[Sidenote: Charles at Rome, 774.] As king Desiderius held out in Pavia with the greatest obstinacy, and the siege was protracted for many months, Charles resolved to spend the spring of 774 in visiting Rome, and coming to a complete understanding with pope Hadrian. He reached the city in Holy Week, and celebrated the Easter festivities with great splendour: his communings with Hadrian ended in his confirming his father’s grant to the Papacy of the whole Exarchate of Ravenna, from Ferrara and Commachio on the north, to Osimo on the south, including all the places that had been in dispute between the Pope and the Lombard king. Later Roman writers pretended that Charles had even increased Pippin’s liberal gift by adding to it north Tuscany, Parma and Modena, Venice, and even the island of Corsica. But there is no trace of this in contemporary authorities: the Frank never made over to the Pope the sovereignty of Tuscany or Æmilia, much less of Venice—which was not his to give,—or the distant island of Corsica. [Sidenote: Fall of Pavia, 774.] On returning from Rome to the valley of the Po, in the early summer of 774, Charles found Pavia ready to submit: Desiderius and his men of war were wasted by famine and opened the gates on condition that their lives should be spared. The king was sent as a prisoner to Neustria, and died many years after as a monk in the abbey of Corbey. His royal treasure was divided among the Frankish army. Adelchis, the heir of the Lombard throne, had, as we have already mentioned, escaped to the Byzantine court, and died there many years afterwards as a ‘patrician.’