him on the same day (August 23, 1340)
offers of the laurel wreath of poetry from the University of Paris and
from the Senate of Rome. He chose in favour of Rome, and was crowned on
the Capitol, Easter Day, April 8, 1341. "The poet appeared in a royal
mantle ... preceded by twelve noble Roman youths clad in scarlet, and
the heralds and trumpeters of the Roman Senate."--_Petrarch_, by Henry
Reeve, p. 92.]

[438] {372} [Tomasini, in the _Petrarca Redivivus_ (pp. 168-172, ed.
1650), assigns the outrage to a party of Venetians who "broke open
Petrarch's tomb, in 1630, and took away some of his bones, probably with
the object of selling them." Hobhouse, in _note_ ix., says, "that one of
the arms was stolen by a Florentine," but does not quote his authority.
(See the notes to H. F. Tozer's _Childe Harold_, p. 302.)]

[439] [Giovanni Boccaccio was born at Paris (or Certaldo) in 1313,
passed the greater part of his life at Florence, died and was buried at
Certaldo, whence his family are said to have sprung, in 1375. His
sepulchre, which stood in the centre of the Church of St. Michael and
St. James, known as the Canonica, was removed in 1783, on the plea that
a recent edict forbidding burial in churches applied to ancient
interments. "The stone that covered the tomb was broken, and thrown
aside as useless into the adjoining cloisters" (_Handbook for Central
Italy_, p. 171). "Ignorance," pleads Hobhouse, "may share the crime with
bigotry." But it is improbable that the "hyaena bigots," that is, the
ecclesiastical authorities, were ignorant that Boccaccio was a bitter
satirist of Churchmen, or that "he transferred the functions and
histories of Hebrew prophets and prophetesses, and of Christian saints
and apostles, nay, the highest mysteries and most awful objects of
Christian Faith, to the names and drapery of Greek and Roman
mythology."--(Unpublished MS. note of S. T. Coleridge, written in his
copy of Boccaccio's _Opere_, 4 vols. 1723.) They had their revenge on
Boccaccio, and Byron has had his revenge on them.]

[my]
_Boccaccio to his parent earth, bequeathed_
_The dust derived from thence--doth it not lie_
_With many a sweet and solemn requiem breathed_
_O'er him who formed the tongue of Italy_
_That music in itself whose harmony_
_Asks for no tune to make it song; No--torn_
_From earth--and scattered while the silent sky_
_Hushed its indignant Winds--with quiet scorn_
_T