In consequence of the dangers he had encountered, a rumour of his death had spread over a great part of Italy.  The age was romantic, with a good deal of the fantastical in its romance.  If the news had been true, and if he had been really dead and buried, it would be difficult to restrain a smile at the sort of honours that were paid to his memory by the less brain-gifted portion of his admirers.  One of these, Antonio di Beccaria, a physician of Ferrara, when he ought to have been mourning for his own deceased patients, wrote a poetical lamentation for Petrarch’s death.  The poem, if it deserve such a name, is allegorical; it represents a funeral, in which the following personages parade in procession and grief for the Laureate’s death.  Grammar, Rhetoric, and Philosophy are introduced with their several attendants.  Under the banners of Rhetoric are ranged Cicero, Geoffroy de Vinesauf, and Alain de Lisle.  It would require all Cicero’s eloquence to persuade us that his comrades in the procession were quite worthy of his company.  The Nine Muses follow Petrarch’s body; eleven poets, crowned with laurel, support the bier, and Minerva, holding the crown of Petrarch, closes the procession.

We have seen that Petrarch left Naples foreboding disastrous events to that kingdom.  Among these, the assassination of Andrew, on the 18th of September, 1345, was one that fulfilled his augury.  The particulars of this murder reached Petrarch on his arrival at Avignon, in a letter from his friend Barbato.

From the sonnets which Petrarch wrote, to all appearance, in 1345 and 1346, at Avignon or Vaucluse, he seems to have suffered from those fluctuations of Laura’s favour that naturally arose from his own imprudence.  When she treated him with affability, he grew bolder in his assiduities, and she was again obliged to be more severe.  See Sonnets cviii., cix., and cxiv.

During this sojourn, though he dates some of his pleasantest letters from Vaucluse, he was projecting to return to Italy, and to establish himself there, after bidding a final adieu to Provence.  When he acquainted his nominal patron, John Colonna, with his intention, the Cardinal rudely taxed him with madness and ingratitude.  Petrarch frankly told the prelate that he was conscious of no ingratitude, since, after fourteen years passed in his service, he had received no provision for his future livelihood.  This quarrel with the proud churchman is, with fantastic pastoral imagery, made the subject of our poet’s eighth Bucolic, entitled Divortium.  I suspect that Petrarch’s free language in favour of the Tribune Rienzo was not unconnected with their alienation.

Notwithstanding Petrarch’s declared dislike of Avignon, there is every reason to suppose that he passed the greater part of the winter of 1346 in his western Babylon; and we find that he witnessed many interesting scenes between the conflicting cardinals, as well as the brilliant fetes that were given to two foreign princes, whom an important affair now brought to Avignon.  These were the King of Bohemia, and his son Charles, Prince of Moravia, otherwise called Charles of Luxemburg.