No More Learning

"

Clement was glad to have Rienzo in his power, and ordered him into his
presence. Thither the Tribune came, not in the least disconcerted. He
denied the accusation of heresy, and insisted that his cause should be
re-examined with more equity. The Pope made him no reply, but imprisoned
him in a high tower, in which he was chained by the leg to the floor of
his apartment. In other respects he was treated mildly, allowed books to
read, and supplied with dishes from the Pope's kitchen.

Rienzo begged to be allowed an advocate to defend him; his request was
refused. This refusal enraged Petrarch, who wrote, according to De Sade
and others, on this occasion, that mysterious letter, which is found in
his "Epistles without a title. " It is an appeal to the Romans in behalf
of their Tribune. I must confess that even the authority of De Sade does
not entirely eradicate from my mind a suspicion as to the spuriousness
of this inflammatory letter, from the consequences of which Petrarch
could hardly have escaped with impunity.

One of the circumstances that detained Petrarch at Avignon was the
illness of the Pope, which retarded his decision on several important
affairs. Clement VI. was fast approaching to his end, and Petrarch had
little hope of his convalescence, at least in the hands of doctors. A
message from the Pope produced an imprudent letter from the poet, in
which he says, "Holy father! I shudder at the account of your fever;
but, believe me, I am not a flatterer. I tremble to see your bed always
surrounded with physicians, who are never agreed, because it would be a
reproach to the second to think like the first.
'It is not to be
doubted,' as Pliny says, 'that physicians, desiring to raise a name by
their discoveries, make experiments upon us, and thus barter away our
lives. There is no law for punishing their extreme ignorance. They learn
their trade at our expense, they make some progress in the art of
curing; and they alone are permitted to murder with impunity. ' Holy
father! consider as your enemies the crowd of physicians who beset you.
It is in our age that we behold verified the prediction of the elder
Cato, who declared that corruption would be general when the Greeks
should have transmitted the sciences to Rome, and, above all, the
science of healing. Whole nations have done without this art. The Roman
republic, according to Pliny, was without physicians for six hundred
years, and was never in a more flourishing condition. "

The Pope, a poor dying old man, communicated Petrarch's letter
immediately to his physicians, and it kindled in the whole faculty a
flame of indignation, worthy of being described by Moliere. Petrarch
made a general enemy of the physicians, though, of course, the weakest
and the worst of them were the first to attack him. One of them told
him, "You are a foolhardy man, who, contemning the physicians, have no
fear either of the fever or of the malaria. " Petrarch replied, "I
certainly have no assurance of being free from the attacks of either;
but, if I were attacked by either, I should not think of calling in
physicians. "

His first assailant was one of Clement's own physicians, who loaded him
with scurrility in a formal letter. These circumstances brought forth
our poet's "Four Books of Invectives against Physicians," a work in
which he undoubtedly exposes a great deal of contemporary quackery, but
which, at the same time, scarcely leaves the physician-hunter on higher
ground than his antagonists.

In the last year of his life, Clement VI. wished to attach our poet
permanently to his court by making him his secretary, and Petrarch,
after much coy refusal, was at last induced, by the solicitations of
his friends, to accept the office.