No More Learning

The concourse of pilgrims to this jubilee was immense. One can scarcely
credit the common account that there were about a million pilgrims at
one time assembled in the great city. "We do not perceive," says
Petrarch, "that the plague has depopulated the world. " And, indeed, if
this computation of the congregated pilgrims approaches the truth, we
cannot but suspect that the alleged depopulation of Europe, already
mentioned, must have been exaggerated. "The crowds," he continues,
"diminished a little during summer and the gathering-in of the harvest;
but recommenced towards the end of the year. The great nobles and ladies
from beyond the Alps came the last. "

[Illustration: BRIDGE OF SIGHS,--VENICE. ]

Many of the female pilgrims arrived by way of the marshes of Ancona,
where Bernardino di Roberto, Lord of Ravenna, waited for them, and
scandal whispered that his assiduities and those of his suite were but
too successful in seducing them. A contemporary author, in allusion to
the circumstance, remarks that journeys and indulgences are not good for
young persons, and that the fair ones had better have remained at home,
since the vessel that stays in port is never shipwrecked.

The strangers, who came from all countries, were for the most part
unacquainted with the Italian language, and were obliged to employ
interpreters in making their confession, for the sake of obtaining
absolution. It was found that many of the pretended interpreters were
either imperfectly acquainted with the language of the foreigners, or
were knaves in collusion with the priestly confessors, who made the poor
pilgrims confess whatever they chose, and pay for their sins
accordingly. A better subject for a scene in comedy could scarcely be
imagined. But, to remedy this abuse, penitentiaries were established at
Rome, in which the confessors understood foreign languages.

The number of days fixed for the Roman pilgrims to visit the churches
was thirty; and fifteen or ten for the Italians and other strangers,
according to the distance of the places from which they came.

Petrarch says that it is inconceivable how the city of Rome, whose
adjacent fields were untilled, and whose vineyards had been frozen the
year before, could for twelve months support such a confluence of
people.
He extols the hospitality of the citizens, and the abundance of
food which prevailed; but Villani and others give us more disagreeable
accounts--namely, that the Roman citizens became hotel-keepers, and
charged exorbitantly for lodgings, and for whatever they sold. Numbers
of pilgrims were thus necessitated to live poorly; and this, added to
their fatigue and the heats of summer, produced a great mortality.

As soon as Petrarch, relieved by surgical skill from the wound in his
leg, was allowed to go out, he visited all the churches.

After having performed his duties at the jubilee, Petrarch returned to
Padua, taking the road by Arezzo, the town which had the honour of his
birth. Leonardo Aretino says that his fellow-townsmen crowded around
him with delight, and received him with such honours as could have been
paid only to a king.

In the same month of December, 1350, he discovered a treasure which made
him happier than a king. Perhaps a royal head might not have equally
valued it. It was a copy of Quintilian's work "De Institutione
Oratoria," which, till then, had escaped all his researches. On the very
day of the discovery he wrote a letter to Quintilian, according to his
fantastic custom of epistolizing the ancients. Some days afterwards, he
left Arezzo to pursue his journey. The principal persons of the town
took leave of him publicly at his departure, after pointing out to him
the house in which he was born. "It was a small house," says Petrarch,
"befitting an exile, as my father was. " They told him that the
proprietors would have made some alterations in it; but the town had
interposed and prevented them, determined that the place should remain
the same as when it was first consecrated by his birth. The poet related
what had been mentioned to a young man who wrote to him expressly to ask
whether Arezzo could really boast of being his birthplace. Petrarch
added, that Arezzo had done more for him as a stranger than Florence as
a citizen. In truth, his family was of Florence; and it was only by
accident that he was born at Arezzo.