Commentary Par VIII 49-51

Charles presents himself as the good ruler, whose early death deprived Europe of his many virtues, but also unleashed the evil of others who came to power in his absence from the scene.  'Charles Martel, eldest son of Charles II of Naples and Anjou and Mary, daughter
of Stephen IV (V) of Hungary; he was born in 1271; and in 1291 he married Clemence of Habsburg, daughter of the Emperor Rudolf I, by whom he had three children, Charles Robert (Carobert) (afterwards king of Hungary), Clemence (married Louis X of France), and Beatrice; he died at Naples in 1295 at the age of 24' (Carlo-3).  He died, narrowly predeceasing his wife, of the plague, although some were of the opinion that he had been poisoned.  Dante's other great hope, for his own political ends as well as his idealistic sense of the imperial role of Italy, Henry VII, had died recently (24 August 1313).  That event, dashing even Dante's unrealistic hopes for the triumph of the principle of restored imperial leadership, probably colored his reflections about the untimely death of Charles eighteen years earlier.