we now give our faith, when Silvanus, who formerly pronounced the Visconti a cruel tyrant, has now bowed himself to the yoke which he once so boldly condemned?  How has the Visconti obtained this truckling, which neither King Robert, nor the Pope, nor the Emperor, could ever obtain?  You will say, perhaps, that you have been ill-used by your fellow-citizens, who have withheld from you your paternal property.  I disapprove not your just indignation; but Heaven forbid I should believe that, righteously and honestly, any injury, from whomsoever we may receive it, can justify our taking part against our country.  It is in vain for you to allege that you have not incited him to war against our country, nor lent him either your arm or advice.  How can you be happy with him, whilst you are hearing of the ruins, the conflagrations, the imprisonments, the deaths, and the rapines, that he spreads around him?”

Petrarch’s answers to these and other reproaches which his friends sent to him were cold, vague, and unsatisfactory.  He denied that he had sacrificed his liberty; and told Boccaccio that, after all, it was less humiliating to be subservient to a single tyrant than to be, as he, Boccaccio, was, subservient to a whole tyrannical people.  This was an unwise, implied confession on the part of Petrarch that he was the slave of Visconti.  Sismondi may be rather harsh in pronouncing Petrarch to have been all his life a Troubadour; but there is something in his friendship with the Lord of Milan that palliates the accusation.  In spite of this severe letter from Boccaccio, it is strange, and yet, methinks, honourable to both, that their friendship was never broken.

Levati, in his “Viaggi di Petrarca,” ascribes the poet’s settlement at Milan to his desire of accumulating a little money, not for himself, but for his natural children; and in some of Petrarch’s letters, subsequent to this period, there are allusions to his own circumstances which give countenance to this suspicion.

However this may be, Petrarch deceived himself if he expected to have long tranquillity in such a court as that of Milan.  He was perpetually obliged to visit the Viscontis, and to be present at every feast that they gave to honour the arrival of any illustrious stranger.  A more than usually important visitant soon came to Milan, in the person of Cardinal Egidio Albornoz, who arrived at the head of an army, with a view to restore to the Church large portions of its territory which had been seized by some powerful families.  The Cardinal entered Milan on the 14th of September, 1353.  John Visconti, though far from being delighted at his arrival, gave him an honourable reception, defrayed all the expenses of his numerous retinue, and treated him magnificently.  He went out himself to meet him, two miles from the city, accompanied by his nephews and his courtiers, including Petrarch.  Our poet joined the suite of Galeazzo Visconti, and rode near him.  The Legate and his retinue rode also on horseback.  When the two parties met, the dust, that rose in clouds from the feet of the horses, prevented them from discerning each other.  Petrarch, who had advanced beyond the rest, found himself, he knew not how, in the midst of the Legate’s train, and very near to him.  Salutations passed on either side, but with very little speaking, for the dust had dried their throats.