Thus the remnants of his failing strength were spent upon doing honour to the memory of the celebrated poet, whose genius he so warmly and generously admired, and a depreciation of whom is the sole blot on the otherwise faultless character of Petrarch: but, while he roused his intellects to understand and comment upon the delicate and sublime beauties of Dante, his physical strength decayed, and his sensibility received a severe shock from the death of his beloved friend Petrarch. [Sidenote: 1374. Ætat. 61.] He heard it first by public report; and it was afterwards confirmed to him in a letter from Francesco Brossano, the laureate's son-in-law, who transmitted to him the legacy of fifty florins, for the purchase of a fur dress for his winter studies. Boccaccio wrote, in return, a letter full of grief and admiration. "He did not mourn," he said, "for the dead, who was receiving the reward of his virtues, but for those who survived him, and were abandoned to the tempestuous sea of life without a pilot." He would have visited his tomb had his health permitted; and he besought Brossano to take care of his posthumous reputation, and to publish his poem of "Africa," which was only known to the world in fragments. In compliance with his request, Brossano had the poem copied, and sent it to him; but he did not live to receive it. He felt his end approaching, and Petrarch's death loosened his last tie to earth. He made his will, and named the sons of his brother Jacopo his heirs. He left legacies to those to whom he owed return for friendship and services; and he concluded, by leaving his library, in the first instance, to his spiritual director, Martino da Signa, to go, after his death, to the convent of the Spirito Santo, at Florence, for the benefit of the studious. He survived Petrarch one year only, and died at Certaldo, on the 21st December, 1375, in the 63d year of his age. His death was occasioned by a malady of small moment in itself, but fatal in his debilitated state, and aggravated by his continual application. He was buried at Certaldo, in the church of SS. Jacopo and Filippo. His son presided at his funeral, and erected a tomb, on which was inscribed a Latin epitaph, composed by Boccaccio himself, in which he mentions that honourable love of literature which characterised him through life:--"_Patria Certaldum; studium fuit alma poesis._" He was lamented throughout Italy; but his loss was chiefly deplored in his native city, as, during his residence there, he had redeemed his early follies by a course of life devoted to the cultivation of literature and religion, and the duties of a citizen. While all read with delight the purer productions of his imaginative genius, the learned of every age must feel grateful to his unwearied labours in the preservation of the ancient manuscripts, many of which, but for him, had been lost for ever to the world. [Footnote 58: Genealogia Deorum.] [Footnote 59: Baldelli.]