"Would the eternal architect," they said, "remain from all eternity doing nothing?
Certainly not! The world's youthful appearance is owing to its revolutions, and the changes it has undergone by deluges and conflagrations." "Those free-thinkers," Petrarch tells us, "had a great contempt for Christ and his Apostles, as well as for all those who did not bow the knee to the Stagirite." They called the doctrines of Christianity fables, and hell and heaven the tales of asses.

Finally, they believed that Providence takes no care of anything under the region of the moon.

Four young Venetians of this sect had attached themselves to Petrarch, who endured their society, but opposed their opinions.

His opposition offended them, and they resolved to humble him in the public estimation.

They constituted themselves a tribunal to try his merits: they appointed an advocate to plead for him, and they concluded by determining that he was a good man, but illiterate! This affair made a great stir at Venice.