Æneas Sylvius thus demonstrated the impossibility of a crusade, and yet, carried away by his zeal, he passed his whole life in preaching one. Whilst he was uselessly haranguing the princes of Germany, the pope was endeavouring to establish concord among the states of Italy. The ascendancy of the pontifical authority was not sufficient to calm angry spirits, and peace was the work of a poor hermit, whose words exercised a supreme authority over the hearts of the faithful. Brother Simon issued all at once from his retreat, perambulated the cities, and addressing both princes and people, exhorted them to unite against the enemies of Jesus Christ: at the voice of the holy orator, Venice, Florence, and the duke of Milan, laid down their arms, and a league was formed, into which most of the republics and principalities of Italy entered. Advantage might have been taken of this union to declare war against the Turks. But the confederation had no leader capable of directing it. Two men were able to set both Germany and Italy in motion,—the Emperor Frederick and Pope Nicholas. They alone could have insured success to a crusade which they themselves had preached: but the one was restrained by the avarice and indolence of his character; the other, passionate in the pursuit of learned antiquity, always surrounded by scholars, employed himself much more earnestly in collecting the literary treasures of Greece and Rome, than in promoting attempts for the deliverance of the city of Constantine. When the Turks took Byzantium, he was causing translation to be made, at great expense, of the most celebrated Greek authors; and it would not be harsh to believe that the tenths levied for the crusade, were sometimes employed in the acquisition of the masterpieces of Plato, Herodotus, or Thucydides.