Yet what folly! Can I flatter myself to find any place where envy cannot penetrate ?" [Illustration: MILAN CATHEDRAL.] Next day he departed with Sacromoro di Pomieres, whose company was a great solace to him.

They arrived at Basle, where the Emperor was expected; but they waited in vain for him a whole month.

"This prince," says Petrarch, "finishes nothing; one must go and seek him in the depths of barbarism." It was fortunate for him that he stayed no longer, for, a few days after he took leave of Basle, the city was almost wholly destroyed by an earthquake.
Petrarch arrived at Prague in Bohemia towards the end of July, 1356.

He found the Emperor wholly occupied with that famous Golden Bull, the provisions of which he settled with the States, at the diet of Nuremberg, and which he solemnly promulgated at another grand diet held at Christmas, in the same year.

This Magna Charta of the Germanic constitution continued to be the fundamental law of the empire till its dissolution.
Petrarch made but a short stay at Prague, notwithstanding his Majesty's wish to detain him.