When not employed on public affairs, Petrarch lived a life of peace and retirement at Milan. In the summer, he inhabited a country-house three miles from the city, near the Garignano, to which he gave the name of Linterno: when in the city, he dwelt in a sequestered quarter near the church of St. Ambrose. "My life," he says in a letter to the friend of his childhood, Guido Settimo, "has been uniform ever since age tamed the fervour of youth, and extinguished that fatal passion which so long tormented me; and though I often change place, my mode of spending my time is the same in all. Remember my former occupations, and you will know what my present ones are. It seems to me that you ought not only to know my acts, but even my dreams." "Like a weary traveller, I quicken my steps as I proceed. I read and write day and night, one occupation relieving another. This is all my amusement and employment: my eyes are worn out with readings my fingers weary with holding the pen. My health is so good and robust that I scarcely feel the advance of years. My feelings are as warm as in my youth, but I control their vivacity, so that my repose is seldom disturbed by them. One thing only is the source of disquietude: I am esteemed more than I deserve, so that a vast concourse of people come to see me. Not only am I honoured and loved by the prince of this city and his court, but the whole population pays me respect: yet, living in a distant quarter of the city, the visits I receive are infrequent, and I am often left in solitude. I am unchanged in my habits as to sleep and food. I remain in bed only to sleep, for slumber appears to me to resemble death, and my bed the grave, which renders it hateful. The moment I awake I hurry to my library. Solitude and quiet are dear to me; yet I appear talkative to my friends, and make up for the silence of a year by the conversation of a day. My income is increased, I confess, but my expenditure increases with it. You know me, and that I am never richer nor poorer: the more I have, the less I desire, and abundance renders me moderate: gold passes through my fingers, but never sticks to them." The literary work on which his busy leisure was employed, was "De Remediis utriusque Fortunæ," which he dedicated to Azzo di Coreggio. Azzo, who had formerly protected him, had been driven into exile, and, alternately a prisoner and an outcast, was reduced to a state of the heaviest adversity. Petrarch never ceased to treat him with respect; and for his comfort and consolation composed this treatise, of how to bring a remedy to the evils consequent on both prosperous and adverse fortune.