84 Petrarch at the Banquet 



hardly able to rise from bed, he says, and then is all of a tremor. 

 On his journey by boat, with Venice as his destination, he hopes 

 to see the Emperor (Charles IV), who had permitted him to 

 come, and now commands him to return.^® 



Petrarch talks of returning to Venice, but he actually proceeded 

 to Padua, arriving there on July 19. On July 21 he wrote^^ 

 that he would have returned much sooner, notwithstanding the 

 injury to his leg, had it not been that the land-route (by which 

 he had almost certainly come ; cf . Novati, p. 49) had been ren- 

 dered impracticable by the prevailing military activities, and that 

 he had the utmost difficulty in persuading a boatman to convey 

 him down the Po for love or money,^^ over a month having been 

 passed in this quest^^ and in overcoming a variety of obstacles.^* 



Thus, ignoring the age and eminence of Petrarch, and the 

 youth and comparative obscurity of Froissart and Chaucer,^^ 

 and ignoring the fact that neither Froissart nor Chaucer alludes 



'"Novati, pp. 61-3, quotes the letter in full from which the subjoined 

 extracts are taken: Tibia sinistra, vetus hostis mea, per hos me dies 

 exercuit et in lectulo detinuit, unde vix adhuc tremebundus assurgo. 

 . . . Nondum nempe convalui; nam strepitum licet ac tumultum con- 

 fusionemque multiplicem perosus, majore nudiustertius urbe dimissa, in 

 hunc cupide quasi portum ex procellis commigraverim, ulcus tamen meum 

 illud equitando recruduit. . . . Mox Venetias, unde nuper abii, secundo 

 alveo reversurus sum, salutato interim Imperatore, nisi castra permoverit 

 procul a Padi ripa. Illo enim permittente veni, illo jubente redeo, hiis 

 Ligurum dominisque utrumque probantibus.' Since we know that the 

 Emperor was at Bologna on July 14 and 15 {R. I. S. 18. 181), and since 

 Petrarch, after his return to Padua, says nothing of having met him, it 

 is fairly probable that he did not. 



^^ Sen. II. 2; see p. 78. 



^"Ulla prece vel pretio.* 



"Mense ibi integro, et amplius, inter navis inquisitionem et difficultates 

 rerum varias absumpto,' 



^* Petrarch's main fear, he tells us, was of chance robbers, for his love 

 of peace was so well known to both parties that he felt he had no danger 

 to apprehend from the regular combatants. His friends endeavored to 

 dissuade him from what they considered his insanity, but he persevered, 

 and finally found a boatman who was reassured by his calmness. The 

 river was full of armed boats, and the shores were lined with armed 

 bands ; but, while any one else would have been captured, killed, or at 

 least robbed, his vessel was loaded with wine, game, fruit, and spices by 

 the generosity of those who intercepted him, and his progress was only 

 delayed by their friendly assiduities. 



""In Petrarch's eyes a -'barbarian'; see pp. 23, yj. 



