To complete the history of this treatise, I will give you the conjectures which Frecht and I made as to its origin. We agreed at once that the "Illustrissimo Otho" to whom it was sent, was "Otho the Illustrious," Duke of Bavaria, son of Louis I. and grandson of "Otho the Great," Count of Schiven and Witelspach, to whom the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa had given Bavaria as a reward for his fidelity, after he took it away from "Henry the Lion," as a punishment for his ingratitude. "Otho the Illustrious" succeeded his father Louis I., in 1230, under the reign of Fredrick II., grandson of Frederick Barbarossa, who had at that time quarrelled with the Count of Rome on his return from Jerusalem. This led us to think that the letters F. I. S. D. which followed the "Amico meo carissimo," denoted Fredericus Imperator Salutem Dicit, and that the treatise was written posterior to the year 1230, by the order of this Emperor, inflamed as he was against all Religions in consequence of the bad treatment he had met with from the head of his own, viz. Pope Gregory IX. by whom he had been excommunicated before he set out, and who persecuted him even in Syria by intriguing to such an extent, that the Emperor's army refused to obey his orders. This Prince on his return besieged the Pope at Rome, after having ravaged the neighboring territory, and thereafter made a peace with him which was of no long duration, and which was followed by an animosity so bitter between him and the Holy Pontiff, that it only ceased at the death of the latter, who died heart-broken that Frederick triumphed in spite of his empty fulminations, and that he had unmasked the vices of the Papal Chair in satirical verses which he circulated in every quarter,--in Germany, Italy, and France. But we could not discover who was the "doctissimus vir," with whom Otho appears to have held converse on the subject in the library, and apparently in the company of the Emperor; unless indeed it were the celebrated Pierre des Vignes, the secretary, or as others maintain, the chancellor of Frederick II. His discourse "On Sovereign Power," and his "Letters," give proof of his learning, and the zeal which he had for the interests of his master, and of his own hatred of Pope Gregory IX, and the Ecclesiastics and established Churches of his day. It is true, that in one letter he attempts to exculpate his master from the charges against him as the author of this book: but this strengthens the supposition, and inclines us to think he only pleaded for Frederick, to cloak his own share in so scandalous a work. At all events we must believe that he would have confessed the truth when Frederick, on suspicion that he had conspired against his life, condemned him to lose his eyes, and handed him over to the inhabitants of Pisa, his cruel enemies; and where despair hurried on his death in an infamous dungeon where he could hold intercourse with no one.