The Legate has left Milan.

He was received at Florence with unbounded applause: as for poor me, I am again in my retreat.

I have been long free, happy, and master of my time; but I feel, at present, that liberty and leisure are only for souls of consummate virtue.

When we are not of that class of beings, nothing is more dangerous for a heart subject to the passions than to be free, idle, and alone.

The snares of voluptuousness are _then_ more dangerous, and corrupt thoughts gain an easier entrance--above all, love, that seducing tormentor, from whom I thought that I had now nothing more to fear." From these expressions we might almost conclude that he had again fallen in love; but if it was so, we have no evidence as to the object of his new passion.
During his half-retirement, Petrarch learned news which disturbed his repose.