“You ask news about my son.  I know not very well what to say concerning him.  His manners are gentle, and the flower of his youth holds out a promise, though what fruit it may produce I know not.  I think I may flatter myself that he will be an honest man.  He has talent; but what avails talent without study!  He flies from a book as he would from a serpent.  Persuasions, caresses, and threats are all thrown away upon him as incitements to study.  I have nothing wherewith to reproach myself; and I shall be satisfied if he turns out an honest man, as I hope he will.  Themistocles used to say that he liked a man without letters better than letters without a man.”

In the month of August, 1357, Petrarch received a letter from Benintendi, the Chancellor of Venice, requesting him to send a dozen elegiac verses to be engraved on the tomb of Andrea Dandolo.  The children of the Doge had an ardent wish that our poet should grant them this testimony of his friendship for their father.  Petrarch could not refuse the request, and composed fourteen verses, which contain a sketch of the great actions of Dandolo.  But they were verses of command, which the poet made in despite of the Muses and of himself.

In the following year, 1358, Petrarch was almost entirely occupied with his treatise, entitled, “De Remediis utriusque Fortunae,” (A Remedy against either extreme of Fortune.) This made a great noise when it appeared.  Charles V. of France had it transcribed for his library, and translated; and it was afterwards translated into Italian and Spanish.

Petrarch returned to Milan, and passed the autumn at his house, the Linterno, where he met with an accident, that for some time threatened dangerous consequences.  He thus relates it, in a letter to his friend, Neri Morandi:—­“I have a great volume of the epistles of Cicero, which I have taken the pains to transcribe myself, for the copyists understand nothing.  One day, when I was entering my library, my gown got entangled with this large book, so that the volume fell heavily on my left leg, a little above the heel.  By some fatality, I treated the accident too lightly.  I walked, I rode on horseback, according to my usual custom; but my leg became inflamed, the skin changed colour, and mortification began to appear.  The pain took away my cheerfulness and sleep.  I then perceived that it was foolish courage to trifle with so serious an accident.  Doctors were called in.  They feared at first that it would be necessary to amputate the limb; but, at last, by means of regimen and fomentation, the afflicted member was put into the way of healing.  It is singular that, ever since my infancy, my misfortunes have always fallen on this same left leg.  In truth, I have always been tempted to believe in destiny; and why not, if, by the word destiny, we understand Providence?”