The career of Henry the Seventh in Italy [ A. D.
1308-1313] is the most remarkable illustration of the
Emperor's position; and imperialist doctrines are set
forth most strikingly in the treatise which the great-
est spirit of the age wrote to herald or commemorate
the advent of that hero, the De Monarchia of Dante.
Rudolf, Adolf of Nassau, Albert of Hapsburg, none
of them crossed the Alps or attempted to aid the
Italian Ghibellines who battled away in the name of
their throne. Concerned only to restore order and
aggrandize his house, and thinking apparently that
nothing more was to be made of the imperial crown,
Rudolf was content never to receive it, and pur-
chased the Pope's good-will by surrendering his juris-
diction in the capital and his claims over the bequest
of the Countess Matilda. Henry the Luxemburger
ventured on a bolder course, -- urged perhaps only by
his lofty and chivalrous spirit, perhaps in despair at
effecting anything with his slender resources against
the princes of Germany. Crossing from his Burgun-
dian dominions with a scanty following of knights,
and descending from the Cenis upon Turin, he found
his prerogative higher in men's belief after sixty years
of neglect than it had stood under the last Hohen-
staufen. The cities of Lombardy opened their gates;
Milan decreed a vast subsidy; Guelf and Ghibelline
exiles alike were restored, and imperial vicars ap-
pointed everywhere. Supported by the Avignonese
pontiff, who dreaded the restless ambition of his French
neighbor, King Philip IV., Henry had the interdict
of the Church as well as the ban of the Empire at his
command. But the illusion of success vanished as
soon as men, recovering from their first impression,

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