[457] Petrarch, Epist. Sen., III, 6, and V, 3.
[458] Boccaccio, De Geneal. Deor., XV, 6.
[459] Epist. Sen., III, 6, and V, 3.
[460] Cf. Hauvette, Le Professeur de Grec de Pétrarque et de Boccace (Chartres, 1891).
[461] Cf. De Nohlac, Les scholies, u.s., p. 101. He began to lecture in the end of 1359.
[462] Petrarch, Var., XXV. In this year Pino de' Rossi was exiled for conspiracy against the Guelfs. Boccaccio had dedicated the Ameto to him, and now wrote to console him. In that letter (Corazzini, op. cit., p. 67) Boccaccio says he has gone to Certaldo to avoid contact with these vile people (p. 96).
[463] Petrarch, Varie, XXV.
[464] Because Boccaccio's love for Fiammetta was not a passion wholly or almost wholly spiritual, as we may suppose Dante's to have been for Beatrice, we are eager to deny it any permanence or strength. Why? Perhaps a passion almost wholly sensual if really profound is more persistent than any desire in which the mind alone is involved.
[465] Our source of information is Petrarch's letter, quoted below in the text (Ep. Sen., I, 5). The affair is recounted in the life of Beato Pietro Petroni, who died May 29, 1361, by Giovanni Columbini. This life has been conserved and enriched with notes by the Carthusian of Siena, Bartholommeo, in 1619. It is printed in the Acta Sanctorum, May 29 (Tom. VII, Antwerp, 1668, p. 186 et seq.). Boccaccio's story is told at p. 228. There seems to be nothing there not gleaned from Petrarch's letter. Cf. also Traversari, Il Beato Pietro Petroni e la conversione del B. (Teani, 1905), and Graf, Fu superstizioso il B.? in Miti, Leggende e Superstiz. del Medioevo (Torino, 1893), Vol. II, p. 167 et seq.
[466] I quote to some extent the excellent redaction of Mr. Hollway-Calthrop, Petrarch and his Times (Methuen, 1907), p. 237 et seq.