A. D. 1404.—On the death of Boniface, Cosmo, cardinal of Santa Croce, was elected to the pontificate, and assumed the name of Innocent VII. The new pontiff was by no means insensible of the merits of Poggio, whom he continued in the office to which he had been promoted by the favour of Boniface. He appears indeed to have treated him with particular kindness and respect. Poggio availed himself of his interest with Innocent, to testify the sincerity of his friendship for Leonardo Aretino, who during his residence at Florence, had been the associate of his studies, and the companion of his festive hours. Leonardo, whose paternal appellation was Bruni, derived the name of Aretino from Arezzo, in which city he was born in the year 1370. His parents, though not graced by the honours of nobility, held a respectable rank in society, and were sufficiently wealthy to be enabled to bestow on their son a good education.[31] In his early youth, Leonardo was incited to a love of letters by an extraordinary accident. A body of French troops, who were marching to Naples to assist Louis duke of Anjou in maintaining his claim to the sovereignty of that kingdom, at the solicitation of the partizans of a faction which had been banished from Arezzo, made an unexpected attack upon that city; and after committing a great slaughter, carried many of the inhabitants into captivity; and among the rest the family of Bruni. Leonardo being confined in a chamber in which was hung a portrait of Petrarca, by daily contemplating the lineaments of that illustrious scholar, conceived so strong a desire to signalize himself by literary acquirements, that immediately upon his enlargement he repaired to Florence, where he prosecuted his studies with unremitting diligence, under the direction of John of Ravenna and Manuel Crysoloras.[32] During his residence at Florence, he contracted a strict intimacy with Poggio. This intimacy was not interrupted by the separation of the two friends, which took place upon the removal of the latter to Rome. On the contrary, Poggio being informed by Leonardo, that he wished to procure a presentation to some place of honour and emolument in the Roman chancery, took every opportunity of commending his virtues, and of bringing his talents into public notice, by communicating his letters to the literary characters who frequented the pontifical court.[33] In consequence of Poggio’s address, the fame of Leonardo reached the ears of Innocent, who was induced, by his extraordinary reputation, to invite him to Rome, at which city he arrived, March 24, 1405. On this occasion the interest of Leonardo was powerfully promoted by a letter addressed to Innocent, by Coluccio Salutati,[34] the chancellor of the city of Florence, in which he detailed the merits of the young candidate in the most flattering terms. The reception which Leonardo met with on his first presentation at the pontifical court, though in some respects flattering, was on the whole inauspicious.