These circumstances brought forth our poet's "Four Books of Invectives against Physicians," a work in which he undoubtedly exposes a great deal of contemporary quackery, but which, at the same time, scarcely leaves the physician-hunter on higher ground than his antagonists.
In the last year of his life, Clement VI.

wished to attach our poet permanently to his court by making him his secretary, and Petrarch, after much coy refusal, was at last induced, by the solicitations of his friends, to accept the office.

But before he could enter upon it, an objection to his filling it was unexpectedly started.

It was discovered that his style was too lofty to suit the humility of the Roman Church.
The elevation of Petrarch's style might be obvious, but certainly the humility of the Church was a bright discovery.

Petrarch, according to his own account, so far from promising to bring down his magniloquence to a level with church humility, seized the objection as an excuse for declining the secretaryship.