After four years on the Riva, in that "house most healthful," a number of the patrician _giovinastri_--all infidels and much puffed up with their little learning--after discussing their philosophies with Petrarch came to the grave decision that he was "a good but ignorant man"! To us it is absurd that this great poet should have given a serious thought to such folly; but the same sort of young men had driven Marino Faliero to such straits that he turned traitor. Petrarch showed his pain and indignation in a milder way, by quitting Venice to return no more. This was certainly the worse for Venice, since he imparted to the Republic the only poetical association connected with its palmy days. No poet with a name to live was born of that nation of wise statesmen, bravo soldiers, cunning merchants, and glorious artists. We can but wonder if it would have comforted him to know that the first exquisite book from the Aldine press in Venice, more than a century and a quarter after his death, would be his own poems and printed in fac-simile of his own handwriting! Petrarch retired to Arqua del Monte, a quiet little town in a valley of the Euganean Hills, where he lived peacefully, visited by his friends and enjoying the many proofs that came to him of the appreciation which the scholars of his time had for his character and works. In 1373, again he went to Venice with Francesco Carrara Novello, who was to make submission as the proxy of his father, {208} after the treaty at the termination of the Carrarese War. Again, the Laureate addressed the Doge, the peers, and senators, as the Apostle of Peace; it was his valedictory at Venice. In July, 1374, he was found dead in his library at Arqua. "But knock, and enter in. This was his chamber. 'T is as when he went; As if he now were in his orchard-grove. And this his closet. Here he sat and read. This was his chair; and in it, unobserved, Reading, or thinking of his absent friends, He passed away as in a quiet slumber." While thinking thus of the happenings on this very Riva five centuries agone, we pass through the narrow calle which leads to the campo of San Giovanni in Bragora. The pictures in this church are very interesting, and the font by Sansovino is beautiful; but to-day the Palazzo Badoer especially appeals to me, and yet one must almost regret having seen it since the restorers--Heaven save the mark!--have spoiled it. If the ghosts of the seven Badoer Doges ever walk this way, what must they think of the squares of red and white marble in which it is now dressed?