It is only with Azzo that we are particularly concerned in the history of Petrarch.
Azzo was born in the year 1303, being thus a year older than our poet.
Originally intended for the church, he preferred the sword to the crozier, and became a distinguished soldier.

He married the daughter of Luigi Gonzagua, lord of Mantua.

He was a man of bold original spirit, and so indefatigable that he acquired the name of Iron-foot.

Nor was his energy merely physical; he read much, and forgot nothing--his memory was a library.

Azzo's character, to be sure, even with allowance for turbulent times, is not invulnerable at all points to a rigid scrutiny; and, notwithstanding all the praises of Petrarch, who dedicated to him his Treatise on a Solitary Life in 1366, his political career contained some acts of perfidy.