[473] The order for the payment of the expenses of "nostre cher et feal chivaler Edward de Berkle," and "nostre feal esquier Geffray Chaucer," is directed to William Walworth, then not so famous as he was to be, and to the no less notorious John Philpot, mercer and naval leader. Both envoys are ordered "d'aler en nostre message si bien au duc de Melan Barnabo come a nostre cher et foial Johan Haukwode es parties de Lumbardie, pur ascunes busoignes touchantes l'exploit de nostre guerre," May 12, 1378. Berkeley receives 200 marcs and Chaucer 100; the sums are to be paid out of the war subsidy voted by Parliament the year before. The French text of the warrant has been published by M. Spont in the _Athenaeum_ of Sept. 9, 1893. During this absence Chaucer appointed to be his representatives or attorneys two of his friends, one of whom was the poet Gower. See document dated May 22, 1378, in "Poetical Works," ed. Morris, i. p. 99. [474] ll. 1982, 1990, 1997. [475] Figure of "Peace," by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 1339. See a drawing of it in Muentz, "Les Precurseurs de la Renaissance," Paris, 1882, 4to, p. 29. [476] Muentz, _ibid._, p. 30. [477] "F. Petrarcae Epistolae," ed. Fracassetti, Florence, 1859, vol. iii. p. 541. [478] Letter of Boccaccio "celeberrimi nominis militi Jacopo Pizzinghe." Corazzini, "Le Lettere edite ed inedite di Giovanni Boccaccio," Florence, 1877, 8vo, p. 195. [479] Chaucer could not be present at the lectures of Boccaccio, who began them on Sunday, October 23, 1373; he had returned to London in the summer. Disease (probably diabetes) soon obliged Boccaccio to interrupt his lectures; he died in his house at Certaldo on December 21, 1375. See Cochin, in _Revue des Deux Mondes_, July 15, 1888. [480] This meeting, concerning which numerous discussions have taken place, seems to have most probably happened. "I wol," says the clerk of Oxford in the "Canterbury Tales," I wol yow telle a tale which that I Lerned at Padowe of a worthy clerk ... He is now deed and nayled in his cheste ... Fraunceys Petrark, the laureat poet. Such a circumstantial reference is of a most unusual sort; in most cases, following the example of his contemporaries, Chaucer simply says that he imitates "a book," or sometimes he refers to his models by a wrong or fancy name, such being the case with Boccaccio, whom he calls "Lollius," a name which, however, does duty also with him, at another place, for Petrarch. But on this occasion it seems as if the poet meant to preserve the memory of personal intercourse. We know besides that at that date Chaucer was not without notoriety as a poet on the Continent (Des Champs' praise is a proof of it), and that at the time when he came to Italy Petrarch was at Arqua, near Padua, where he was precisely busy with his Latin translation of Boccaccio's story of Griselda. [481] "The Othe of the Comptroler of the Customes," in Thynne's "Animadversions," Chaucer Society, 1875, p. 131.