Boccaccio became warmly attached to Petrarch; at one time he spent the three summer months of June, July, and August, with him at Venice, in company with a Greek named Leonzio Pilato--a singular man, of a sombre, acid, and irritable disposition, but valuable to the friends as an expounder of the Greek language. Pilato left them to return to Constantinople; but his restless gloomy spirit quickly prompted him to wish to revisit Italy. He wrote Petrarch a letter, "as long and dirty," says the poet, as his own hair and beard. "This Greek," he continues, in a letter to Boccaccio, "would be useful to us in our studies, were he not an absolute savage; but I will never invite him here again. Let him go, if he will, with his mantle and ferocious manners, and inhabit the labyrinth of Crete, in which he has already spent many years." [Sidenote: 1365. Ætat. 61.] This severity was tempered afterwards, when he heard of the death of Pilato, who was struck by lightning during a storm on board ship, while returning by sea to Italy. "This unhappy man," writes Petrarch, "died as he lived, miserably. I do not think he ever enjoyed a tranquil hour: I cannot imagine how the spirit of poetry contrived to enter his tempestuous soul." [Sidenote: 1367. Ætat. 63.] When Urban V. arrived at Rome, Petrarch wrote him a long letter, expressive of the transport he felt on this auspicious event. He praised his courage in having vanquished every obstacle; adding, "Permit me to praise you; I shall not be suspected of flattery, for I ask nothing except your benediction." The pope replied to this letter by an eulogium on its eloquence; declaring, at the same time, that he had the greatest desire to see and be of service to him.