Petrarch sent him both, accompanied with a letter, in which he praises Luchino for his encouragement of learning and his cultivation of the Muses.
The plague was now increasing in Italy; and, after it had deprived Petrarch of many dear friends, it struck at the root of all his affections by attacking Laura.

He describes his apprehensions on this occasion in several of his sonnets.

The event confirmed his melancholy presages; for a letter from his friend Socrates informed him that Laura had died of the plague on the 1st of April, 1348.

His biographers may well be believed, when they tell us that his grief was extreme.

Laura's husband took the event more quietly, and consoled himself by marrying again, when only seven months a widower.
Petrarch, when informed of her death, wrote that marginal note upon his copy of Virgil, the authenticity of which has been so often, though unjustly, called in question.