leazzo. Matteo,
as the eldest, presided over all; but, conscious of his incapacity, he
took little share in the deliberations of his brothers. Nothing
important was done without consulting Petrarch; and this flattering
confidence rendered Milan as agreeable to him as any residence could be,
consistently with his love of change.

The deaths of the Doge of Venice and of the Lord of Milan were soon
followed by another, which, if it had happened some years earlier, would
have strongly affected Petrarch. This was the tragic end of Rienzo. Our
poet's opinion of this extraordinary man had been changed by his later
conduct, and he now took but a comparatively feeble interest in him.
Under the pontificate of Clement VI., the ex-Tribune, after his fall,
had been consigned to a prison at Avignon. Innocent, the succeeding
Pope, thought differently of him from his predecessor, and sent the
Cardinal Albornoz into Italy, with an order to establish him at Rome,
and to confide the government of the city to him under the title of
senator. The Cardinal obeyed the injunction; but after a brief and
inglorious struggle with the faction of the Colonnas, Rienzo perished in
a popular sedition on the 8th of October, 1354.

War was now raging between the States of the Venetian League and Milan,
united with Genoa, when a new actor was brought upon the scene. The
Emperor, who had been solicited by one half of Italy to enter the
kingdom, but who hesitated from dread of the Lord of Milan, was
evidently induced by the intelligence of John Visconti's death to accept
this invitation. In October, 1354, his Imperial Majesty entered Italy,
with no show of martial preparation, being attended by only three
hundred horsemen. On the 10th of November he arrived at Mantua, where he
was received as sovereign. There he stopped for some time, before he
pursued his route to Rome.

The moment Petrarch heard of his arrival, he wrote to his Imperial
Majesty in transports of joy. "You are no longer," he said, "king of
Bohemia. I behold in you the king of the world, the Roman emperor, the
true Caesar." The Emperor received this letter at Mantua, and in a few
days sent Sacromore de Pomieres, one of his squires, to invite Petrarch
to come and meet him, expressing the utmost eagerness to see him.
Petrarch could not resist so flattering an invitation; he was not to be
deterred even by the unprecedented severity of the frost, and departed
from Milan on the 9th of December;