30 THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF MICHAEL SCOT 



too, was among them, bearing a commission to 

 represent the Pope in these negotiations and 

 festivities. And now the stately Moorish palace, 

 with its courtyard, its fountains, and its gardens, 

 became once more a scene of gaiety, as in the great 

 hall of forty pillars, beneath a roof such as Arabian 

 artists alone could frame, carved like a snow cave, 

 or stained with rich and lovely colour like a mass of 

 jewels set in gold the officers of the royal household 

 passed solemnly on to offer homage before their 

 Prince and his bride. In the six great apartments of 

 state the frescoed forms of Christian art : Patriarchs 

 in their histories, Moses and David in their exploits, 

 and the last wild charge of Barbarossa's Crusade, 1 

 looked down upon a moving throng of nobles and 

 commons who came to present their congratulations, 

 while the plaintive music of lute, of pipe, and tabor, 

 sighed upon the air, and skilful dancers swam before 

 the delighted guests in all the fascination of the 

 voluptuous East. 



What part could Michael Scot, the grave ecclesi- 

 astic, and now doubly the ' Master ' as Frederick's 

 trusted tutor, play in the gay scene of his pupil's 

 marriage ? For many ages it has been the custom 

 among Italian scholars, the attached dependants of a 

 noble house, to offer on such occasions their homage 

 to bride and bridegroom in the form of a learned 

 treatise ; any bookseller's list of Nozze is enough to 

 show that the habit exists even at the present day. 

 This then was what Scot did ; for there is every reason 

 to think that the Physionomia, which he composed 

 and dedicated to Frederick, was produced and 

 presented at the time of the royal marriage. No 

 date suits this publication so well as 1209, and 



1 See the description of this palace in the poem by Peter of Eboli. 



