[450] Petrarch, Fam., XVIII (Fracassetti, 2nd ed., Vol. II, p. 474).
[451] He says of it: "Libellus, ille vulgo qui tuus fertur, et si cuius sit non constet, tibi excerptus tibique inscriptus tuus utique non est."—Fam., XXIV, 12 (Fracassetti, Vol. III, p. 293). Cf. also Fam., X (Fracassetti, Vol. II, p. 89), and the critical edition of F. Plessis, Italici Ilias Latina (Paris 1885).
[452] Fam., XVIII, 2.
[453] See the letter to Boccaccio, to be quoted later. Var., XXV.
[454] Cf. Petrarch, Fam., XX, 6, 7 (To Francesco Nelli, III, Id. Ap.). This visit of Boccaccio's to Petrarch has been long known to have taken place in the spring of 1359; but the date is fixed for us by a MS. in Petrarch's hand found by De Nohlac in his Apuleius (Vatican MS. 2193, fol. 156). Cf. De Nohlac, Pétrarque et son jardin in Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, Vol. XI (1887), p. 404 et seq. I give below that part of the MS. which refers to 1359:—
"Anno 1359, sabato, hora quasi nona martie die xvjo retentare huiusce rei fortunam libuit. Itaque et lauros Cumo [? Como] transmissas per Tadeum nostrum profundis itidem scrobibus seuimus in orto Sancte Valerie Mediolani, luna decrescente; et fuerunt due tenere, tres duriores. Aliquot post dies nubila fuerunt et pars anni melior quam in superioribus (imo et pluviosi mirum in modum crebris et immensis imbribus quotidie, ut sepe de orto quasi lacus fieret; denique usque ad kalendas apriles non appariut sol). Inter cetera multum prodesse deberet et profectum sacrarum arbuscularum, quod insignis vir. d. Io. Boccaccii de Certaldo, ipsis amicissimus et mihi, casu in has horas tunc aduectus satimi intrefuit. Videbimus eventum. Omnibus radices fuerunt, quibusdam quoque telluris patrie aliquantulum, et præterea diligentissime obuolute non radices modo sed truncos aduecte sunt, et recentes valde. Denique præter soli naturam, nihil videtur adversum, attenta qualitate æris et quod non diu ante montes nivium adamantinaque glacies omnia tegebant vixque dum penitus abiere.
"Jam nunc circa medium aprilem due majores crescent; alie vero non letos successus spondent. Credo firmiter terram hanc hinc arbori inimicam."
Cf. also Cochin, Un Amico del Petrarca. Le Lettere di Nelli al Petrarcha (Bib. Petrarchesca), Firenze, 1901.
[455] In planting the laurel Petrarch expressed the hope that the presence of Boccaccio might prove "fortunate" to "these little sacred laurels." Boccaccio had protested to Petrarch that he was not worthy of the name of poet. Petrarch insisted that he was. "It is a strange thing," he says, "that you should have aimed at being a poet only to shrink from the name." This affair of the laurel may refer to that incident. "The laurel," says Boccaccio in the Vita di Dante, "which is never struck by lightning, crowns poets...."
[456] He was back in Florence certainly by May. Cf. Hortis, Studi, etc., p. 22 note. Petrarch in his letter to Nelli says that Boccaccio's visit was brief.