She had several conversations with Petrarch, which increased her admiration of him.

After the example of her grandfather, she made him her chaplain and household clerk, both of which offices must be supposed to have been sinecures.

Her letters appointing him to them are dated the 25th of November, 1343, the very day before that nocturnal storm of which I shall speedily quote the poet's description.
Voltaire has asserted that the young Queen of Naples was the pupil of Petrarch; "but of this," as De Sade remarks, "there is no proof." It only appears that the two greatest geniuses of Italy, Boccaccio and Petrarch, were both attached to Giovanna, and had a more charitable opinion of her than most of their contemporaries.
Soon after his return from the tour to Baiae, Petrarch was witness to a violent tempest at Naples, which most historians have mentioned, as it was memorable for having threatened the entire destruction of the city.
The night of the 25th of November, 1343, set in with uncommonly still weather; but suddenly a tempest rose violently in the direction of the sea, which made the buildings of the city shake to their very foundations.

"At the first onset of the tempest," Petrarch writes to the Cardinal Colonna, "the windows of the house were burst open.

The lamp of my chamber"-- he was lodged at a monastery--"was blown out--I was shaken from my bed with violence, and I apprehended immediate death.