But finally, through
------'s enterprise and perseverance, we found the spot, not a
stone's-throw from where we had been sitting.
Petrarch's house stands below the promenade which I have just mentioned,
and within hearing of the reverberations between the strokes of the
cathedral bell. It is two stories high, covered with a light-colored
stucco, and has not the slightest appearance of antiquity, no more than
many a modern and modest dwelling-house in an American city. Its only
remarkable feature is a pointed arch of stone, let into the plastered
wall, and forming a framework for the doorway. I set my foot on the
doorsteps, ascended them, and Miss Shepard and J----- gathered some weeds
or blades of grass that grew in the chinks between the steps. There is a
long inscription on a slab of marble set in the front of the house, as is
the fashion in Arezzo when a house has been the birthplace or residence
of a distinguished man.
Right opposite Petrarch's birth-house--and it must have been the well
whence the water was drawn that first bathed him--is a well which
Boccaccio has introduced into one of his stories.
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