No More Learning

The Emperor departed from Sienna the 28th of March, with the Empress and
all his suite. On the 2nd of April he arrived at Rome. During the next
two days he visited the churches in pilgrim's attire. On Sunday, which
was Easter day, he was crowned, along with his Empress; and, on this
occasion, he confirmed all the privileges of the Roman Church, and all
the promises that he had made to the Popes Clement VI. and Innocent VI.
One of those promises was, that he should not enter Rome except upon the
day of his coronation, and that he should not sleep in the city. He kept
his word most scrupulously. After leaving the church of St. Peter, he
went with a grand retinue to St. John's di Latrana, where he dined, and,
in the evening, under pretext of a hunting-party, he went and slept at
St. Lorenzo, beyond the walls.

The Emperor arrived at Sienna on the 29th of April. He had there many
conferences with the Cardinal Albornoz, to whom he promised troops for
the purpose of reducing the tyrants with whom the Legate was at war. His
Majesty then went to Pisa, where, on the 21st of May, 1355, a sedition
broke out against him, which nearly cost him his life. He left Tuscany
without delay, with his Empress and his whole suite, to return to
Germany, where he arrived early in June.
Many were the affronts he met
with on his route, and he recrossed the Alps, as Villani says, "with his
dignity humbled, though with his purse well filled. "

Laelius, who had accompanied the Emperor as far as Cremona, quitted him
at that place, and went to Milan, where he delivered to Petrarch the
Prince's valedictory compliments. Petrarch's indignation, at his
dastardly flight vented itself in a letter to his Imperial Majesty
himself, so full of unmeasured rebuke, that it is believed it was never
sent.

Shortly after the departure of the Emperor, Petrarch had the
satisfaction of hearing, in his own church of St. Ambrosio, the
publication of a peace between the Venetians and Genoese. It was
concluded at Milan by the mediation of the Visconti, entirely to the
advantage of the Genoese, to whom their victory gained in the gulf of
Sapienza had given an irresistible superiority. It cost the Venetians
two hundred thousand florins. Whilst the treaty of peace was
proceeding, Venice witnessed the sad and strange spectacle of Marino
Faliero, her venerable Doge, four-score years old, being dragged to a
public execution. Some obscurity still hangs over the true history of
this affair. Petrarch himself seems to have understood it but
imperfectly, though, from his personal acquaintance with Faliero, and
his humane indignation at seeing an old man whom he believed to be
innocent, hurled from his seat of power, stripped of his ducal robes,
and beheaded like the meanest felon, he inveighs against his execution
as a public murder, in his letter on the subject to Guido Settimo.

Petrarch, since his establishment at Milan, had thought it his duty to
bring thither his son John, that he might watch over his education. John
was at this time eighteen years of age, and was studying at Verona.

The September of 1355 was a critical month for our poet. It was then
that the tertian ague commonly attacked him, and this year it obliged
him to pass a whole month in bed. He was just beginning to be
convalescent, when, on the 9th of September, 1355, a friar, from the
kingdom of Naples, entered his chamber, and gave him a letter from
Barbato di Salmone. This was a great joy to him, and tended to promote
the recovery of his health.