book ii

of the _Academica Priora_, which has the separate subtitle “Lucullus” (P. de Nolhac, I, pp. 228, 244 ff.). He labored under this delusion for some time, until in reading St. Augustine he met citations from the real _Hortensius_, which of course he could not verify in his supposed _Hortensius_. Finally he received from Marco Barbato da Sulmona, whom he had met in 1341 at Naples, a manuscript containing a work inscribed _Academica_. Investigation quickly showed him that this work and his supposed _Hortensius_ were one and the same. But he was unwilling to relinquish the idol he had worshiped so long. Doubts still remained. On his visit to Naples in 1343, however, he identified once and for all the work in his own manuscript; and on his return he entered the following note abreast of the heading: “This title, though common, is nevertheless a false one. This is not the _De laude philosophiae_, but the last two of the four books of the _Academica_.” The present letter to Cicero was written in 1345, two years after the correction of his error; hence Petrarch rightly places the _De laude philosophiae_ (_sive Hortensius_) in the catalogue of lost books.

The closing statement of Petrarch’s postilla needs a few words of explanation. The fragment which he possessed constituted