repairing to Rome, was invested with the laurel by the Senator of the city, April 8, 1341. From this day the history of modern literature as a recognised power may be said to date. Ere his return at the beginning of 1342, he had finished his Africa, and bought a house at Parma to give himself a footing in his native land.
In 1343 Petrarch was again in Italy, discharging an important diplomatic mission with which he had been entrusted by the new Pope Clement VI. to the Court of Naples; the state of which he describes in dark colours, not too dark, as the history of the hapless Queen Joanna, Robert's successor, sufficiently proves. He nevertheless rendered himself acceptable to her, and, his mission honourably discharged, repaired to Parma, where (1344) he wrote the first of his great political odes, Italia mia benche il parlar sia indarno, and whence he was chased by civil discord. He did not, however, return to Avignon until towards the end of this year. The next few years were chiefly spent in literary occupations, the most remarkable of which was the composition (1347) of his ode to the Tribune Cola di Riend, in whom he saw the deliverer of his country. Petrarch's course was not free from the imputation of ingratitude to his old friends and patrons, the Colonna family; yet it would have been worse to have been silent at the prospect, however brief and delusive, of the resurrection of Rome. Other poets before him had written on Italian politics, but none, not even Dante, had so exalted their theme by eloquence and ennobling largeness of view:
"Her ancient walls, which still with fear and love
The world admires, whene'er it calls to mind
The days of Eld, and turns to look behind;
Her hoar and caverned monuments above
