[24] Namely, literary productions in the Italian tongue.
[25] Quod in vulgari eloquio, quam in carminibus aut prosa clarior atque altior assurgit. The literal form is retained in the rendering above, as Petrarch's very language is significant of his contempt for the Italian. Prose and verse could only be Latin.
[26] The work here referred to, which Petrarch supposed to be an inferior production of Seneca the Philosopher, is now attributed to his father, the Rhetor, of whose existence Petrarch was unaware.
[27] This would seem sufficient proof that Petrarch and Boccaccio first met on this occasion of Petrarch's visit to Florence.
[28] Petrarch had never been in Florence before, although reckoned as a Florentine. He uses here the phrase longo postliminio redeuntem,—referring to the right in the Roman law to return home and resume one's former rank and privileges—a reminiscence possibly of the law school.
[29] Cf. the Æneid, viii., 162 sqq., for this and the succeeding allusions.
The Story of Griselda
To Boccaccio[1]