Petrarch’s letter had its full effect.  The Florentine commonwealth despatched soldiers, both horse and foot, against the Ubaldini and their banditti, and decreed that every year an expedition should be sent out against them till they should be routed out of their Alpine caverns.  The Florentine troops directed their march to Monte Gemmoli, an almost impregnable rock, which they blockaded and besieged.  The banditti issued forth from their strongholds, and skirmished with overmuch confidence in their vantage ground.  At this crisis, the Florentine cavalry, having ascended the hill, dismounted from their horses, pushed forward on the banditti before they could retreat into their fortress, and drove them, sword in hand, within its inmost circle.  The Florentines thus possessed themselves of Monte Gemmoli, and, in like manner, of several other strongholds.  There were others which they could not take by storm, but they laid waste the plains and cities which supplied the robbers with provisions; and, after having done great damage to the Ubaldini, they returned safe and sound to Florence.

While Petrarch was at Mantua, in February, 1350, the Cardinal Guy of Boulogne, legate of the holy see, arrived there after a papal mission to Hungary.  Petrarch was much attached to him.  The Cardinal and several eminent persons who attended him had frequent conversations with our poet, in which they described to him the state of Germany and the situation of the Emperor.

Clement VI., who had reason to be satisfied with the submissiveness of this Prince, wished to attract him into Italy, where he hoped to oppose him to the Visconti, who had put themselves at the head of the Ghibeline party, and gave much annoyance to the Guelphs.  His Holiness strongly solicited him to come; but Charles’s situation would not permit him for the present to undertake such an expedition.  There were still some troubles in Germany that remained to be appeased; besides, the Prince’s purse was exhausted by the largesses which he had paid for his election, and his poverty was extreme.

It must be owned that a prince in such circumstances could hardly be expected to set out for the subjugation of Italy.  Petrarch, however, took a romantic view of the Emperor’s duties, and thought that the restoration of the Roman empire was within Charles’s grasp.  Our poet never lost sight of his favourite chimera, the re-establishment of Rome in her ancient dominion.  It was what he called one of his principles, that Rome had a right to govern the world.  Wild as this vision was, he had seen Rienzo attempt its realization; and, if the Tribune had been more prudent, there is no saying how nearly he might have approached to the achievement of so marvellous an issue.  But Rienzo was fallen irrecoverably, and Petrarch now desired as ardently to see the Emperor in Italy, as ever he had sighed for the success of the Tribune.  He wrote to the Emperor a long letter from Padua, a few days after the departure of the Cardinal.