On his arrival at Capranica, Petrarch despatched a courier to the Bishop of Lombes, informing him where he was, and of his inability to get to Rome, all roads to it being beset by the enemy.  The Bishop expressed great joy at his friend’s arrival in Italy, and went to meet him at Capranica, with Stefano Colonna, his brother, senator of Rome.  They had with them only a troop of one hundred horsemen; and, considering that the enemy kept possession of the country with five hundred men, it is wonderful that they met with no difficulties on their route; but the reputation of the Colonnas had struck terror into the hostile camp.  They entered Rome without having had a single skirmish with the enemy.  Stefano Colonna, in his quality of senator, occupied the Capitol, where he assigned apartments to Petrarch; and the poet was lodged on that famous hill which Scipio, Metellus, and Pompey, had ascended in triumph.  Petrarch was received and treated by the Colonnas Like a child of their family.  The venerable old Stefano, who had known him at Avignon, loaded our poet with kindness.  But, of all the family, it would seem that Petrarch delighted most in the conversation of Giovanni da S. Vito, a younger brother of the aged Stefano, and uncle of the Cardinal and Bishop.  Their tastes were congenial.  Giovanni had made a particular study of the antiquities of Rome; he was, therefore, a most welcome cicerone to our poet, being, perhaps, the only Roman then alive, who understood the subject deeply, if we except Cola di Rienzo, of whom we shall soon have occasion to speak.

In company with Giovanni, Petrarch inspected the relics of the “eternal city:”  the former was more versed than his companion in ancient history, but the other surpassed him in acquaintance with modern times, as well as with the objects of antiquity that stood immediately before them.

What an interesting object is Petrarch contemplating the ruins of Rome!  He wrote to the Cardinal Colonna as follows:—­“I gave you so long an account of Capranica that you may naturally expect a still longer description of Rome.  My materials for this subject are, indeed, inexhaustible; but they will serve for some future opportunity.  At present, I am so wonder-struck by so many great objects that I know not where to begin.  One circumstance, however, I cannot omit, which has turned out contrary to your surmises.  You represented to me that Rome was a city in ruins, and that it would not come up to the imagination I had formed of it; but this has not happened—­on the contrary, my most sanguine expectations have been surpassed.  Rome is greater, and her remains are more awful, than my imagination had conceived.  It is not matter of wonder that she acquired universal dominion.  I am only surprised that it was so late before she came to it.”

In the midst of his meditations among the relics of Rome, Petrarch was struck by the ignorance about their forefathers, with which the natives looked on those monuments.  The veneration which they had for them was vague and uninformed.  “It is lamentable,” he says, “that nowhere in the world is Rome less known than at Rome.”