lty or not, his seeming defection was a sore blow
to his imperial patron. "Alas!" moaned Frederick, "I am abandoned by my
most faithful friends; Peter, the friend of my heart, on whom I leaned
for support, has deserted me and sought my destruction. Whom can I
trust? My days are henceforth doomed to pass in sorrow and suspicion."

His days were near their end. Not long after the events narrated, while
again in the field at the head of a fresh army of Saracens, he was
suddenly seized with a mortal illness at Firenzuola, and died there on
the 13th of December, 1250, becoming reconciled with the church on his
deathbed. He was buried at Palermo.

Thus died one of the most intellectual, progressive, free-thinking, and
pleasure-loving emperors of Germany, after a long reign over a realm in
which he seldom appeared, and an almost incessant period of warfare
against the head of a church of which he was supposed to be the imperial
protector. Seven crowns were his,--those of the kingdom of Germany and
of the Roman empire, the iron diadem of Lombardy, and those of Burgundy,
Sicily, Sardinia, and Jerusalem. But of all the realms under his rule
the smiling lands of Sicily and southern Italy were most to his liking,
and the scene of his most constant abode. Charming palaces were built by
him at Naples, Palermo, Messina, and several other places, and in these
he surrounded himself with the noblest bards and most beautiful women of
the empire, and by all that was attractive in the art, science, and
poetry of his times. Moorish dancing-girls and the arts and learning of
the East abounded in his court. The Sultan Camel presented him with a
rare tent, in which, by means of artfully contrived mechanism, the
movements of the heavenly bodies were represented. Michael Scott, his
astrologer, translated Aristotle's "History of Animals." Frederick
studied ornithology, on which he wrote a treatise, and possessed a
menagerie of rare animals, including a giraffe, and other strange
creatures. The popular dialect of Italy owed much to him, being elevated
into a written language by his use of it in his love-sonnets. Of the
poems written by himself, his son Enzio, and his friends, several have
been preserved, while his chancellor, Peter de Vincis, is said to have
originated the sonnet.

We have already spoken of his reforms in his southern kingdom. It was
his purpose to introduce similar reforms into the government of Germany,
abolishing the feudal sy