m should desire tranquillity, since
under it the people flourish and the common good is secured.
Tranquillity is the comely mother of all useful arts; she multiplies the
race of men as they perish and are renewed; she expands our powers, she
softens our manners, and he who is a stranger to her sway grows up in
ignorance of all these blessings. Therefore, most pious Prince, it
redounds to your glory that we should now seek harmony with your
government, as we have ever felt love for your person. For you are the
fairest ornament of all realms, the safeguard and defence of the world;
to whom all other rulers rightly look up with reverence, inasmuch as
they recognise that there is in you something which exists nowhere else.
But we pre-eminently thus regard you, since by Divine help it was in
your Republic that we learned the art of ruling the Romans with justice.
Our kingdom is an imitation of yours, which is the mould of all good
purposes, the only model of Empire, Just in so far as we follow you do
we surpass all other nations.

"You have often exhorted me to love the Senate, to accept cordially the
legislation of the Emperors, to weld together all the members of Italy.
Then, if you wish thus to form my character by your counsels, how can
you exclude me from your august peace? I may plead, too, affection for
the venerable city of Rome, from which none can separate themselves who
prize that unity which belongs to the Roman name.

"We have therefore thought fit to direct the two Ambassadors who are the
bearers of this letter to visit your most Serene Piety, that the
transparency of peace between us, which from various causes hath been of
late somewhat clouded, may be restored to-its former brightness by the
removal of all contentions. For we think that you, like ourselves,
cannot endure that any trace of discord should remain between two
Republics which, under the older Princes, ever formed but one body, and
which ought not merely to be joined together by a languid sentiment of
affection, but strenuously to help one another with their mutually
imparted strength. Let there be always one will, one thought in the
Roman kingdom. ... Wherefore, proffering the honourable expression of
our salutation, we beg with humble mind that you will not even for a
time withdraw from us the most glorious charity of your Mildness, which
I should have a right to hope for even if it were not granted to others.
(The change from We to I, which her