continued to use the system which he found already at work.

At the side of the centralizing Emperor appeared a usurper of the most
peculiar kind; his vicar and son-in-law, Ezzelino da Romano. He stands
as the representative of no system of government or administration, for
all his activity was wasted in struggles for supremacy in the eastern
part of Upper Italy; but as a political type he was a figure of no less
importance for the future than his imperial protector Frederick. The
conquests and usurpations which had hitherto taken place in the Middle
Ages rested on real or pretended inheritance and other such claims, or
else were effected against unbelievers and excommunicated persons. Here
for the first time the attempt was openly made to found a throne by
wholesale murder and endless barbarities, by the adoption in short, of
any means with a view to nothing but the end pursued. None of his
successors, not even Cesare Borgia, rivalled the colossal guilt of
Ezzelino; but the example once set was not forgotten, and his fall led
to no return of justice among the nations and served as no warning to
future transgressors.

It was in vain at such a time that St. Thomas Aquinas, born subject of
Frederick, set up the theory of a constitutional monarchy, in which the
prince was to be supported by an upper house named by himself, and a
representative body elected by the people. Such theories found no echo
outside the lecture - room, and Frederick and Ezzelino were and remain
for Italy the great political phenomena of the thirteenth century.
Their personality, already half legendary, forms the most important
subject of 'The Hundred Old Tales,' whose original composition falls
certainly within this century. In them Ezzelino is spoken of with the
awe which all mighty impressions leave behind them. His person became
the centre of a whole literature from the chronicle of eye-witnesses to