Bishop. Their tastes were congenial. Giovanni had made a particular
study of the antiquities of Rome; he was, therefore, a most welcome
cicerone to our poet, being, perhaps, the only Roman then alive, who
understood the subject deeply, if we except Cola di Rienzo, of whom we
shall soon have occasion to speak.

In company with Giovanni, Petrarch inspected the relics of the "eternal
city:" the former was more versed than his companion in ancient history,
but the other surpassed him in acquaintance with modern times, as well
as with the objects of antiquity that stood immediately before them.

What an interesting object is Petrarch contemplating the ruins of Rome!
He wrote to the Cardinal Colonna as follows:--"I gave you so long an
account of Capranica that you may naturally expect a still longer
description of Rome. My materials for this subject are, indeed,
inexhaustible; but they will serve for some future opportunity. At
present, I am so wonder-struck by so many great objects that I know not
where to begin. One circumstance, however, I cannot omit, which has
turned out contrary to your surmises. You represented to me that Rome
was a city in ruins, and that it would not come up to the imagination I
had formed of it; but this has not happened--on the contrary, my most
sanguine expectations have been surpassed. Rome is greater, and her
remains are more awful, than my imagination had conceived. It is not
matter of wonder that she acquired universal dominion. I am only
surprised that it was so late before she came to it."

In the midst of his meditations among the relics of Rome, Petrarch was
struck by the ignorance about their forefathers, with which the natives
looked on those monuments. The veneration which they had for them was
vague and uninformed. "It is lamentable," he says, "that nowhere in the