The navigation of our seas does not extend farther north; but, when they have arrived there, they quit their vessels, and travel on to trade with India and China; and, after passing the Caucasus and the Ganges, they proceed as far as the Eastern Ocean." It is natural to suppose that Petrarch took all proper precautions for the presentation of his books; nevertheless, they are not now to be seen at Venice.

Tomasini tells us that they had been placed at the top of the church of St.Mark, that he demanded a sight of them, but that he found them almost entirely spoiled, and some of them even petrified.
Whilst Petrarch was forming his new establishment at Venice, the news arrived that Pope Innocent VI.

had died on the 12th of September.

"He was a good, just, and simple man," says the continuator of Nangis.

A simple man he certainly was, for he believed Petrarch to be a sorcerer on account of his reading Virgil.