de in his own palace at Avignon.
"What good fortune was this for me!" says Petrarch. "This great man
never made me feel that he was my superior in station. He was like a
father or an indulgent brother; and I lived in his house as if it had
been my own." At a subsequent period, we find him on somewhat cooler
terms with John Colonna, and complaining that his domestic dependence
had, by length of time, become wearisome to him. But great allowance is
to be made for such apparent inconsistencies in human attachment. At
different times our feelings and language on any subject may be
different without being insincere. The truth seems to be that Petrarch
looked forward to the friendship of the Colonnas for promotion, which he
either received scantily, or not at all; so it is little marvellous if
he should have at last felt the tedium of patronage.

For the present, however, this home was completely to Petrarch's taste.
It was the rendezvous of all strangers distinguished by their knowledge
and talents, whom the papal court attracted to Avignon, which was now
the great centre of all political negotiations.

This assemblage of the learned had a powerful influence on Petrarch's
fine imagination. He had been engaged for some time in the perusal of
Livy, and his enthusiasm for ancient Rome was heightened, if possible,
by the conversation of old Stefano Colonna, who dwelt on no subject with
so much interest as on the temples and palaces of the ancient city,
majestic even in their ruins.

During the bitter persecution raised against his family by Boniface
VIII., Stefano Colonna had been the chief object of the Pope's
implacable resentment. Though oppressed by the most adverse
circumstances, his estates confiscated, his palaces levelled with the
ground, and himself driven into exile, the majesty of his appearance,
and the magnanimity of his character, attracted the respect of strangers
wherever he went. He had the air of a sovereign prince rather than of an
exile, and commanded more regard than monarchs in the height of their
ostentation.

In the picture of his times, Stefano makes a noble and commanding
figure. If the reader, however, happens to search into that period of
Italian history, he will find many facts to cool the romance of his
imagination respecting all the Colonna family. They were, in plain
truth, an oppressive aristocratic family. The portion of Italy which
they and their tyrannical rivals possessed was infamously g