ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 
the quiet round of the Church’s offices, and the loveli¬ 
ness of Val d’Ema to be his solace. 
But this time never came. To the end of his days 
he led the same busy, active life ; and a hurried visit 
here and there was all that he had to bestow on his 
beloved Certosa. Neither king nor realm could spare 
him. Louis and Joanna were both too incapable to 
govern alone ; and “ whenever,” says Villani, “ the 
virtue of this man was absent from court, affairs 
went ill.” 
From the grave of his son he had gone straight to 
Sicily, to conquer that island from the Aragonese, 
and had already subdued Palermo and Messina, when 
he was recalled and sent as ambassador to the Emperor 
Charles IV, whose descent into Italy had created 
general alarm. His mission met with complete suc¬ 
cess ; and the Emperor not only paid him the highest 
honours and kept him to attend his coronation at 
Rome, but tried to induce him to accompany him on 
his return to Germany, an invitation which Niccolo, 
faithful to his old allegiance, refused to accept. On 
another occasion, when he was sent to the Papal Court 
at Avignon in 1360, Innocent VI presented him with 
the golden rose, a mark of special favour hitherto re¬ 
served for royal personages. From Avignon he went 
to Milan to negotiate a peace between the Pope and 
Bernabo Visconti, and there sought out his old friend 
218 
