showed a lively interest in her political affairs, and fulfilled all
the duties of a good citizen. In 1350 he was chosen to visit the lords
of various towns of Romagna, in order to engage their cooperation in a
league against the Visconti family, who, already lords of the great and
powerful city of Milan, desired to extend their domains beyond the
Apennines. In 1351 Boccaccio had the pleasure of bearing to the poet
Petrarch the news of the restoration of his rights of citizenship and of
his patrimony, both of which he had lost in the troubles of 1323, and
during this visit the two geniuses became friends for life. They delved
together into the literature of the ancients, and Boccaccio determined,
through the medium of translation, to make the work of the great Greek
writers a part of the liberal education of his countrymen. A knowledge
of Greek at that time was an exceedingly rare accomplishment, since the
serious study of living literatures was only just beginning, and the
Greek of Homer had been almost forgotten. Even Petrarch, whose erudition
was marvelous, could not read a copy of the _Iliad_ that he possessed.
Boccaccio asked permission of the Florentine Government to establish a
Greek professorship in the University of Florence, and persuaded a
learned Calabrian, Leonzio Pilato, who had a perfect knowledge of
ancient Greek, to leave Venice and accept the professorship at Florence,
and lodged him in his own house. Together the Calabrian and the author
of _La Fiammetta_ and the _Decameron_ made a Latin translation of the
_Iliad_, which Boccaccio transcribed with his own hand. But his literary
enthusiasm was not confined to his own work and that of the ancients.
His soul was filled with a generous ardor of admiration for Dante;
through his efforts the Florentines were awakened to a true sense of the
merits of the sublime poet, so long exiled from his native city, and the
younger genius succeeded in persuading them to establish a professorship
in the University for the sole study of the _Divine Comedy_, he himself
being the first to occupy the chair, and writing a _Life of Dante_,