Page:Lectures on The Historians of Bohemia by Count Lutzow (1905).djvu/37

 lord of Milan, recognized the supremacy of the King of Bohemia. This very short rule of Bohemia or rather the House of Luxemburg, for it was based on dynastic, not racial motives in Italy has been very much neglected by historians. John himself indeed recrossed the Alps in the Spring of 1331, but he left in Italy, as his representative, his son Charles, then only seventeen years of age. There is no doubt that Charles then began to keep the diary which is the foundation of the Vita Caroli. Charles had established his rule in the city of Parma, one of those that remained longest faithful to the Bohemian dynasty. Though Charles defeated in the great battle of Sanfelice the forces of the Italian cities, yet the Bohemian rule in Italy collapsed as suddenly as it had arisen, and Charles left Italy before the end of the year 1333. This part of the autobiography is most striking. With the enthusiasm of youth Charles describes the details of his Italian warfare, and his frequent accounts of his visions and of apparitions render his narrative often very picturesque.

Of Bohemian affairs Charles’s memoirs deal but scantily, and without that thorough understanding of the country which he afterwards acquired. He indeed tells us that it was only on his return from Italy that he thoroughly mastered the national language, and, as he writes, ‘spoke as the other Bohemians.’

One of the most interesting parts of Charles’s autobiography is his account of his visit to Avignon. He and his father visited Pope Benedict, and Charles also had an interview with his former tutor Pierre Roget, who afterwards became Pope under the name of Clement VI. Charles writes: ‘Now when our father’s health did not improve, we went with him to Avignon