his noble works left to us in writing bear true testimony to what he was and confer honourable fame upon our city."[12] Dante, by passages in his "Divine Comedy," but more particularly by his treatise "De Monarchia" (On Universal Empire), enables us to understand how the Empire could raise its head in Italy sixty years after Frederick II had died. In Germany after an interregnum, the House of Hapsburg had mounted the throne, but no one had ventured to cross the Alps for the Imperial crown. Nevertheless, Dante and the Ghibellines could not bring themselves to believe that the old familiar institution had fulfilled its function and was to be cast aside. The conception of Europe as a group of equal nations had not yet arisen, and Ghibellines still believed that a Roman Emperor could put down confusion, anarchy, political chaos, and cure all the ills of Italy. The Ghibellines believed in the Emperor as Mohammedans believed in Mohammed; if he should return, exiles (like Dante) would be restored, peace would bloom, and Rome again become the head of a just and universal empire. Dante, in the "De Monarchia," first contends that universal empire is necessary to the well-being of the world; having established that proposition, he argues that this universal empire rightly belongs to the Roman people, and proves his point by appeals to Virgil and the New Testament; then he proceeds to show that the authority of the Empire is derived directly from God. "Some say," he says, "that Constantine when he was cleansed of the leprosy by the prayers of Silvester, then Pope, gave the seat of the Empire, to wit Rome, to the Church, together with many other dignities appertaining to the Empire. Therefore, they argue, since then no one can receive those dignities, except he shall receive them from the Church, to whom they belong.... This proposition I deny; and when they put forth their proof, I say it proves nothing, because Constantine could not alienate the dignities of the Empire, nor the Church receive them.... No man has a right to do things by means of an office entrusted to him, which go directly counter to that office.... Therefore an Emperor has no right to divide the Empire ... and the Church in no wise is able to receive temporal things because the precept expressly forbids it, as we have it in Matthew 'Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, nor scrip for your journey,' etc."