When young, I used to write many and long letters.

At present, I write only to my particular friends, and even to them very short letters." Petrarch was now sixty-four years old.

He had never seen Pope Urban V., as he tells us himself; but he was very desirous of seeing him, and of seeing Rome adorned by the two great luminaries of the world, the Pope and the Emperor.

Pope Urban, fearing the heats of Italy, to which he was not accustomed, had gone to pass the dog-days at Monte-Fiascone.

When he returned to Rome, in October, on his arrival at the Colline gate, near the church of St.Angelo, he found the Emperor, who was waiting for him.