opportunity of dragging the great names
of antiquity into his rhetorical compositions. The catastrophe was
hardly unexpected; for it had been prophesied by an astrological
bishop, whom Petrarch does not name, that Naples would be
overwhelmed by a terrible disaster in December 1343. The people were
therefore in a state of wild anxiety, repenting of their sins,
planning a total change of life under the fear of imminent death,
and neglecting their ordinary occupations. On the day of the
predicted calamity women roamed in trembling crowds through the
streets, pressing their babies to their breasts, and besieging the
altars of the saints with prayers. Petrarch, who shared the general
disquietude, kept watching the signs of the weather; but nothing
happened to warrant an extraordinary panic. At sunset the sky was
quieter than usual; and he could discern none of the symptoms of
approaching tempest, to which his familiarity with the mountains of
Vaucluse accustomed him. After dusk he stationed himself at a window
to observe the moon until she went down, before midnight, obscured
by clouds. Then he betook himself to bed; but scarcely had he fallen
into his first sleep when a most horrible noise aroused him. The
whole house shook; the night-light on his table was extinguished;
and he was thrown with violence from his couch. He was lodging in a
convent; and soon after this first intimation of the tempest he
heard the monks calling to each other through the darkness. From
cell to cell they hurried, the ghastly gleams of lightning falling
on their terror-stricken faces. Headed by the Prior, and holding
crosses and relics of the saints in their hands, they now assembled
in Petrarch's chamber. Thence they proceeded in a body to the
chapel, where they spent the night in prayer and expectation of
impending ruin. It would be impossible, says the poet, to relate the
terrors of that hellish night--the deluges of rain, the screaming of
the wind, the earthquake, the thunder, the howling of the sea, and
the shrieks of agonising human beings. All these horrors were
prolonged, as though by some magician's spell, for what seemed twice
the duration of a natural night. It was so dark that at last by
conjecture rather than the testimony of their senses they knew that
day had broken. A hurried mass was said. Then, as the noise in the
town above them began to diminish, and a confused clamour from the
sea-shore continually increased, their suspense be