Two ancient romantic authorities[194] choose with dramatic instinct this moment, and these gay and voluptuous surroundings, as the _mise en scène_ amid which they show us Scot again appearing to resume the place he had quitted more than ten years before. It is quite possible that there may be a measure of historic truth here, as well as the art which can seize or create an occasion, and which loves to contrast the triumph of arms with the more peaceful honours of literary fame. Frederick, we must remember, in a sort represented both. He was Maecenas as well as Caesar. In welcoming Michael Scot and doing him honour at these imperial banquets he was but crowning the success of an enterprise in which his own name and interest were deeply engaged. Traces of the impression made by this highly significant incident have been preserved in the arts of poetry and painting as well as in that of prose romance. Dante, who wrote his _Divine Comedy_ less than a century later than the time of Scot, has given the philosopher a place in his poem, describing him as: ‘Quell’altro, che ne’ fianchi è così poco, Michele Scotto fu.’[195] The commentators, with great reason, refer the epithet ‘poco’ to the manner of Scot’s dress. It would seem that the Spaniards of those days differed from the other European nations in their habit. They wore a close girdle about the waist, like the _hhezum_ of the East; and indeed they had probably taken the fashion from long familiarity with their Moorish masters and neighbours.[196] Scot must have adopted such a dress while at Toledo, and thus, when he returned to Palermo, the singularity of his appearance struck the eyes of the court at once. The impression proved a remarkably enduring one, since, even in Dante’s day, it still persisted, offering itself, as we have seen, to the poet as a picturesque means of presenting the famous scholar to the world, not without a hidden reference to what was certainly one of the crowning moments of his life. We may suspect indeed that the fashion of Scot’s dress was more than simply Spanish; for the mode of Aragon at least must surely have been too familiar at Frederick’s court to excite so much attention. The philosopher had lived long in close company with the Moors of Toledo and Cordova. What he wore was probably no mere fragment of Eastern fashion but the complete costume of an Arabian sage. The flowing robes, the close-girt waist, the pointed cap, were not unknown in Sicily where there was still a considerable Moorish population, yet they must have sat strangely enough upon Scot when once he declared himself for what he was: the reverend ecclesiastic, the Master of Paris, the native of the far north.