Note 325 — Chapter XVI · THE CITY OF ROME IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
Reading edition
Another letter of Petrarch's to John Colonna, written immediately after his arrival in the city, deserves to be quoted, it is so like what a stranger would now write off after his first day in Rome:—'In præsens nihil est quod inchoare ausim, miraculo rerum tantarum et stuporis mole obrutus ... præsentia vero, mirum dictu, nihil imminuit sed auxit omnia: vere maior fuit Roma maioresque sunt reliquiæ quam rebar: iam non orbem ab hac urbe domitum sed tam sero domitum miror. Vale.'