[642] In a letter to Maghinardo, September 13, 1373, he thanks him with effusion for sending him a vase of gold full of gold pieces. Thanks to that, he says, he can buy a cloak for his poor feverish body. Cf. Corazzini, op. cit., p. 287. Villani is apparently wrong when he says he had many friends, but that none came to his assistance. One did. All the early biographies agree about his poverty.
[643] Rime, ed. cit., sonnet xxxvi. "It is a hard thing and a very horrible to wait for death; it is a thing which fills one with fear: yet death is more certain and infallible than anything else that has been, that is, or that will ever be. The course of life is short and one cannot return along it, and on earth there is no joy so great that it does not end in tears and regrets. Then why should we not seek to extend by work our renown, and by that to make long our days so short? This thought gives me and keeps me in courage. It spares me the regret of the years which are fled away, it gives me the splendour of a long life."
[644] Petrarch died at Arquà on July 18, 1374. The news was known in Florence on July 25, when Coluccio Salutati wrote to Benvenuto da Imola and mentioned it.
[645] Cf. Corazzini, op. cit., p. 377. He received Franceschino's letter "pridie XIII kalendas novembris," that is October 31.
[646] "Verum jam decimus elapsus est mensis, postquam in patria publice legentem Comoediam Dantis magis longa, atque tædiosa, quam discrimine aliquo dubia ægritudo oppressit...." The letter was written about November 7, ten months before which was January 7. Thus we know it was in the winter of 1373 (Fl. St.), or January, 1374, that he broke down.
[647] This refers doubtless to Petrarch's Will, by which he left Boccaccio fifty florins of gold with which to buy a warm cloak to cover himself in the nights of study.
[648] This is hard to explain. So far as we know, Boccaccio first met Petrarch in 1350 in Florence, but see supra, [p. 153, n. 2.]
[649] "Scribendi finis Certaldi datus tertio nonas novembris."
[650] See [Appendix V.]
[651] Cf. Rossellini, Della casa di G. B. in Certaldo in Antologia (1825), n. lix.