He passed the greater part of the year 1342 at Avignon, and went to Vaucluse but seldom and for short intervals.
In the meantime, love, that makes other people idle, interfered not with Petrarch's fondness for study.

He found an opportunity of commencing the study of Greek, and seized it with avidity.

That language had never been totally extinct in Italy; but at the time on which we are touching, there were not probably six persons in the whole country acquainted with it.

Dante had quoted Greek authors, but without having known the Greek alphabet.

The person who favoured Petrarch with this coveted instruction was Bernardo Barlaamo, a Calabrian monk, who had been three years before at Avignon, having come as envoy from Andronicus, the eastern Emperor, on pretext of proposing a union between the Greek and Roman churches, but, in reality for the purpose of trying to borrow money from the Pope for the Emperor.