The death of Innocent III [1216] and, two years afterwards, of Otto IV broke the unnatural alliance between a pope and the heir of a Ghibelline family. The Milanese, excommunicated by Innocent for having fought against Frederick II, did not the less persist in making war on his partisans; well convinced that the new pope, Honorius III, would soon thank them for it. They refused Frederick the iron crown of Lombardy, preserved at Monza, and contracted an alliance with the count Thomas of Savoy, and with the cities of Crema, Piacenza, Lodi, Vercelli, Novara, Tortona, Como, and Alessandria, to drive the Ghibellines from Lombardy. The Ghibellines defeated them on the 6th of June, 1218, in a great battle fought against the militias of Cremona, Parma, Reggio, and Modena, before Ghibello. This reverse of fortune calmed for some time their military ardour. The citizens of every town accused the nobles of having led them into war from family enmities and interests foreign to the city; at Milan, Piacenza, Cremona, and Modena, there were battles between the nobles and the people. Laws were proposed to divide the public magistracy in due proportions between them; finally the Milanese, in the year 1221, expelled all the nobles from their city. FREDERICK II CROWNED EMPEROR The young Frederick re-entered Italy; and, after some differences with Honorius III, received from him, on the 22nd of November, 1220, the crown of the empire. He afterwards occupied himself in establishing order in his kingdom of the Two Sicilies, where, during his minority, the popes had encouraged a universal insubordination. Born in the march of Ancona, at Jesi, in December, 1194, he was Italian as well by language as by affection and character. The Italian language, spoken at his court, first rose above the _patois_ in common use throughout Italy, regarded only as a corruption of Latin; he expressed himself with elegance in this language, which, from his time, was designated by the name of _lingua cortigiana_; he encouraged the first poets, who employed it at his court, and he himself made verses; he loved literature and encouraged learning; he founded schools and universities; he promoted distinguished men; he spoke, with equal facility, Latin, Italian, German, French, Greek, and Arabic; he had the intellectual suppleness and finesse peculiar to the men of the south, the art of pleasing, a taste for philosophy, and great independence of opinion, with a leaning to infidelity; hence he is accused of having written a book against the three revelations of Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, entitled _De Tribus Impostoribus_, which no one has ever seen, and which perhaps never existed. His want of faith in the sacred character of the Roman church, and the sanctity of popes, is less doubtful; he was suspicious of them, and he employed all his address to defend himself against their enterprises. Honorius III, desirous of engaging him to recover the Holy Land from the Saracens, made him, in