“On the fourth day of the week, the pope, with his staff of officers, both civil and ecclesiastical, went forth to the church of St. Peter, and there meeting the king in conference, earnestly prayed him, and with paternal affection exhorted him, to fulfil in its entirety that promise which his father, the late King Pippin of blessed memory, had made, and which he himself with his brother Carloman and all the nobles of France had confirmed to St. Peter and his vicar Pope Stephen II., when he visited Frankland, that they would grant divers cities and territories in that province of Italy to St. Peter and his vicars for a perpetual possession. And when he (Charles) had caused that promise which was made in Frankland in a place called Carisiacum to be read over to him, all its contents were approved by himself and his nobles. And of his own accord, with good and willing mind, that most excellent and most Christian King Charles caused another promise of gift like the first to be drawn up by Etherius his chaplain and notary, and in this he granted the same cities and territories to St. Peter and promised that they should be conveyed to the pope with their boundaries set forth as is contained in the aforesaid donation, to wit: From Luna with the island of Corsica, thence to Surianum thence to Mons Bardonis (that is Vercetum), thence to Parma, thence to Rhegium, and from thence to Mantua and Mons Silicis, and moreover the whole exarchate of Ravenna such as it was of old time, and the provinces of Venetia and Istria: moreover the whole duchies of Spoletium and Beneventum.” The papal biographer then goes on to describe the signing of this donation by Charles himself with all his bishops, abbots, dukes, and counts, its being laid upon the altar of St. Peter, and afterwards placed within his tomb, and the “terrible oath” which was sworn by all the signers, promising to St. Peter and Pope Hadrian that they would keep all the promises contained in the document. Let us look at the extent of the territories which according to the papal biographer were thus conveyed to the Roman Pontiff. The island of Corsica: that is clear though introduced in a curious connection. Then the line starts from the coast of Italy, just at the point where the Genoese and Tuscan territory join: it crosses the Apennines and strikes the Po a little north of Parma. From Mantua it works round to the head of the Adriatic and includes the peninsula of Istria. The exarchate of Ravenna, “as it was of old time,” reached inland to the Apennines and probably is here to be taken as including the Pentapolis. The extent of the two great Lombard duchies of Spoleto and Benevento is perfectly well known; they included the whole of Italy south of Ancona except the duchy of Rome, a little territory round Naples and the district which is now called Calabria in the extreme south, the toe of Italy.