The course of the pestilence, like that of the cholera, was not general, but unaccountably capricious.

Villani says that it acted like hail, which will desolate fields to the right and left, whilst it spares those in the middle.

The war had not permitted our poet to travel either to Avignon or into Germany.

The plague had driven him out of Milan and Padua.

"I am not flying from death," he said, "but seeking repose." Having resolved to repair to Venice, Petrarch as usual took his books along with him.