The good air of the Euganean mountains failed to re-establish the health of Petrarch.  He continued ill during the summer of 1370.  John di Dondi, his physician, or rather his friend, for he would have no physician, would not quit Padua without going to see him.  He wrote to him afterwards that he had discovered the true cause of his disease, and that it arose from his eating fruits, drinking water, and frequent fastings.  His medical adviser, also, besought him to abstain from all salted meats, and raw fruits, or herbs.  Petrarch easily renounced salted provisions, “but, as to fruits,” he says, “Nature must have been a very unnatural mother to give us such agreeable food, with such delightful hues and fragrance, only to seduce her children with poison covered over with honey.”

Whilst Petrarch was thus ill, he received news very unlikely to forward his recovery.  The Pope took a sudden resolution to return to Avignon.  That city, in concert with the Queen of Naples and the Kings of France and Arragon, sent him vessels to convey him to Avignon.  Urban gave as a reason for his conduct the necessity of making peace between the crowns of France and England, but no one doubted that the love of his own country, the difficulty of inuring himself to the climate of Rome, the enmity and rebellious character of the Italians, and the importunities of his Cardinals, were the true cause of his return.  He was received with great demonstrations of joy; but St. Bridget had told him that if he went to Avignon he should die soon afterwards, and it so happened that her prophecy was fulfilled, for the Pope not long after his arrival in Provence was seized with a mortal illness, and died on the 19th of December, 1370.  In the course of his pontificate, he had received two singular honours.  The Emperor of the West had performed the office of his equerry, and the Emperor of the East abjured schism, acknowledging him as primate of the whole Christian Church.

The Cardinals chose as Urban’s successor a man who did honour to their election, namely, Pietro Rogero, nephew of Clement VI., who took the name of Gregory XI.  Petrarch knew him, he had seen him at Padua in 1307, when the Cardinal was on his way to Rome, and rejoiced at his accession.  The new Pontiff caused a letter to be written to our poet, expressing his wish to see him, and to be of service to him.

In a letter written about this time to his friend Francesco Bruni, we perceive that Petrarch is not quite so indifferent to the good things of the world as the general tenor of his letters would lead us to imagine.  He writes:—­“Were I to say that I want means to lead the life of a canon, I should be wrong, but when I say that my single self have more acquaintances than all the chapter put together, and, consequently, that I am put to more expenses in the way of hospitality, then I am right.  This embarrassment increases every day, and my resources diminish.  I have made vain efforts to free myself