Note 10 — I. TO M. T. CICERO

The reference is very indefinite: “in tranquillo rure senuisse, de perpetua illa, ut ipse quodam loco ais, non de hac iam exigua vita cogitantem” (Vol. III, p. 263). The passages which Petrarch had in mind may have been De sen., 49: “If, however, we have something that may serve as food (so to speak) for study and learning, there is nothing more pleasant than a leisurely old age;” and 51: “I come now to the pleasures of a country life, with which I am infinitely delighted. None of these finds an obstruction in old age, and they are pleasures which appear to me to be most nearly suited to the life of a philosopher.” These two passages affirm that the sage should live a leisurely and studious old age in the country. As to meditating on the eternal life, Petrarch may have been thinking of Acad. pr., ii, 127: