I have seen them leave me in rags and poverty, and return, some time afterwards, clothed in silks, and with purses well furnished, to thank me for having relieved them." In the course of the same amusing correspondence with Boccaccio, which our poet maintained at this period, he gives an account of an atheist and blasphemer at Venice, with whom he had a long conversation.

It ended in our poet seizing the infidel by the mantle, and ejecting him from his house with unceremonious celerity.

This conclusion of their dialogue gives us a higher notion of Petrarch's piety than of his powers of argument.
Petrarch went to spend the autumn of 1365 at Pavia, which city Galeazzo Visconti made his principal abode.

To pass the winter till Easter, our poet returned first to Venice, and then to Padua, according to his custom, to do the duties of his canonry.

It was then that his native Florence, wishing to recall a man who did her so much honour, thought of asking for him from the Pope the canonry of either Florence or Fiesole.
Petrarch fully appreciated the shabby kindness of his countrymen.