No More Learning

Though she was not
melancholy, she did not appear to have her wonted cheerfulness, but was
serious and thoughtful. She did not sing, as usual, nor speak with that
voice which used to charm every one. She had the air of a person who
fears an evil not yet arrived. "In taking leave of her," says Petrarch,
"I sought in her looks for a consolation of my own sufferings. Her eyes
had an expression which I had never seen in them before. What I saw in
her face seemed to predict the sorrows that threatened me. "

This was the last meeting that Petrarch and Laura ever had.

Petrarch set out for Italy, towards the close of 1347, having determined
to make that country his residence for the rest of his life.

Upon his arrival at Genoa he wrote to Rienzo, reproaching him for his
follies, and exhorting him to return to his former manly conduct. This
advice, it is scarcely necessary to say, was like dew and sunshine
bestowed upon barren sands.

From Genoa he proceeded to Parma, where he received the first
information of the catastrophe of the Colonna family, six of whom had
fallen in battle with Rienzo's forces. He showed himself deeply affected
by it, and, probably, was so sincerely. But the Colonnas, though his
former patrons, were still the enemies of a cause which he considered
sacred, much as it was mismanaged and disgraced by the Tribune; and his
grief cannot be supposed to have been immoderate. Accordingly, the
letter which he wrote to Cardinal Colonna on this occasion is quite in
the style of Seneca, and more like an ethical treatise than an epistle
of condolence.

It is obvious that Petrarch slowly and reluctantly parted with his good
opinion of Rienzo.
But, whatever sentiments he might have cherished
respecting him, he was now doomed to hear of his tragic fall.

The revolution which overthrew the Tribune was accomplished on the 15th
of December, 1347. That his fall was, in a considerable degree, owing
to his faults, is undeniable; and to the most contemptible of all
faults--personal vanity. How hard it is on the great mass of mankind,
that this meanness is so seldom disjoined from the zeal of popular
championship! New power, like new wine, seems to intoxicate the
strongest heads. How disgusting it is to see the restorer of Roman
liberty dazzled like a child by a scarlet robe and its golden trimming!
Nevertheless, with all his vanity, Rienzo was a better friend to the
republic than those who dethroned him. The Romans would have been wise
to have supported Rienzo, taking even his foibles into the account. They
re-admitted their oligarchs; and, if they repented of it, as they did,
they are scarcely entitled to our commiseration.

Petrarch had set out late in 1347 to visit Italy for the fifth time. He
arrived at Genoa towards the end of November, 1347, on his way to
Florence, where he was eagerly expected by his friends. They had
obtained from the Government permission for his return; and he was
absolved from the sentence of banishment in which he had been included
with his father. But, whether Petrarch was offended with the Florentines
for refusing to restore his paternal estate, or whether he was detained
by accident in Lombardy, he put off his expedition to Florence and
repaired to Parma. It was there that he learned the certainty of the
Tribune's fall.

From Parma he went to Verona, where he arrived on the evening of the
25th of January, 1348. His son, we have already mentioned, was placed at
Verona, under the tuition of Rinaldo di Villa Franca.