On the 21st the vacant chair was filled by the election of Gradenigo _il nasone_, who had been largely instrumental in frustrating the plot. The Genoese negotiations dragged on, and not until the June following was the treaty of peace signed at Milan. Venetian statesmen had short rest from foreign complications. The defeat of Sapienza and the supposed laming of the executive by the miserable end of Doge Faliero, tempted the Hungarians, who were rapidly increasing in population and civilisation, to achieve their purpose of acquiring possession of a sea-board. War was declared and Francesco Carrara, who held Padua under Venetian tutelage, was called to aid his suzerain. But the Carraras aimed at founding a dynasty and gave secret assistance to King Louis of Hungary, who was besieging Treviso. The defence of Treviso and of Dalmatia was beyond the power of the Republic. After a two years’ struggle and bitter hours of humiliation, Dalmatia, bought with so much blood of Doges, patricians and people, was surrendered by the peace of Zara, in February 1358, to the King of Hungary in exchange for the retention of Treviso. Meantime Gradenigo had died (in 1356) and left to Giov. Delfino the signing of the great renunciation. Delfino was stoutly defending Treviso when elected, and being refused a permit to pass the Hungarian lines broke through by night and met the Senate at Mestre. Broken-hearted, his sight failing, he died of the plague in 1361. Under Delfino’s successor Lorenzo Celsi, Crete, never wholly subjugated, burst into revolt and terror reigned in the island. At this time Petrarch, seeking peace and security, had settled in Venice, the “only nest of liberty and sole refuge of the good.” He lived simply, at the sign of the Two Towers on the Riva degli Schiavoni, where it was his delight to stand at his window watching the huge galleys, big as the house he lived in, and with masts taller than towers, passing and repassing. The poet, honoured and cherished, was on intimate terms with the Signory and advised the employment of the famous Veronese _condottiero_ Lucchino del Verme to subdue the island. On the 4th of June about the sixth hour the poet was at his window chatting with the Archbishop of Patras when the friends saw a galley gliding swiftly up the lagoons, her masts wreathed with flowers; her deck crowded with men waving flags; hostile banners trailed in the waters behind her. She brought the news that Lucchino, falling upon the insurgents, weakened by divided counsels, had defeated them and punished the leaders. A thanksgiving festival was ordered which lasted three days. “The Doge,” writes Petrarch, “with a numerous train took his place to watch the sports over the vestibule of St Mark’s, where stand the four bronze horses (a work of ancient and excellent art) that seem to challenge comparison with the living and raise their hoofs to tread the ground. An awning of tapestry in many colours kept off the