Gilbert Correggio left at his death a widow, the sister of Cane de la Scala, and four sons, Guido, Simone, Azzo, and Giovanni.  It is only with Azzo that we are particularly concerned in the history of Petrarch.

Azzo was born in the year 1303, being thus a year older than our poet.  Originally intended for the church, he preferred the sword to the crozier, and became a distinguished soldier.  He married the daughter of Luigi Gonzagua, lord of Mantua.  He was a man of bold original spirit, and so indefatigable that he acquired the name of Iron-foot.  Nor was his energy merely physical; he read much, and forgot nothing—­his memory was a library.  Azzo’s character, to be sure, even with allowance for turbulent times, is not invulnerable at all points to a rigid scrutiny; and, notwithstanding all the praises of Petrarch, who dedicated to him his Treatise on a Solitary Life in 1366, his political career contained some acts of perfidy.  But we must inure ourselves, in the biography of Petrarch, to his over-estimation of favourites in the article of morals.

It was not long ere Petrarch was called upon to give a substantial proof of his regard for Azzo.  After the seizure of Parma by the confederate princes, Marsilio di Rossi, brother of Rolando, went to Paris to demand assistance from the French king.  The King of Bohemia had given over the government of Parma to him and his brothers, and the Rossi now saw it with grief assigned to his enemies, the Correggios.  Marsilio could obtain no succour from the French, who were now busy in preparing for war with the English; so he carried to the Pope at Avignon his complaints against the alleged injustice of the lords of Verona and the Correggios in breaking an express treaty which they had made with the house of Rossi.

Azzo had the threefold task of defending, before the Pope’s tribunal, the lords of Verona, whose envoy he was; the rights of his family, which were attacked; and his own personal character, which was charged with some grave objections.  Revering the eloquence and influence of Petrarch, he importuned him to be his public defender.  Our poet, as we have seen, had studied the law, but had never followed the profession.  “It is not my vocation,” he says, in his preface to his Familiar Epistles, “to undertake the defence of others.  I detest the bar; I love retirement; I despise money; and, if I tried to let out my tongue for hire, my nature would revolt at the attempt.”

But what Petrarch would not undertake either from taste or motives of interest, he undertook at the call of friendship.  He pleaded the cause of Azzo before the Pope and Cardinals; it was a finely-interesting cause, that afforded a vast field for his eloquence.  He brought off his client triumphantly; and the Rossis were defeated in their demand.