[E] Quest' anima gentil che si disparte.—Sonnet xxiii.
[F] Dated 21st December. 1335.
[G] Guido Sette of Luni, in the Genoese territory, studied law together with Petrarch; but took to it with better liking. He devoted himself to the business of the bar at Avignon with much reputation. But the legal and clerical professions were then often united; for Guido rose in the church to be an archbishop. He died in 1368, renowned as a church luminary.
[H] Canzoni 8, 9, and 10.
[I] Valery, in his "Travels in Italy" gives the following note respecting out poet. I quote from the edition of the work published at Brussels in 1835:—"Petrarque rapporte dans ses lettres latines que le laurier du Capitole lui avait attiré une multitude d'envieux; que le jour de son couronnement, au lieu d'eau odorante qu'il était d'usage de répandre dans ces solennités, il reçut sur la tête une eau corrosive, qui le rendit chauve le reste de sa vie. Son historien Dolce raconte même qu'une vieille lui jetta son pot de chambre rempli d'une acre urine, gardée, peut-être, pour cela depuis sept semaines."
[J] Sonnet cxcvi.
[K] Translation.—In the twenty-fifth year of his age, after a short though happy existence, our John departed this life in the year of Christ 1361, on the 10th of July, or rather on the 9th, at the midhour between Friday and Saturday. Sent into the world to my mortification and suffering, he was to me in life the cause of deep and unceasing solicitude, and in death of poignant grief. The news reached me on the evening of the 13th of the same month that he had fallen at Milan, in the general mortality caused by that unwonted scourge which at last discovered and visited so fearfully this hitherto exempted city. On the 8th of August, the same year, a servant of mine returning from Milan brought me a rumour (which on the 18th of the same fatal month was confirmed by a servant of Dominus Theatinus) of the death of my Socrates, my companion, my best of brothers, at Babylon (Avignon, I mean) in the month of May. I have lost my comrade and the solace of my life! Receive, Christ Jesus, these two, and the five that remain, into thy eternal habitations!
[L] Petrarch's words are: "civi servare suo;" but he takes the liberty of considering Charles as—adoptively—Italian, though that Prince was born at Prague.
[M] Most historians relate that the English, at Poitiers, amounted to no more than eight or ten thousand men; but, whether they consisted of eight thousand or thirty thousand, the result was sufficiently glorious for them, and for their brave leader, the Black Prince.
[N] This is the story of the patient Grisel, which is familiar in almost every language.