As to the complaint of poverty, which I have frequently heard from you before, I will not attempt to furnish any consolation or to cite any illustrious examples of indigence. You know them already. I will only say plainly what I have always said: I congratulate you for preferring liberty of mind and tranquil poverty to the opulence which I might have procured for you, even though tardily.[8] But I cannot praise you for scorning the oft-repeated invitation of a friend. I am not in a position to endow you. If I were, I should not confine myself to pen or words, but should address you with the thing itself. But I am amply supplied with all that two would need, if, with a single heart, they dwelt beneath a single roof. You insult me if you scorn my offers, still more so, if you are suspicious of their sincerity.
PADUA, May 28 (1362).
[1] Sen., i, 4.
[2] Boccaccio at this time was about fifty-one years old.
[3] Here follows a series of reflections upon the brevity of life and the inevitability of death, supported by excerpts from Ambrose and Cicero. Petrarch often reverts to this subject in his letters.
[4] To wit, the lines, "Stat sua cuique dies ... sed famam extendere factis, Hoc virtutis opus."
[5] Viz., Lactantius, Augustine, and Jerome.
[6] In regard to Petrarch's library see above, pp. [28] sqq.
[7] It is not known to whom Petrarch refers here; de Nolhac suggests his son Giovanni, who died a year before this was written. Cf. op. cit., p. 68, note 1.