To these humiliating terms Charles subscribed.  The affair was completed during the few days that Petrarch spent at Mantua.  The Emperor strongly wished that he should be present at the signature of the treaty; and, in fact, though he was not one of the envoys from Milan, the success of the negotiation was generally attributed to him.  A rumour to this effect reached even Avignon, where Laelius then was.  He wrote to Petrarch to compliment him on the subject.  The poet, in his answer, declines an honour that was not due to him.

After the signature of the treaty, Petrarch departed for Milan, where he arrived on Christmas eve, 1354.  He there found four letters from Zanobi di Strata, from whom he had not had news for two years.  Curious persons had intercepted their letters to each other.  Petrarch often complains of this nuisance, which was common at the time.

The Emperor set out from Mantua after the festivities of Christmas.  On arriving at the gates of Milan, he was invited to enter by the Viscontis; but Charles declined their invitation, saying, that he would keep the promise which he had pledged.  The Viscontis told him politely that they asked his entrance as a favour, and that the precaution respecting his troops by no means extended to his personal presence, which they should always consider an honour.  The Emperor entered Milan on the 4th of January, 1355.  He was received with the sound of drums, trumpets, and other instruments, that made such a din as to resemble thunder.  “His entry,” says Villani, “had the air of a tempest rather than of a festivity.”  Meanwhile the gates of Milan were shut and strictly guarded.  Shortly after his arrival, the three brothers came to tender their homage, declaring that they held of the Holy Empire all that they possessed, and that they would never employ their possessions but for his service.

Next day the three brothers, wishing to give the Emperor a high idea of their power and forces, held a grand review of their troops, horse and foot; to which, in order to swell the number, they added companies of the burgesses, well mounted, and magnificently dressed; and they detained his poor Majesty at a window, by way of amusing him, all the time they were making this display of their power.  Whilst the troops were defiling, they bade him look upon the six thousand cavalry and ten thousand infantry, which they kept in their pay for his service, adding that their fortresses and castles were well furnished and garrisoned.  This spectacle was anything but amusing to the Emperor; but he put a good countenance on the matter, and appeared cheerful and serene.  Petrarch scarcely ever quitted his side; and the Prince conversed with him whenever he could snatch time from business, and from the rigid ceremonials that were imposed on him.

On the 6th of January, the festival of Epiphany, Charles received at Milan the iron crown, in the church of St. Ambrosio, from the hands of Robert Visconti, Archbishop of Milan.  They gave the Emperor fifty thousand florins in gold, two hundred beautiful horses, covered with cloth bordered with ermine, and six hundred horsemen to escort him to Rome.