and his successful military campaigns contributed to the development of his fame as a "great king". Louis waged wars in almost each year during his reign. Louis "always desired peace at home and war abroad for neither can be made without the other", according to Antonio Bonfini's late 15th-century chronicle. Historian Enikő Csukovits writes that Louis's military actions show that he continued and accomplished his father's policy through recovering Croatia and Dalmatia and waging wars in Southern Italy, in Lithuania and in the Balkan Peninsula. On the other hand, Pál Engel says that Louis's "expeditions often lacked a realistic goal and sometimes even a reasonable it was war itself that gave him pleasure". In the age of Romantic nationalism, Hungary during Louis's reign was described as an empire "whose shores were washed by three seas" in reference to the Adriatic, Baltic and Black Seas. For instance, in 1845 the poet Sándor Petőfi referred to Louis's reign as a period when "the falling stars of the north, the east and the south were all extinguished in Hungarian seas". Poland remained an independent country during Louis's reign and its borders did not extend to the Baltic Sea, and Louis's suzerainty along the northwestern shores of the Black Sea was also uncertain. In Polish historiography, two contrasting evaluation of Louis's reign in Poland coexisted. The "pessimistic" tradition can be traced back to the views of the late 14th-century Jan of Czarnków, who was banished from Poland during Louis's reign. Czarnków emphasized that "there was no stability in the Kingdom of Poland" and the royal officials "continually pillaged the property of the poor people" during Louis's reign. According to the "optimistic" historiographic tradition, Louis continued Casimir the Great's policy of preserving the unity of Poland against the separatist magnates of Greater Poland with the assistance of lords from Lesser Poland. John of Küküllő emphasized that Louis "ruled neither with passion, nor with arbitrariness, but rather as the guardian of righteousness". Antonio Bonfini also described Louis as a just king wandering among his subjects in disguise to protect them the royal officials' arbitrary acts. Even Jan of Czarnków underlined that Louis "did not rule in an absolute manner; on the contrary, the foundations ... of [the Poles'] freedom were laid by him". New palaces and castles built at Zólyom, Diósgyőr and Louis's other favorite hunting places were "masterpieces of the highest European standards" of his