His son and servants quarrelled every day, in his very presence, so violently that they exchanged blows.

Petrarch then lost all patience, and turned the whole of his pugnacious inmates out of doors.

His son John had now become an arrant debauchee; and it was undoubtedly to supply his debaucheries that he pillaged his own father.

He pleaded strongly to be readmitted to his home; but Petrarch persevered for some time in excluding him, though he ultimately took him back.
It appears from one of Petrarch's letters, that many people at Milan doubted his veracity about the story of the robbery, alleging that it was merely a pretext to excuse his inconstancy in quitting his house at St.Ambrosio; but that he was capable of accusing his own son on false grounds is a suspicion which the whole character of Petrarch easily repels.

He went and settled himself in the monastery of St.Simplician, an abbey of the Benedictines of Monte Cassino, pleasantly situated without the walls of the city.
He was scarcely established in his new home at St.Simplician's, when Galeazzo Visconti arrived in triumph at Milan, after having taken possession of Pavia.