[Footnote 53: The astonishment, the envy almost, of Petrarch
is a proof, if not of the truth of this incredible fact, at
least of his own veracity. The abbe de Sade (Memoires, tom.
iii. p. 242) quotes the vith epistle of the xiiith book of
Petrarch, but it is of the royal Ms., which he consulted,
and not of the ordinary Basil edition, (p. 920.)]