massacre of the Albigenses and ravaged all Provence. Some fugitives, however, had escaped into Italy, to spread the same hatred against Rome, the same poison of heresy. In fact, the _Paterini_, opposed to the Pope, denying the virginity of the Madonna, and having no belief in transubstantiation or other dogmas of the Catholic faith, found followers everywhere and held public gatherings. The Epicurean, Averrhoistic, and other philosophical tenets were rapidly propagated among Italian scholars. For some time, during the most brilliant period of the Imperial Court in Sicily, all this intellectual and religious turmoil seemed to be chiefly centred at Palermo. For there Frederic II. had gathered about him a throng of scholars, troubadours, poets of every kind, Mussulmans, Greek schismatics, Provençal Albigenses, and materialistic philosophers; and although a crusader and persecutor of heretics, took singular delight in this mixed society, in whose midst, and in a storm of sarcasm, doubt, and hatred of priests, Italian poetry first sprang to life, and later on, in the Divine Comedy, gave forth so great a wealth of earnest faith and lofty aspiration. In the meantime, however, heresy and scepticism were current throughout the Peninsula. The _Paterini_ quickly obtained many converts among the Ghibellines in Florence, and the Pope established the Inquisition there for the trial and punishment of backsliders. In 1244 Fra Pietro of Verona, moved by religious fury rather than zeal, came to stir the orthodox spirit by his inflammatory sermons; and founded the Society of the Captains of Holy Mary or of Faith, composed of men and women vowed to the extermination of heretics. Public feeling caught fire in 1245, and a real battle between Catholics and heretics raged in the Florence streets. Both at Santa Felicità and in the space by the Croce al Trebbio, where a column still commemorates the ill-fated event, the _Captains of the Faith_, robed in white, bearing the badge of the cross, and commanded by their big, strong, dare-devil chief, Friar Pietro of Verona, routed the _Paterini_ and drove them from Florence. In reward for this sanguinary triumph the friar was appointed Inquisitor of Tuscany, and subsequently of Lombardy as well. There in the north, between Milan and Como, he finally met his death at the hands of men wearied of his persecutions. This gained him the title of a martyred saint, and he was known henceforth as St. Peter--Martyr of Verona.[241] IV.