Verona was often the gathering place for Councils and Diets; and a noted one took place there in June 983, under the presidency of Otho II., when warriors, prelates, and men of letters flocked to the town from Saxony, Franconia, Suabia, Bavaria, Lorraine, and from many parts of Italy as well. The Duke of Bohemia sent his representative, nor were ladies excluded from the assembly, for not only was Otho’s wife there, the beautiful Greek Theophania, daughter of the Emperor of the East, but also his mother Adelaide of Burgundy, the widow of Otho the Great. The diet was held in order to consider the ever vexed question of the sovereignty of the kingdom of Italy, and the Emperor was successful in procuring the unanimous nomination of his son Otho as future king of the Peninsula as well as of Germany. No incident of importance disturbed the history of [Illustration: TOWER OF THE FORMER CONVENT OF S. ZENO The only remaining fragment of the building when the mediæval German emperors stopt on their way to Rome. ] Verona now for some time. Her intercourse with Germany kept her trade and interests active beyond the limits of ordinary existence, without at the same time involving her in wars and dissensions over the rights and powers to be adjudged to the monarchs whether of France or of Germany, or to their rivals and foes the Popes of Rome. This state of things however came to an end when the struggle between Henry IV. and Gregory VII. blazed forth in all its violence; and men and cities were forced to take sides with either the Pope or the Emperor. Verona threw in her lot with Henry IV. Two bishops of Verona in turn subscribed to edicts published against Hildebrand, and Henry was supported anew by the town when he passed through it to wage war upon the Countess Matilda of Tuscany. Even when the Lombard cities forsook the Emperor Verona remained faithful to him, foreseeing that only in this way could religious peace be maintained, and anxious at the same time to put an end to feudalism, and to compass the introduction of the Free Communes by her own severance from the Empire. The adhesion of the Veronese to the Imperial cause did not blind them however to their religious duties, and though no abundance of documents exists to record their prowess, there is sufficient evidence to show that the people of Verona took their share in more than one crusade, and that on two occasions their Bishops went with them.