FREDERICK II CROWNED EMPEROR
The young Frederick re-entered Italy; and, after some differences with Honorius III, received from him, on the 22nd of November, 1220, the crown of the empire. He afterwards occupied himself in establishing order in his kingdom of the Two Sicilies, where, during his minority, the popes had encouraged a universal insubordination. Born in the march of Ancona, at Jesi, in December, 1194, he was Italian as well by language as by affection and character. The Italian language, spoken at his court, first rose above the patois in common use throughout Italy, regarded only as a corruption of Latin; he expressed himself with elegance in this language, which, from his time, was designated by the name of lingua cortigiana; he encouraged the first poets, who employed it at his court, and he himself made verses; he loved literature and encouraged learning; he founded schools and universities; he promoted distinguished men; he spoke, with equal facility, Latin, Italian, German, French, Greek, and Arabic; he had the intellectual suppleness and finesse peculiar to the men of the south, the art of pleasing, a taste for philosophy, and great independence of opinion, with a leaning to infidelity; hence he is accused of having written a book against the three revelations of Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, entitled De Tribus Impostoribus, which no one has ever seen, and which perhaps never existed. His want of faith in the sacred character of the Roman church, and the sanctity of popes, is less doubtful; he was suspicious of them, and he employed all his address to defend himself against their enterprises. Honorius III, desirous of engaging him to recover the Holy Land from the Saracens, made him, in 1225, marry Yolande de Lusignan, heiress of the kingdom of Jerusalem; after which, Honorius and his successor Gregory IX pressed him to pass into Palestine. A malady stopped him, in 1227, just as he was about to depart; the pope, to punish him for this delay, excommunicated him. He still pursued him with his anathema when he went to the Holy Land the year following, and haughtily testified his indignation, because Frederick, in the year 1229, recovered Jerusalem from the hands of the sultan by treaty, rather than exterminate the infidels with the sword.