rch's laureate brow supremely wore,
Upon a far and foreign soil had grown.
Stanza lvii. lines 6, 7, and 8.

The Florentines did not take the opportunity of Petrarch's short visit
to their city in 1350 to revoke the decree which confiscated the
property of his father, who had been banished shortly after the exile of
Dante. His crown did not dazzle them; but when in the next year they
were in want of his assistance in the formation of their university,
they repented of their injustice, and Boccaccio was sent to Padua to
entreat the laureate to conclude his wanderings in the bosom of his
native country, where he might finish his _immortal Africa_, and enjoy,
with his recovered possessions, the esteem of all classes of his fellow
citizens. They gave him the option of the book and the science he might
condescend to expound: they called him the glory of his country, who was
dear, and who would be dearer to them; and they added, that if there was
anything unpleasing in their letter, he ought to return amongst them,
were it only to correct their style.[611] Petrarch seemed at first to
listen to the flattery and to the entreaties of his friend, but he did
not return to Florence, and preferred a pilgrimage to the tomb of Laura
and the shades of Vaucluse.

21.

Boccaccio to his parent earth bequeathed
His dust.
Stanza lviii. lines 1 and 2.

Boccaccio was buried in the church of St. Michael and St. James, at
Certaldo, a small town in the Valdelsa, which was by some supposed the
place of his birth. There he passed the latter part of his life in a
course of laborious study, which shortened his existence; and there
might his ashes have been secure, if not of honour, at least of repose.
But the "hyena bigots" of Certaldo tore up the tombstone of Boccaccio
and ejected it from the holy precincts of St. Michael and St. James. The
occasion, and, it may be hoped, the excuse, of this ejectment was the
making of a new floor for the church; but the fact is, that the
tombstone was taken up and thrown aside at the bottom of the building.
Ignorance may share the sin with bigotry. It would be painful to relate
such an exception to the devotion of the Italians for their great names,
could it not be accompanied by a trait more honourably conformable to
the general character of the nation. The principal person of the
d