The court of Rome had slumbered, when his father Henry the Sixth was permitted to unite with the empire the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily; and from these hereditary realms the son derived an ample and ready supply of troops and treasure.

Yet Frederic the Second was finally oppressed by the arms of the Lombards and the thunders of the Vatican: his kingdom was given to a stranger, and the last of his family was beheaded at Naples on a public scaffold.

During sixty years, no emperor appeared in Italy, and the name was remembered only by the ignominious sale of the last relics of sovereignty.
[Footnote 146: Gunther Ligurinus, l.viii.584, et seq., apud Schmidt, tom.iii.p.

399.] [Footnote 147: Solus imperator faciem suam firmavit ut petram, (Burcard.
de Excidio Mediolani, Script.Ital.tom.vi.p.

917.) This volume of Muratori contains the originals of the history of Frederic the First, which must be compared with due regard to the circumstances and prejudices of each German or Lombard writer.