When he spoke to her about the prisoners, for whose release the Colonnas had desired him to intercede, her Majesty referred him to the council.

She was now, in reality, only a state cypher.
The principal prisoners for whom Petrarch was commissioned to plead, were the Counts Minervino, di Lucera, and Pontenza.

Petrarch applied to the council of state in their behalf, but he was put off with perpetual excuses.

While the affair was in agitation he went to Capua, where the prisoners were confined.

"There," he writes to the Cardinal Colonna, "I saw your friends; and, such is the instability of Fortune, that I found them in chains.