A most interesting letter from Boccaccio to our poet found Petrarch at Pavia, whither he had retired from Milan, wearied with the marriage fetes.  The summer season was now approaching, when he was accustomed to be ill; and he had, besides, got by the accident of a fall a bad contusion on his leg.  He was anxious to return to Padua, and wished to embark on the Po.  But war was abroad; the river banks were crowded with troops of the belligerent parties; and no boatmen could be found for some time who would go with him for love or money.  At last, he found the master of a vessel bold enough to take him aboard.  Any other vessel would have been attacked and pillaged; but Petrarch had no fear; and, indeed, he was stopped in his river passage only to be loaded with presents.  He arrived in safety at Padua, on the 9th of June, 1368.

The Pope wished much to see our poet at Rome; but Petrarch excused himself on account of his health and the summer season, which was always trying to him.  But he promised to repair to his Holiness as soon as his health should permit, not to ask benefices of the holy father, but only his blessing.  During the same year, we find Petrarch complaining often and painfully of his bodily infirmities.  In a letter to Coluccio Salutati, he says:—­“Age, which makes others garrulous, only makes me silent.  When young, I used to write many and long letters.  At present, I write only to my particular friends, and even to them very short letters.”  Petrarch was now sixty-four years old.  He had never seen Pope Urban V., as he tells us himself; but he was very desirous of seeing him, and of seeing Rome adorned by the two great luminaries of the world, the Pope and the Emperor.  Pope Urban, fearing the heats of Italy, to which he was not accustomed, had gone to pass the dog-days at Monte-Fiascone.  When he returned to Rome, in October, on his arrival at the Colline gate, near the church of St. Angelo, he found the Emperor, who was waiting for him.  The Emperor, the moment he saw his Holiness, dismounted from his horse, took the reins of that of the Pope, and conducted him on foot to the church of St. Peter.  As to this submission of civil to ecclesiastical dignity, different opinions were entertained, even at Rome; and the wiser class of men disapproved of it.  Petrarch’s opinion on the subject is not recorded; but, during this year, there is no proof that he had any connection with the Emperor; and my own opinion is that he did not approve of his conduct.  It is certain that Petrarch condemned the Pope’s entering Rome at the head of 2000 soldiery.  “The Roman Pontiff,” he remarks, “should trust to his dignity and to his sanctity, when coming into our capital, and not to an army with their swords and cuirasses.  The cross of Jesus is the only standard which he ought to rear.  Trumpets and drums were out of place.  It would have been enough to have sung hallelujahs.”