Note 476 — Chapter IV · HUMANISM IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
S. G. C. (Samuel George Chetwynd) Middlemore translation
Petrarch, too, at the height of his fame complained in moments of melancholy that his evil star decreed him to pass his last years among scoundrels (extremi fures). In the imaginary letter to Livy, Epp. Fam. ed. Fracass. lib. xxiv. ep. 8. That Petrarch defended poetry, and how, is well known (comp. Geiger, Petr. 113-117). Besides the enemies who beset him in common with Boccaccio, he had to face the doctors (comp. Invectivæ in Medicum Objurgantem, lib. i. and ii.).