ut a pilot. By my
own grief I judge of yours, and of that of Tullia, my beloved sister,
your worthy spouse. I envy Arqua the happiness of holding deposited in
her soil him whose heart was the abode of the Muses, and the sanctuary
of philosophy and eloquence. That village, scarcely known to Padua, will
henceforth be famed throughout the world. Men will respect it like Mount
Pausilippo for containing the ashes of Virgil, the shore of the Euxine
for possessing the tomb of Ovid, and Smyrna for its being believed to be
the burial-place of Homer." Among other things, Boccaccio inquires what
has become of his divine poem entitled Africa, and whether it had been
committed to the flames, a fate with which Petrarch, from excess of
delicacy, often threatened his compositions.

From this letter it appears that this epic, to which he owed the laurel
and no small part of his living reputation, had not yet been published,
with the exception of thirty-four verses, which had appeared at Naples
through the indiscretion of Barbatus. Boccaccio said that Petrarch kept
it continually locked up, and had been several times inclined to burn
it. The author of the Decameron himself did not long survive his master:
he died the 21st of December, 1375.

Petrarch so far succeeded in clearing the road to the study of
antiquities, as to deserve the title which he justly retains of the
restorer of classical learning; nor did his enthusiasm for ancient
monuments prevent him from describing them with critical taste. He gave
an impulse to the study of geography by his Itinerarium Syriacum. That
science had been partially revived in the preceding century, by the
publication of Marco Polo's travels, and journeys to distant countries
had been accomplished more frequently than before, not only by religious
missionaries, but by pilgrims who travelled from purely rational
curiosity: but both of these classes of travellers, especially the
religionists, dealt profusely in the marvellous; and their falsehoods
were further exaggerated by copyists, who wished to profit by the sale
of MSS. describing their adventures. As an instance of the doubtful
wonders related by wayfaring men, may be noticed what is told of
Octorico da Pordenone, who met, at Trebizond, with a man who had trained
four thousand partridges to follow him on journeys for three days
together, who gathered around like chickens when he slept, and who
returned home after he had sold to the Emperor as man