Pont. in Muratori, tom. iii. pars i. Gregorius II. p. 154.
Gregorius III. p. 158. Zacharias, p. 161. Stephanus III. p. 165.

Paulus, p. 172. Stephanus IV. p. 174. Hadrianus, p. 179. Leo
III. p. 195.) Yet I may remark, that the true Anastasius (Hist.
Eccles. p. 134, edit. Reg.) and the Historia Miscella, (l. xxi.
p. 151, in tom. i. Script. Ital.,) both of the ixth century,
translate and approve the Greek text of Theophanes.]

[Footnote 32: With some minute difference, the most learned
critics, Lucas Holstenius, Schelestrate, Ciampini, Bianchini,
Muratori, (Prolegomena ad tom. iii. pars i.,) are agreed that the
Liber Pontificalis was composed and continued by the apostolic
librarians and notaries of the viiith and ixth centuries; and
that the last and smallest part is the work of Anastasius, whose
name it bears. The style is barbarous, the narrative partial,
the details are trifling - yet it must be read as a curious and
authentic record of the times. The epistles of the popes are
dispersed in the volumes of Councils.]



Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.

Part II.

Two original epistles, from Gregory the Second to the
emperor Leo, are still extant; ^33 and if they cannot be praised
as the most perfect models of eloquence and logic, they exhibit
the portrait, or at least the mask, of the founder of the papal