Socrates, though not an Italian, was extremely embarrassed by the death of the Cardinal.

He felt it difficult to live separated from Petrarch, and yet he could not determine to quit France for Italy.

He wrote incessantly the most pressing letters to induce our poet to return and settle in Provence.

Luca and Mainardo resolved to go and seek out Petrarch in Italy, in order to settle with him the place on which they should fix for their common residence, and where they should spend the rest of their lives in his society.

They set out from Avignon in the month of March, 1349, and arrived at Parma, but did not find the poet, as he was gone on an excursion to Padua and Verona.