From politics we turn now to personnel. In the first three chapters we examined Charles the Bold's diplomatic relations with the major states of Italy. This chapter and the next three will concentrate on the Italians who came to his court, mainly, it would seem, as a result of those diplomatic relations. Some of them — the diplomats, princes and soldiers — form sufficiently distinct and important groups to justify the devotion to them of separate chapters, but they will also be mentioned here in the context of what may reasonably be called the Italian milieu at the court of the last Valois duke of Burgundy. The composition of the Burgundian court in terms of personnel had always been to some extent multinational, comprising many who came from lands which were not subject to the dukes themselves. But it was under Charles the Bold that the Italian element increased so dramatically, and it can be argued that in his reign it was the Italians who provided the largest of the foreign contingents. The size of this Italian element has been often suspected but never fully appreciated. This is probably due mainly to the nature of the sources. The chroniclers provide only a limited amount of information; the major source — the Italian diplomatic material which gives many details not only about the Italians' activities at court but also about their Italian background — has previously been only partly utilised in this connection. The same can be said of the invaluable series of financial accounts preserved at Lille which supplement as well as corroborate Italian sources, once one has learned to recognise Italian names in their Gallicised or Burgundicised forms. This chapter will attempt to explain who these Italians were, both to give an idea of what they were like, as individuals and as functionaries in a social and political context, and particularly to illuminate their activities at court. The material presented will provide a background to make more intelligible what follows in the next three chapters.