The Emperor, though sorely exasperated against the Visconti, had no thoughts of carrying war into Italy.

His affairs in Germany employed him sufficiently, besides the embellishment of the city of Prague.

At the Bohemian court our poet renewed a very amicable acquaintance with two accomplished prelates, Ernest, Archbishop of Pardowitz, and John Oczkow, Bishop of Olmuetz.

Of these churchmen he speaks in the warmest terms, and he afterwards corresponded with them.
We find him returned to Milan, and writing to Simonides on the 20th of September.
Some days after Petrarch's return from Germany, a courier arrived at Milan with news of the battle of Poitiers, in which eighty thousand French were defeated by thirty thousand Englishmen, and in which King John of France was made prisoner.[M] Petrarch was requested by Galeazzo Visconti on this occasion to write for him two condoling letters, one to Charles the Dauphin, and another to the Cardinal of Boulogne.

Petrarch was thunderstruck at the calamity of King John, of whom he had an exalted idea.