Another friend from Verona having heard what had befallen the Paduan, wished to try the same experiment; he took up the composition, and read it aloud from beginning to end without the smallest change of voice or countenance, and said, in returning the book, “It must be owned that this is a touching story, and I should have wept, also, if I believed it to be true; but it is clearly a fable.  There never was and there never will be such a woman as Griseldis."[N]

This letter, which Petrarch sent to Boccaccio, accompanied by a Latin translation of his story, is dated, in a MS. of the French King’s library, the 8th of June, 1374.  It is perhaps, the last letter which he ever wrote.  He complains in it of “mischievous people, who opened packets to read the letters contained in them, and copied what they pleased.  Proceeding in their licence, they even spared themselves the trouble of transcription, and kept the packets themselves.”  Petrarch, indignant at those violators of the rights and confidence of society, took the resolution of writing no more, and bade adieu to his friends and epistolary correspondence, “Valete amici, valete epistolae.”

Petrarch died a very short time after despatching this letter.  His biographers and contemporary authors are not agreed as to the day of his demise, but the probability seems to be that it was the 18th of July.  Many writers of his life tell us that he expired in the arms of Lombardo da Serigo, whom Philip Villani and Gianozzo Manetti make their authority for an absurd tradition connected with his death.  They pretend that when he breathed his last several persons saw a white cloud, like the smoke of incense, rise to the roof of his chamber, where it stopped for some time and then vanished, a miracle, they add, clearly proving that his soul was acceptable to God, and ascended to heaven.  Giovanni Manzini gives a different account.  He says that Petrarch’s people found him in his library, sitting with his head reclining on a book.  Having often seen him in this attitude, they were not alarmed at first; but, soon finding that he exhibited no signs of life, they gave way to their sorrow.  According to Domenico Aretino, who was much attached to Petrarch, and was at that time at Padua, so that he may be regarded as good authority, his death was occasioned by apoplexy.

The news of his decease made a deep impression throughout Italy; and, in the first instance, at Arqua and Padua, and in the cities of the Euganean hills.  Their people hastened in crowds to pay their last duties to the man who had honoured their country by his residence.  Francesco da Carrara repaired to Arqua with all his nobility to assist at his obsequies.  The Bishop went thither with his chapter and with all his clergy, and the common people flocked together to share in the general mourning.