franceso Novello
begged pardon, and took the oath of fidelity.

Francesco da Carrara loved and revered Petrarch, and used to go
frequently to see him without ceremony in his small mansion at Arqua.
The Prince one day complained to him that he had written for all the
world excepting himself. Petrarch thought long and seriously about what
he should compose that might please the Carrara; but the task was
embarrassing. To praise him directly might seem sycophantish and fulsome
to the Prince himself. To censure him would be still more indelicate.
To
escape the difficulty, he projected a treatise on the best mode of
governing a State, and on the qualities required in the person who has
such a charge. This subject furnished occasion for giving indirect
praises, and, at the same time, for pointing out some defects which he
had remarked in his patron's government.

It cannot be denied that there are some excellent maxims respecting
government in this treatise, and that it was a laudable work for the
fourteenth century. But since that period the subject has been so often
discussed by minds of the first order, that we should look in vain into
Petrarch's Essay for any truths that have escaped their observation.
Nature offers herself in virgin beauty to the primitive poet. But
abstract truth comes not to the philosopher, till she has been tried by
the test of time.

After his return from Venice, Petrarch only languished. A low fever,
that undermined his constitution, left him but short intervals of
health, but made no change in his mode of life; he passed the greater
part of the day in reading or writing. It does not appear, however, that
he composed any work in the course of the year 1374. A few letters to
Boccaccio are all that can be traced to his pen during that period.
Their date is not marked in them, but they were certainly written
shortly before his death. None of them possess any particular interest,
excepting that always in which he mentions the Decameron.

It seems at first sight not a little astonishing that Petrarch, who had
been on terms of the strictest friendship with Boccaccio for twenty-four
years, should never till now have read his best work. Why did not
Boccaccio send him his Decameron long before? The solution of this
question must be made by ascribing the circumstance to the author's
sensitive respect for the austerely moral character of our poet.

It is not known by what accident the Decameron fell into Petrarch's
hands, during the heat of the war between Venice and Padua.