extended to the cities of Tuscany.  After the date of that compact signed by the Emperor and his insurgent subjects, the burghs obtained an assured position as a third power between the Empire and the Church.  The most remarkable point in the history of this contention is the unanimous submission of the Communes to what they regarded as the just suzerainty of Caesar’s representative.  Though they were omnipotent in Lombardy, they took no measures for closing the gates of the Alps against the Germans.  The Emperor was free to come and go as he listed; and when peace was signed, he reckoned the burghers who had beaten him by arms and policy, among his loyal vassals.  Still the spirit of independence in Italy had been amply asserted.  This is notably displayed in the address presented to Frederick, before his coronation, by the senate of Rome.  Regenerated by Arnold of Brescia’s revolutionary mission, the Roman people assumed its antique majesty in these remarkable words:  ’Thou wast a stranger; I have made thee citizen; thou camest from regions from beyond the Alps; I have conferred on thee the principality.’[1] Presumptuous boast as this sounded in the ears of Frederick, it proved that the Italic nation had now sharply defined itself against the Church and the barbarians.  It still accepted the Empire because the Empire was the glory of Italy, the crown that gave to her people the presidency of civilization.  It still recognized the authority of the Church because the Church was the eldest daughter of Italy emergent from the wrecks of Roman society.  But the nation had become conscious of its right to stand apart from either.

[1]:  ’Hospes eras, civem feci.  Advena fuisti ex transalpinis partibus, principem constitui.  Quod meum jure fuit, tibi dedi.’  See Ottonis Episcopi Frisingensis Chronicon, De Rebus Gestis Frid. i.  Imp.  Lib. ii. cap. 21.  Basileae, 1569.  The Legates appointed by the Senate met the Emperor at Sutri, and delivered the oration of which the sentence just quoted was part.  It began:  ’Urbis legati nos, rex optime, ad tuam a Senatu, populoque Romano destinati sumus excellentiam,’ and contained this remarkable passage:  ’Orbis imperium affectas, coronam praebitura gratanter assurgo, jocanter occurro ... indebitum clericorum excussurus jugum.’  If the words are faithfully reported, the Republic separates itself abruptly from the Papacy, and claims a kind of precedence in honor before the Empire.  Frederick is said to have interrupted the Legates in a rage before they could finish their address, and to have replied with angry contempt.  The speech put into his mouth is probably a rhetorical composition, but it may have expressed his sentiments.  ’Multa de Romanorum sapientia seu fortitudine hactenus audivimus, magis tamen de sapientia.  Quare satis mirari non possumus, quod verba vestra plus arrogantiae tumore insipida quam sale sapientiae condita sentimus....  Fuit, fuit quondam in hac Republica virtus.  Quondam